We are Married!

I'm baaaaack! 

Mr. C and I got hitched over the weekend. We feel relieved more than anything else. All the planning was done intensively in a span of a week, more or less. We are indeed very grateful to all our friends and family for working around our schedule, and for making our Day a success.

We'll only get the professional pictures at the end of March, so for now we'll just have to make do with phone camera-quality pictures. Our photographer, Cole from "2 Of Us Photography", was funny, relaxed and oh-so-hardworking. I was so impressed by his tenacity on getting photos done well! He was very steadfast and dedicated in getting the shots he wanted (despite the sweltering heat) and I really admired that. The photo above is a sneak peek at what is to come. We can't wait to see all the official photos!

One of my sisters, Shups, stayed over the night before. We had checked-in into the Hotel, Marina Bay Sands, where our Banquet was to be held. We didn't get to bed till about 3.30am in the morning and even still, I was wide awake all night (morning?). Our day started at 6am and it was go go go all the way after that. 

My girls planned a little "gate crash" for Mr. C and his brothers. I was sitting in the room, awaiting his entrance post-gate crash. It was hilarious, what the girls had planned!

You can watch the morning highlights HERE. I absolutely love the video, and was surprised at how quick the videographers worked to produce such a beautiful clip! Thank you to Shups, who made us change our minds about not getting a videographer. We engaged "The Forever Films" and paid about $1.72K for 10 hours of videography, including the express highlights and a full-day edit. The videographers, Terry and Howard were friendly and overall, did a fantastic job with our video. Our guests loved it very much.

2 days before our solemnization, we went down to the Registry of Marriages to collect our certificate. The Registry was done up really very cheesily, with stuffed bears and heaps of heart-shaped stuff everywhere. We saw young girls (ah lian type) wearing short tea dresses made of tulle and chiffon getting married there too. I was cringing all the way through.

We checked into MBS, the view from our Bridal Suite was just awesome. The washroom was really huge! I regret not utilizing the bath tub more. 

After the gate crash, with our bouquets in hand, all of us left for Church. I was so nervous standing outside the Church, just before my girls and me and my Dad were to do the march-in, I was contemplating turning back and going home! It wasn't because I didn't want to marry Mr. C, but because I was so scared of the crowd! My reception co-ordinator sent me a photo of the turn-out just before the march-in, and I was seriously freaked out because the Church was full! Nothing scares me as much as having so many pairs of eyes fixed on me.

We did march-in eventually haha, everything turned out fine despite me almost tripping over my gown and falling flat on my face. 

Here are 3 of my favourite pictures:

My dearest Mum and my lovely sister!

 

This photo of the reception area was taken the night before, my team of helpers put this together- we rented the table cloths, bought the table runners (super cheap, $65 for about 20 pieces) and the mason jars (also super cheap, about $62). Pardon the yellow and orange plastic crates behind, the caterer was in the midst of setting up the reception area.

I am hoping that our photographer has better pictures of the whole set-up because we put in a lot of effort into the decor of the dining hall as well as in the Church hall itself. 

After the service and after taking heaps of photos, we were officially married!

I did gelish nail manicure the day before, and I paid $221 for it! I was soooo sure I was being ripped off by the Nail Palace at NEX shopping centre but because I was in a rush and didn't feel like arguing with nobody, I just paid and left. I will never return to this salon again. They were pressurizing me into buying this and that, signing up for this and that. I was so angry but because my nails were at their mercy, I had to just be polite. What a horrible place! I would not recommend Nail Palace to anyone at all. 

When we got back, the Hotel had left some champagne and roses on our table. Although we don't drink, this was still a nice surprise!

Our beautiful wedding album table just outside the banquet hall that our friends helped to put together:

Before the Banquet began, we snuck into our reception hall and had a look at the set-up. I was disappointed to see that the florist had gotten our centre pieces wrong. They put baby breaths on all 25 guest tables when it was supposed to be cream roses.  At least they got the 2 VIP tables right. But overall, I was fine with the set-up, I loved the fairy lights!

Me in the traditional "kwa" outfit and Dad. The "kwa" belonged to Mr. C's mum, was glad that it fit me. This was worn for the tea ceremony, where we had to present sweet date tea to our elders.

We had a total of 27 tables- about 270 guests that night. I wish I had time to catch up with every single one of them but we had to go round taking table photos on top of the champagne-pouring ceremony, speech and cake-cutting ceremony, we didn't have time to talk to everyone.

Managed to get a quick shot with my High School mates, sooooo super happy to see them all. We were all very close in High School and when we all came together on the night of our wedding, it seemed like nothing had changed at all.

This photo below was taken at the end of the Banquet, when everyone had cleared out of the hall. I had to take one with my girl Shups and her significant other.

QQ and Geri came to share in our joy as well, I was sooooo happy to see them! We've been great buddies since our Poly days (10 years and counting) and it was just so familiar and heartwarming to have them around. Love them so much!

A group of our friends came up to our Suite after to "闹洞房 (disturb the wedding night)", something customary that happens after weddings! I had soooo much fun, I have never laughed so much in my life. There were some stuff that happened in that room, thanks to them, that I cannot describe here, haha! I am so grateful for all these good friends!

Many commended my choice of gowns, I was quite happy because I bought them online direct from China and for $70 a piece! How about that :) Mr. C and I were so tired after the whole event, we showered and turned in straightaway. We didn't wake up till noon the next day. Lunch was complimentary room-service meals. I had the grilled tiger prawns and that was awesome.

In the evening, we took a walk down to Gardens by the Bay. Mad love this place! We first took some photos of and around the Hotel.

Night fell and the Gardens came alive!

We paid $12 each to enter the Cloud Dome, but kinda regretted it after because it was quite dark and we couldn't see anything much. Nevertheless, it was pretty cool walking along all those bridges that ran across all over.

This was at the Supertree Grove. Mad love these structures. Everytime I come here, I feel like I'm in Pandora i.e. the make-believe world in the movie Avatar.

Anyway, that pretty much sums up my wedding day! Obviously a lot more happened on the day itself but I''ll blog progressively. This has been a long post. More pictures on my Facebook account!