Guest Post: Honey, let's do it again!

I am very privileged to have known my dear friend Cindy for 14 years (and counting) now, since our junior college days.  Seriously being away from Singapore for so long, I don't take friendships back home for granted.  I feel so blessed that my core group of friends are still very much there for me and would eagerly meet up with me every time I go back home.  Also embracing K with open arms welcoming him into the bigger group.  With Bel getting older (ahem and wiser), it is pretty much clear to me who my core group of friends are now and I will make a point to meet up with the same group of friends in my every trip home.  

Mimi did a coverage of my English countryside wedding and now Cindy will do a special coverage of our Singaporean Chinese wedding!  Thanks Cin, what a thoughtful post, I can't believe you still have pics from my very first bridal fitting with you girls, and also the pics I sent for you girls to vote for the most popular bridesmaid dress!  A very detailed post and made me laughed at some parts *wink*.  
Love you my dear jiemei! *muack*

----------

The start of a lifelong journey together
Bel's interpretation: I'm your husband, hear me roar! lol

It all began with a “yes I do” on 29 June 2012 when my dear sister Bel decided to entrust her life to Kian. Fast forward one year later, she lived her dream of having a perfect wedding in the English countryside. 

Being Chinese, where the marriage is not considered complete until the customary wedding is held, Bel and Kian had a second celebration with their family and friends back home in Singapore on 8 September. Despite this being the 3^rd wedding of the year for The Girls, everyone is still very excited about it. 

Preparation work as sisters started earlier this year in March, where we had the privilege to help select Bel’s dresses for the day. Kian did not join as they wanted to see each other in their wedding outfit for the first time on their big day. Thought this was very sweet. It was my first time at a wedding studio and I finally understand how some brides-to-be can make so many trips and spend hours at the studio each time. Looking at the selection of wedding dresses available, any girl would be spoilt for choice. It got a little easier choosing the tea dress and evening gown as the styles and colours were more distinct, but still, it was tough. Thankfully, it’s a happy problem, and afterall you only get to do this once in a lifetime!    

In contrast, deciding on the dresses for the bridesmaids was a breeze – thanks to resourceful Denise, Bel’s sister-in-law, who recommended a great blog shop by the name of Intoxiquette. Bel got us a beautiful Tiffany blue dress, which was the top choice amongst the sisters.

Guess which dress was chosen?  You will soon find out!
Photos courtesy of Intoxiquette

Now for the next most exciting part of any Chinese wedding… deciding the games for the gatecrashing! Being sensible adults, we decided on “classy” games for some good clean fun, nothing degrading as we have seen in other weddings what the poor groom and brothers have to go through for the bride. We brainstormed some ideas in our sisters chatroom on Whatsapp and met up a few days before the wedding to finalise the games. The games we played in Cor’s wedding were still fresh in our minds, and we decided to repeat two games that Bel liked and add in two other new games.

Bride with hair and makeup done

Our call time for the sisters on the wedding day was bright and early at 7am. I was greeted by the Goh family who was all smiles when I reached. Bel was done with her hair and make-up too. 

The photographer of the day, Douglas Fun, was already busily snapping away. After seeing the amazing pre-wedding shots that he took for Bel and Kian, I always thought that someone with such good photo taking skills would be older, but surprisingly he’s actually very young!  (Bel: he is actually 27!)

My favourite pre wedding shot of Kian & Bel
Photo courtesy of Douglas Fun, Avenue 8

Shortly after, the other sisters arrived too. There were supposed to be 5 of us but sadly Zhu was unable to make it due to some family matters. We had a quick breakfast and started concocting the welcome drink for the groom and brothers. More about the drink later :)

The arrival of the sisters.  Mimi flashing her megawatt smile!

We also had special guests Michelle and Huimin in the morning, who brought her 14-month girl Charis to join in the fun. Michelle had an important task of bringing her iPad as we needed it for one of our games, and she called me around 7.30am freaking out as her iPad is less than 10% charged, so she is charging it in the car. Thankfully, she miraculously found her charger and all was ok!

Gungho Mich saved the day with her iPad charger

Pretty mama Min with her cutie pie Charis, both dressed up in the right colours too!

Finally it’s time to execute our games! Kian and his three brothers arrived at about 8.10am. We haven’t met his brothers before the wedding and all we heard from Kian is that “they are too old for such things”. Surprisingly, they were very sporty and enthusiastic, especially Kian’s cousin, Tommy (whom Kian doesn’t even know his gave himself the name Tommy prior to this lol). Thinking back, we have gone too easy on them!

For a start, we greeted the guys with a welcome fruit drink. In line with our theme of classy games, this has got to be the kindest tasting welcome drink any groom can get. It’s nice smelling too, although it’s an awful looking green (there’s kiwi juice).

来啊干一杯吧!

The colour was to create the impression that the drink is really yucky and they will glup it down all at once, only to realise that they shouldn’t because their challenge was to name five fruits that went into that drink! At this point, they can only rely on the mild after taste.

Putting the guys' taste buds to the test.  (A very pro looking poster done by Cindy herself)

Of course they didn’t pass the challenge (though they named four fruits correctly!), which was the whole point so we could make them do the forfeit. It comes in the form of poses where Kian and his brothers would have to replicate the pose and the expression of the people in the photos we selected.

Starting with a cute one…

How did they fare?  Passable?

Now the guys got really excited about the next one, the sexy pose. Kian was shouting excitedly that he will be the “show-bra girl” as he quickly got into position. Due to the space constraint at the corridor, Douglas needed them to face another direction so this was the best shot I could take. Can’t wait to see how it turned out but judging from their enthusiasm levels, I think it should look quite close to the actual photo.

