Eat, drink and be married!

As I speak to death about how far ago the honeymoon was, I am almost done with it with this second parter.

Istanbul is pretty, by day and by night. One just needs lots of patience and time to go through the city that hardly ever sleeps. Personally, Greece is very similar to Turkey, and in more ways than one, I find the former more polished despite the country being in shambles and the latter is actually flourishing despite the chaos the country seems to be.

We paid more attention to Turkey, hoping it would be more colourful and more exciting than Greece would be and added so many cities to the trip - Istanbul, Capadoccia, Ephesus and Pamukkale. A number of regrets and wish I had time for but, always take time to soak in the city's atmosphere and try to live like a local.

Once again, presenting the last part to our honeymoon in pictures. 

It actually dawned on me that it has been 5 months of married life with the Hubba - though I am 2 days late, here's a special feature on Perfect Weddings! It's nice to reminisce how the Big Day went and I made my family sit through the DVD again with me...before I store it in the time capsule for reviewing once a year, also known as the wedding anniversary. :)

I have always loved casual photoshoots and ended up being my own photographer for my pre wedding casual shoot but something was not quite complete, frivolity perhaps. The original intent was to have one in Santorini - too pictureperfect to ignore. Well, I figured even an Iphone could take wonders of that gorgeous place. And then, nobody was free during that period.

And then, Istanbul.

By a strange stoke of fate, I clicked on her portfolio, loved her works and flew her to Istanbul. Meeting up with this petite photographer was by itself a hilarity - I spotted her shoes first since I stalk her on instagram and then her face.

We had a whole day together to venture round Istanbul, snap shots and it was the weather that really killed any form of over enthusiasm. I love how easy it was being photographed by Maria, while some were choreographed, most ended up spontaneous. Without further ado, presenting a select few of my favourites

A long overdue entry from the other collaborator in this marriage!

And indeed I concur with my co-pilot that the fairy dust has settled, leaving a patina yet to be swept away from the floor. I write this just after coming back from our afternoon and even then, things in a marriage will always prove to be bittersweet.

What did I remember of that day?

Grooms get the jitters too! Well, I wasn't exactly nervous but was excited. I tried hard to sleep the previous night but wasn't all that successful. No choice, I have to face up to the proceedings of the day with about 3 hours fitful sleep.

Before going to bed, I laid out all my outfits in the order they'd be worn with all the accessories I was gonna put on. Damn, I'm one vain dude. I also put in an order for Mac delivery for breakfast for me and my bros. Well, gotta treat them nice, one of then specially flew back from Hk for me!

When I woke up, my dad greeted me with an ashen face. I was groggy, but that face told me that there was something very wrong. I snapped awake.

'Ah Ye has passed on'.

My grandfather passed away on the morning of my wedding.

This isn't a post eulogy post, but his passing added a lot of stress to the day. But I told my wife that the show must go on because now my grandfather is watching us from heaven. Things whirled by in a blur and I was now playing gatecrashing at my wife's house.

Thankfully her eating games weren't terrible, but she really made me rack my brains with the branded bag-guessing game. Hey, at least I could get all the brands right. I'm no bagaholic boy how would you expect me to get the model names of the bags? And that impromptu haiku on the way up the stairs into her room! I hope you liked it!

At the church, my best man had no idea where to stand and caused some amusement. Forgivable really since he wasn't at the rehearsals! Kudos to us for picking the hottest day of the month to have a wedding. My brothers were nearly dying in the heat even though I asked them to wear shorts in the morning's gatecrashing!

She didn't mention anything about walking down the aisle, but wow was she beautiful.

The rest of the church wedding went by so fast that I didn't realize there was no food for us. Thank God for parents who love you enough to rush out to buy lunch for you. I stared at my newly minted wife and offered her French fries. She ate some and seemed to be in a daze. Part one over, bring on part two!

We made our way down to our hotel to get ourselves dressed for the dinner. While the MUA was fussing over my wife I quickly got myself dressed and went downstairs to the ballroom to meet with the banquet captain and our wedding event account manager. The banquet captain, Willis, was a joy to work with. Fast, responsive, attentive. So much better than a lot of banquet captains I worked with. Our brothers and sisters scrambled to get everything ready - the wife's frivolous candy table, the reception, and everything else.

And suddenly, our VVIP guest arrived. Gosh. He came early! My wife wasn't down from the hotel room. I dashed up to get her. The MUA was still doing her hair and allowed her to go down with her hair half done (but not before sassily telling her not to mess up her hair or he will have to start over again. TG is adorable) and we rushed downstairs to entertain.

The banquet started and the regular programming resumed... And then it was time to change. Yup, TG and us had fun taking pics cos he did her hair quickly, and even found time to do mine! She wanted my hair to look like the one I had for the MyPaper Executive Finals and TG obliged!

And afterall being done with the banquet and shaking hands till 12 am, we finally collapsed in chairs in the hotel suite. Our room service came and we were so tired we hardly ate.

But the mushroom soup they served tasted the best ever in my life. I dunno, something about being very exhausted makes comfort food taste damn good.

