gnatweds

Today, I dragged two girlfriends out to collect all the outfits.
The wedding gown needs to be taken in again... my boobs ain't gonna support the heavy train apparently. Yes, not exactly well endowed that way.
Anyway, collected the $570 Cheongsam. It's okay, very elegant, but not flattering, you know what I mean? So think I just spent a lot of $ (the cheongsame, shoes etc) and am still back to square one.
The one for the boat is interesting... dun *quite* know what to make of it...
Oh well. Too late.
Then, we came back and did those papier mache pigs again!!!! ;)

We had our respective hens' and stags' last night.
Today, we're completely zapped.

Gene's on his way back from KL, and me, I spent the night at The Regent. Due to previous vows of privacy and secrecy, nothing about the sessions themselves will be posted on the blog.

But, snigger... the after party bleariness is free game.

Six girls shared THIS tube of toothpaste. Why? because everyone assumed everyone else would bring some. Luckily I had this disposable kit in my toiletries bag, but check out the size of the tube.



The morning after was also fairly painful.... hehehhehe, this would be Judith, one of the girls, trying to rehydrate with some OJ this morning. hehehhehe.

Yesterday was perhaps the longest day at work ever. Was trying to complete everything I needed to before the month long break (yippeeee!)
It was pouring like crazy, with lightnight no less. Am hoping that there will be a break in the bad weather - so the laundry will dry!! Yep, falling behind in the laundry... AGAIN.
But there was a bit of drama last night: Couldn't find my wallet - and I needed the IC in the wallet for this morning's verification of documents at the ROM...
Drove back like a madwoman to the office in the middle of the night - enlisted the help of the guards.

Anyways, to cut a long story short. I eventually found the wallet but was so hyped up that I only fell asleep at 4 am in the morning.

Had to wake up tres early - 8 am: (Eugene had been at work the entire night) he came back at about 9 and we had to go to the Registry at Fort Canning.

Here in Singapore, it's a very convoluted process - not quite the quickies available in Las Vegas.
First you have to tell em you're getting married and book your date three months in advance. (you can read about it in a previous post).
You pay $26 online and you get a date to show in in person with the relevant documents. The Registry than scans all the records to make sure that neither of you are comitting bigamy.

Of course, they ask you to turn up at an impossible time - they give you two options. 8.30 to 11 am on two weekdays. Sheesh.

So, this morning, we dragged ourselves - extremely zonked cos neither of us had enough sleep - to the Registry. And Lo and Behold, there were something like 40 couples in front of us in the queue doing the same thing.

So we did the natural. Had ciggies and coffee at this make-shift cafe on the grounds of the ROM. Those guys running it are making a killing. Bored couples + interminable wait + expensive coffee = good business sense.



Eugene at the Cafe looking very smug because he brought reading material (yes, he anticipated the long wait). Check out the title.... hehehehhe. Prepping for Africa!

We finally went into this waiting room... and I think the lack of sleep plus copius amounts of coffee just made my brain fizzle. I couldn't stop laughing - hysterically. There was this big plasma screen and all the the other couples there were staring at it fixatedly. Me? I was giggling my head off.


They were screening on a continuous loop these cheesy and surreal govt-mesg type vids about the things to do to be happily married. This includes "Talk to your in laws"/"Find out about your partner's sexual needs"/"your family environment influences how you act". I couldn't help it, I just kept giggling and giggling. I laughed so hard I started to choke. Check out how that lady was paying SOOOOO much attention to it. Chortle.

Then, when our turn finally came, we had to present our documents and raise our right hands to make a statutory declaration that all the information we were presenting was accurate and yes, we would be jailed if it wasn't. I was still giggly, so I could hardly keep a straight face.
Eugene read his declaration so fast that he even read "signature" at the bottom - we had to gently tell him that ahahhahah, that was not part of declaration, but an indication about where he should actually sign the darned thing.

After the hullabaloo, we went for a HUGE Japanese lunch buffet.
We ate so much we resembled shishamos.

But wait. That was just the MORNING of an extremely interesting day.
We had an appointment at NUH's travel clinic for our vaccinations... yes, going to some bits of Africa means injections.
So Eugene had a bright idea. He would get the anaesthesia they use on KIDDIES to numb the pain of jabs.




"Come, Come... let me help you... eh, don't run away lah''
Eugene putting on his earnest doctor look.



Eugene administering the kiddie pain killer on Nat's arm



Eugene D-I-Ying his EMLA patch.



Tah dah. EMLA on the skin. Yes, we're wimps.

And and hour or so later, we went for our shots - which did not hurt, thanks to the EMLA patches.



But it didn't stop someone from feeling extremely apprehensive anyway. Heheheheh.



eeekkks. Snigger.


BUT man, it hurt later - felt as if we'd been lifting way too heavy weights. The arm muscles were yowling man.

We had Hep A and Typhoid. They should keep us fairly immunised against some of the nasties there. Of course, the papers are now filled with doomsday predictions about Bird Flu in Africa and it being the next big hot spot because of the annual bird migrations from Europe. Read one article here .

In the evening, we met Arti and Kim for a little pow wow about the wedding: Think the first glimmers of understanding about what kind of a logistical nightmare the wedding is is finally beginning to dawn on the groom.

Forgot to post! Y'day went to CYC tailor to get Gene's tux shirt. sheesh. Its a more complictaed process than I thought.
But when you get to dinner do have a close look at his outfit: he's made a very interesting pique (however u spell it, its a patterned material) waistcoat. Think it should go with the shirt he's tailoring.
He's also gotten his boat outfit sorted. The pants - bought em from Island Shop for him - are being tailored and will be ready by Nov 02. All set for Gene methinks.

Its 14 days to D Day. And something's gone funny with my blog. There's a big huge space on top. Why, I have no idea.

We've sorted menus; finally, so we're looking foward to good noshes on each day.

Am very thankful that pple are offering to help out.

Thing is, so much is going on that its becoming quite an effort to blog about it. So many things that I can't keep track of: sighs.

Nov 6 - solemnisation... Okay, Eugene is supposed to sort out the actual bible verse we want Brother Emmanuel to talk about. Don't think he's actually read the verse yet.
We're coming up with an actual programme for the day itself.
Thing is there is NO wet weather contingency plan. Shan't consider the awful alternatives...
We've gotten food sorted. Kevin, the galley guy, is very sweet and offering to take care of it all for us.
Thing is most of our limited guests will come for post party because the Tide can only take 20 pple while underway - meaning while its sailing.
Have ordered six crates of beer and gotten six bottles of whiskey and some mixers.
This will be an expensive party.
Have to come up with a map too. Sure a lot of pple will get lost on way to Sentosa Cove.

Nov 12 and 13 dinners. RSVPs almost all done. Well, on my side anyway.
Haven't come up with a plan as yet.
But went shopping for my friend Ailien - made her buy this super killer dress. She looks VERY
good. Please look out for her daring black dress!!! I think she will outshine the bride. Just look for the incredibly slim woman in a sexy plunging neckline. It's great!

The papier mache pigs are coming along. Have had to appeal to all my friends for toilet paper rolls for the piggies' legs. The best part of it all is that NO ONE will notice!!!! sheesh.

Anyhoos. I better get back to work.

Blog later.

I have just had a fantabulous night out. Essentially, three of us girls finished work pretttty late and so we decided... we needed a drink.
Afterall, two of us had been dealing with the casino control bill .... eughhhh.... you can read it at here (though frankly I wouldn't recommend it) and one of us had been dealing with radio (we have a radio news bulletin that goes out on this station ) so... it was obvious that we needed a pick me up.
So we came back to Coronation -- bought very expensive vodka, no its not premium, its just very expensive given the stupid liquor taxes here -- and got ourselves fairly merry.

The girls had a peek at the paper mache project and had a good laugh.

These will eventually be pigs. When I can get enough toilet rolls that is.... for the legs and snouts.
See. G WANTS an unusual gift box... not the usual box wrapped in pretty paper for the red packet gifts during the reception. He wants pigs. So guess who has to take up the slack and actually make them? Those are balloons covered in paper strips and starch. Tapioca Starch to be precise.
We tried looking for ready made ones...
snort.
Well, rather obviously, these pigs ain't available commercially. So we'll have to keep boiling that starch and keep up with the paper strips for a while. Not that we have that much time left.
Plus G has lost steam and only coated his balloon (its the bigger one) with ONE layer of paper ... grrr
Luckily, the girls have offered to help with the craft project.

Back to the girls' night out, we ended up at Judith's apartment trying out her stash of clothes. Geez! I haven't played dress up since I was a wee lass.

Let's just say it was tres fun!!!!

Now, I gotta crash. Early day tomorrow.

Wha liau. I have been interrupted no less than SIX times, since trying to start writing this post about 40 mins ago.

Everytime work calls, I forget what I was trying to blog about, and I delete the sentence I'd previously typed.

Sheesh.

Let's try again.

This week was *relatively* productive, wedding wise. Managed to shop for Eugene's pants for the boat do, finalised the menus for both nights. We're getting RSVPs already, which is great.

Speaking about cards and RSVPs. For our friends who got mixed up cards and no-show cards: Sorry! We're trying to rectify the snafus as quick as we can.

Now that almost everyone's got a card; I can now post it up for posterity.


This is the card that you'd have received. There's a variation for the Nov 13 do. (We have two dinners.)
Here's a little detail that you might have/have not noticed.

NE (Nat, Eugene) - is the same pattern that appeared on the wax seals. There's a nice shiny veneer on the border. There was supposed to have been the same effect on the NE but the red/burgundy colour made it tres tough for the printer to get it right.

There's a lot of text, but the one that is NOT cursive is called Trajan - its actually the font used in The Straits Times! (which Peter Williams re-designed!)

The text is also supposed to flow in the shape of a goblet: Can you see it? heheheh, perhaps its a subversive subconconcious influence so we'll all get merrily drunk together.