How is married life?

As updated by my wife since the last entries we are now almost done with the renovation of the house! I had some free time so things moved pretty quickly in about 1.5 months. Our furniture is coming in soon, can't wait to see how it'll all turn out!

We finished our honeymoon alive, bedraggled due to the distance we traveled, sometimes tense due to some arguments, but very much still in love. Or even more, if that's even possible!

Ours is the case of an overdue honeymoon - the mini moon was but an excuse to unwind after the post wedding rara and try not to plunge into the harsh realities of life almost immediately after the wedding. (An extended case of denial.)

So then, where for the big H. Not hermes. (Damn the obsessions with all things that begin with H and contribute greatly to Happiness.) Honeymoon, my dear and the husband heaves a sigh of relief. We started planning for it so way in advance, it was almost as if getting married was about the honeymoon.

Basic criteria -

Somewhere that would be perfect for a honeymoon and was known for honeymoons. Returning as a long married couple celebrating the gold or silver anniversary or even as a family was out of the question.

A decent combination of shopping and sand. Sun and sand itself does not work for resort retards like both of us. Throw me in one and all I get is boredom and more boredom. Bali does not count.

The location has to be at least 12 hours away from sunny island, so much so I need to take 2 weeks off. 

Locations, locations and more locations. We went as far off as the US of A to the fashion capitals and finally decided on a specific region. Central Europe.

Greece and Turkey, Athens, Santorini, Istanbul. No prizes for guessing what was the maindraw. I leave you with a goodbye before returning with tons of pictures and memories. :)

Song choices during a wedding are mostly overlooked and hurried affairs and thank god for youtube these days that saves us all a load of trouble by the top 10 wedding songs and the likes of it.

It did not quite dawn on us how many songs we had to pick until we did a laundry list.
If I knew that they would be playing sappy chinese songs during the banquet itself, I'd have just my own play list. Also, make sure that your PG and VG aren't using the same songs - well for novelty's sake and some element of surprise.

Here's ours for your reference!

Church (Flower girl + Page boy/ Bridesmaids) - Somewhere over the rainbow

We were thankful to have a church friend play these pieces for us. :)

Church (Bride's grand entrance) - Lover's concerto




Childhood montage - Canon in D/Dreams come true, When God made you

I ambitiously used three and kudos to our friends and families who sat through an 8 minute walk down history with us. :)





1st March in - I wanna grow old with you



1st Dish - Remy drives Linguini from Ratatouille 

We both wanted something less traditional or techno like most couples would choose, just nice that we remembered this particular cute food-related movie which was just perfect!



2nd March In - Love remains the same 

Call it narcissism but we wanted to have our own free reign over our own pre wedding shoot and we had a bit of fun with it. Self directed with very helpful travel mates. :)

We took our shoot across countries and places..which was really fun and replicating certain shots we found online was definitely not as easy as they look!



Raining snow in Engelberg, Zurich. Capturing this was by far no short of finger numbing, toe freezing and everything else but cool.



A random shot by a river in Milan, the then fiance's comment was - why does your hair smell. LOL.



Trying to put some meaning to swept off my feet.



We tried re-enacting the proposal in a more romantic way - how nice would it be if it were an overseas proposal! :P



Kiss without a care on earth. I wish I was more diligent with my outfit choices - carrying more than 1 winter jacket was tedious max.

We also had a Bali trip so this was a great chance to capture some sunny shots too!



Lost in the land called love.



Trying the heart between us, methinks our hands are not nicely shaped for this.



I like how this turned out, very subtle.



Instead of dragging all our handmade props all over, we had some fun with scrabble.



This ended up as the front cover of our scrapbook. Hand in hand we take on the new chapter.

We of course had to take some shots around our own country - but truth be told, parks look similar everywhere!



A tender moment.



The colours turned out quite nice for this and our hand made banner - trying to be romantic in pictures was tres difficult without bursting into peals of laughter.



My caption in our montage was - even if life were a roller coaster, we have each other.



Ending off with another memorable shot - playing with sparklers and exposures.

xx

The cat was long let out of the bag as to how we met - and then it became a nationwide story. Well, if anything I hope this serves as a living hope for those looking for love, it finds you in the strangest places and the most obscure of circumstances. Read about it here.

Until then, do show some support for the upcoming Mypaper Executive 2014! 

Fairy dust has settled with our appreciation dinner for our bridesmaids and groomsmen..i suppose we all need some form of closure since it started off on a high and all good things have to come to and end - i surely wish i can stay in a honeymoon suite in every vacay. Penning this as a finale before we move on from all the glittery bits is somewhat bittersweet.

Finally it's time to reveal what DIY projects I undertook for the big day, after keeping mum and sheepish in the earlier entries. 

I truly never thought that I would be this crafty...in fact, arts and crafts is never my kind of thing. And like any other bride, I wanted my angpow box, hand bouquet to be unique...I even toyed with the idea of a crystal bouquet which would cost hundreds into the thousands depending on intricacy of design...and then the next question is what for? Ideally I'd have loved for my bridesmaids to carry fresh flowers but with the big day being so near Valentines - damn you, florists for upping the prices, it would bust my budget terribly.