That by the way is what the seal is supposed to look like. Hahhahah. It was quite a perfect one that Eugene managed to do today. The learning curve too slow lah, so most cards won't *quite* be that perfect. But I'm sure you'll still appreciate our burnt fingers and nails!


That's also Eugene trying to take photo of that perfect seal. It's a momentous occasion.

The weather has been pretty sucky. Rain Rain Rain and more Rain.
My laundry's not drying and getting worried about the boat ceremony.

Nice ya?

But man.... we can't find the right flower nor the gem. Went to Swarovski today to see if there's anything like that... no loose gems.

At Tangs, there were fake diamonds for sale, but quite pricey - one i picked out was over $300! Amazing.

Am being thrown into the deep end with the flowers, cymbidiums, eustomas... tough man.

It's 1645 on a Tuesday afternoon - and am supposed to be hard at work. Operative word: supposed.
Am extremely unmotivated; you know, that kind of un-motivation where watching a plant grow would be perfectly all right; where a newspaper becomes so interesting that you read it three times over, yes, each word of each paragraph; where a tea break will be welcome despite the fact that you are extremely full and if you sip another drop of liquid, it's gonna be a tsunami in the loo.

Blah. Yep, this is definitely a down time.

I compare this life to my uni classmate's - she's adventuring through SEAsia at the mo, check out her blog Karen Takes The Mickey, accessible through the link on the bottom left side of this page - and mine is like a lump of coal.
Slowly, oh so slowly, becoming carbonised, clacified... you know... BORING.

But this is a blog about the wedding.

Hum.

Okay.

Quarrel Meter: at an all time high (an idea borrowed from Karen's blog) 9/10.
Diarrhea Meter: 4/10 (yes, we keep getting tummy upsets)
Wedding-sianess: 10/10.

But I did promise to log down all of the milestones.
So I shall.
You must forgive the obvious lack of enthusiasm as I write this all down.

We managed to send out 90 per cent of the cards.
Some are giving us trouble - either because we don't have the spouse names or we don't have addresses or we don't have much organisational skill.
Someone's just told us he's received another person's card and this other person says he's received no card at all. *headache*
We burnt fingers/nails while doing the little stamping thing.
When you get your card, don't laugh lah, k?
Think of the burnt pinkie finger on my right hand.

AND RSVP PLEASE!

Eugene made his linen shirt for the boat. Am not so sure I like the look of it. It looks a bit like a barong tagalog - the traditional Filipino formal white shirt. And with his long hair now - if you can, imagine a rather swarthy young chap with a very stiff white collar and you'll prob hit it on the spot.

I also have almost every outfit I need. Been shopping for an evening gown recently, cos G started up about how under-dressed I'd look at the Club do.
Sheesh.
So, have shopped.
They were all waaaaaaaaaaay too expensive. $3,000 for a dress? eeps.
There's a nice one at Pois, but.... think not lah. $1,800 is too much - more than am paying for my wedding gown itself. Think there are much better things to do with the money!
So have settled for a MUCH cheaper option of a tailor made cheongsam at $570.
G has rather snidely mentioned that I'll look like a waitress at a Chinese restaurant.
Whatever lah.
(remember quarrel meter is at 9/10?)

At this point, it's the let's go and get this over and done with so I can get on with my life mentality liao.

And of course, trying to be scrimp-ey with the dollars I can be scrimp-ey with. ;)
Can't believe how the budget's just blowing up all over the place. am horrified at the thought that its going to be so expensive - and more horrified at the thought that a lot of the expense is going to stuff like the dresses, flowers, etc. Ouch.

It's come down to the actual organising - getting lists ready.
And nothing feels like its done yet.
I dunno man.

The table gifts aren't done yet...
Have yet to figure a way to make those place cards.
Entertainment? Nope, it's not been sorted.
Name lists? Nope.
Bouquets. Yes. Somewhat.
His outfits? Not quite.
My outfits? yes, save for shoes.
Ceremony readings? No
Boat decor? No
Tanglin Club Decor? No
Actual programs for the dates? No

Okay, enough. This is depressing.

Sheesh. It's been a busy time.

Yet another update:

1) Gene collected the rings. Yup *those* rings that took such a long time to decide on.

2) I have *just* had my make up trial... think that I look like a painted doll, but according to everyone else, it looks very "natural" - I shudder to think then what might be termed "made-up" or worse... "dramatic". shudder.

3) I seem to be putting on weight. Darn. This may call for extreme measures.

4) I also have a massive pimple breakout.

5) Gene's been checking out entertainment. STILL no luck with ... oh ... 6 weeks to go.

6) The air tickets to Africa have been issued. We at least, die die, will get on a plane on Tues night/wed morn, Nov 16.

7) Just decided - all in 1/2 hour - what bouquets I'm gonna carry; what boutonierres the gentlemen will wear; and what corsages the moms will put on.
Gosh. I hardly remember what is what!!!! *arghk*

8) Sorted the red tape with the marriage registration (I think).

9) We've gotten the invites printed out and stamped with the seal. Some didn't quite turn out the way we meant them too.... so just grin and bear with us okay?

sigh. tired. will post more details soon.