What started off as just the angpow box became the bridesmaids bouquets, groomsmen boutonnieres, candy table flowers, pompoms, banners - the road of no return indeed.

Ang Pow Box was the first to get completed. We are admittedly not arty farty people but this was one of those things we were willing to be somewhat creative for.



We wanted to keep the budget low but not compromise on the way it looked - like budget chic? This comprised of a random snow chip box, A4 paper box and a cereal box. I became a garang uni woman because of this project.

The funniest thing had to be, we made this even before designing our whimsical card.




 We all heard your ang pow votes - baby yes.


I'd advise all DIY brides to start ahead of time - I started sometime 6 months before trying out the fabric, finding suitable tutorials and in all honesty, I really only wanted felt daisies and they became horrendously labour intensive roses. ;x 

 

The first of the many steps involved in completing 1 single felt rose. We all sat down as a family like a factory line up - every one had a piece to cut and I never knew how 60 roses or more could kill so many weekends. If anything, this preps me for any craft work my mini may require years down the road.



A labour of all our hard work with every single rose cut and glued together. I never hated roses this much till now - for all the layers.



Just really thrilled how these all came together. The reds formed the bridesmaid bouquets.



All pretty and ready for the march down the aisle.



Spot the handmade roses and boutonnieres! The boutonneires were comparatively SO easy to make and they actually outlasted the fresh flower corsages the bridal studio provided.



Someone cheekily told me red goes well with cream and once again, we went bonkers with the cream roses.



 How it all came together, at least it was a tentative design. We tried so hard to keep to a whimsical Alice in Wonderland theme - hence the soft toys, wine bottles and signages (thanks Pearlyn for the help!!)



It was supposed to look like this but on the actual day too many things went wrong for them to all be on the same table.



With random scraps around the house, we decorated our own Brides and Bridesgroom chairs. Would you believe me if I said these were organza runners from my mom's table arrangement?



All hail Daiso for 15 pieces in a packet of $2 pompoms. I tried creating my own that ended up looking bigger but less uniform. They were used in the lunch reception tentage and the ones stringed above but had I known Daiso had these, it'd have saved me SOOOO much trouble!!!



Spot the banner behind that we painstakingly put together and looked so small in pictures. On hindsight, maybe I should have just got balloons instead.



At church :)



Hopping onto the instagram bandwagon.



On the actual day. :) See how my roses ended up as a table piece during the reception at dinner?



My DIY candy table.

Have fun, all you bride to bes!

Our bridesmaids and groomsmen were chosen well ahead of time...call us kiasu but it's always better to book their time and well, try to get all things sorted out before the great panic starts. There will be cases of dropouts for unforeseen circumstances so then, planning ahead always helps.

Choosing bridesmaids has to be one of the more delicate matters ever in planning a wedding - pick those that have a sense of humour, aren't a bigger ganjeong spider than the bride is (rule of thumb being only the bride has the darndest right to be the most spidery bitch on the actual day) and of course, lots of fun. As much as it is important choosing the right groomsmen to aid the groom picking his bride, the bridesmaids help to facilitate the process.

How many? Who? Mind boggling questions. I picked my sister (of course), jc chums that have been through naughty and good times with me and university friends who made the last leg of education so fun. On hindsight I should have gotten 4 each to form 8 for 8th february but...having a perfect 10 sounds better too! I've watched videos that showcase a band of brothers enough to fill the frame completely - but whatever works really.


And thankful we both are for friends who so very willingly agreed. Out with the old wives' tale on three times a bridesmaid and you'd be left on the shelf!

We found every reason to gather them to eat, talk, drink and of course, make merry.

Bridesmaid Meetup - About 3 months before the big day

It was a getogether session more than a party-party: I shall save the hen's party for another entry. I needed everyone to meet everyone and at least appear friendly when the cameras start rolling (LOL). Ambitious me wanted to meet at least twice before we all gathered for the big day but as we would have it, I only ended up with 1 private session and another all in.



My customized boxes of treats. :)  



Brunch we had and it was basically a round of introductions and briefed everyone on their roles and responsibilities.

So glad that these dearies have been so accomodating - entrusting their bridesmaid look to me completely and I am SO sure, they will give the brothers a time of their lives!

Groomsmen Meetup: 1 month before the big day (Men are usually tardy when it comes to meetups).

For prosterity's sake here's a snap of the gallant folks when they met up to conspire how to gate crash. A tip though - try to get one who is loud enough to bring up the spirits of the rest and lucky or not, the hubs had 2 complete virgin groomsmen...!

I wish I could just embed our same day edits video by Lighthouse Studios here but for the interested, here's it: From Miss to Missus.

Time has flown so fast by...we've gone through my first birthday as a missus, our first valentine's day as a married couple and now we're working on our next biggest project - not the baby but the house. Weekends are spent at hardware shops, furniture shops...lighting shops....nope, we are not headed the ID way...! A more indepth entry on that another day. Until then, we are slightly more than a month to our honeymoon! :)