"I'm sexy and I know it" lol

Next up is the body parts game. The whole idea is to take a photo of a body part belonging to Bel and sisters, and form a photo collage. Kian will have to guess which belongs to Bel. Sounds simple enough? Kian didn’t get thumb right as he wasn’t sure if the photo was taken before or after Bel’s manicure, but he got her eye and ear correct. Due to time constraint, we skipped elbow, but Bel showed it to him later and he guessed it right! 3 out of 4, not bad!

Who's who?  Can you tell?

The last game before we wrap up was for Kian and brothers to act out a scene from Meteor Garden, a Taiwanese drama that we loved during our uni days. Zhu selected a scene and the guys had to each choose a role and re-enact it. Naturally, Kian was given the role of Daomingsi, while his brothers played Shancai, the dad and the mum. Cor prepared wigs for the Shancai and the mum, which the guys sportingly wore. Overall, a great and hilarious performance from the guys. Pass!

The manliest looking Shancai and mum (and westernised too, may I add)

After a fun session, Kian was allowed to enter the room to meet his bride.

A sweet kiss before setting off for the day

The bride and the sisters: Mimi, Cindy, Corinne and Liwen

The Goh family, or what we call ourselves the "Ah Goh Gohs" :P

Before heading out, Kian wore shoes for Bel. According to tradition, wearing of shoes for the bride is an act of receiving and bringing the bride away from her home, I think. But I have seen in cases where the bride wears them on her own or sometimes, the bride’s sister helps out. Anyway, no one really remembers or understands these traditions anymore.  (Bel:  I didn't know that.  Actually Cin, I didn't think there was any reason other than I needed help with the shoes.  I couldn't bend forward easily with the dress and Kian was there, so naturally arrowed him to help lol)

Come away with me, my love....

En-route to Kian’s place, we stopped by Ben & Jerry’s at Dempsey Hill to take some photos. The original plan was to take photos at Botanic Gardens but it was raining so we had to find an indoor alternative. The setting at Ben & Jerry’s was quite nice, and we spent about an hour there.

Beautiful bouquet, and many more to come I'm sure ;)

The perfect props at Ben & Jerry's

"Look into my eyes..."

The stunning bride

"L is for the way you look at me.." croons Kian

We then headed to Kian’s place for the tea ceremony. As we entered Kian’s house, we were warmly welcomed by a very 热情 Mr Ong senior and Ms Ong (Kian’s dad and sis), and many of his relatives too. They were fussing over the couple as any family would and ensuring that we were helping ourselves to the buffet spread and drinks. We also met Mrs Ong, Bel’s mum-in-law who was a really nice and motherly lady. Everyone was in high spirits and the atmosphere was very 热闹. After the tea ceremony, we helped Bel change out of her wedding dress into the tea dress which was a really pretty and modern looking cheongsam. She was deciding between the cheongsam and traditional “kua”, which she eventually settled for the former. Great choice I must say, this is one of the prettiest tea dresses I’ve seen and she looks gorgeous in it.

Throwback to fitting back in March.  Which do you prefer?

By now, it’s about 1pm and it’s time to head back to 娘家 again for the tea ceremony.

Final shot before we meet for dinner

After the tea ceremony, the couple made their way to the hotel to rest and freshen up before part 2 in the evening. Likewise for us, we went home and met again at the hotel at about 6pm.

Bel: Break here in-between where Kian and I checked into the hotel and crashed on the super duper comfy king sized bed and we were both knocked out unconscious properly for 2h.  Both of us barely slept the night before.

Cor was one the emcee while Wen, Minghui and I were the receptionists for the dinner. Before the guests arrived, we set up the reception area which was done quickly as we had many pairs of hands :)

The reception with the decorations Bel brought back

Love this photo of the guest book with wishes handwritten by Bels grandma, so sweet!

We were rather relaxed as there were 3 of us at the reception table representing the bride’s family. In comparison, it was only Kian’s cousin representing the groom’s family and she had twice as many tables of guests to register, so we see her busily flipping the guest list. We were busy too, taking photos of ourselves :)

Sisters in their evening wear

Edmund & Denise

After a while, the crowd started streaming in and we see enthusiastic Mr Ong senior attending to all his relatives and friends, and ushering them into the ballroom personally. You can really tell how excited and happy Kian’s parents were.

Throughout the cocktail reception, we were very blessed to have these sweet guys, Darrel, Darren and Bel’s cousin Jeremy, bringing appetisers and drinks to us constantly. Sensitive new age guys I say! The Peking duck was really good and honestly we had quite a lot! We even brought the balance into the ballroom as we didn’t want to waste such good food. Mich and I agreed wholeheartedly, “mai kek ki la” (no need to be shy)!

Our dear Cor was great as usual, even as the English emcee! We were all highly impressed when she was the Chinese emcee for Wen’s wedding. Instead of the childhood montage and morning highlights, Bel and Kian showed the video of their London wedding. I’ve seen some of the photos thanks to Edmund’s Whatsapp live feed, but it was even more beautiful when captured on video. The parts where Bel and Kian took their vows, and everyone letting off the balloons in their hands was really touching.

Shortly after the first march-in and cake-cutting, it was time for Bel to change into her evening gown. Wen and I accompanied her to the suite, where we had a very interesting conversation surrounding wedding traditions and expectations while she did her hair. Planning a wedding is indeed a very delicate process of people management as it involves not just the couple. Yes I see my married friends nodding their heads vigorously.

Dolling up for the second outfit and preparing her thank you speech

Bel with Wen before heading down to the ballroom, like this photo of you girls very much!

After the second march-in, the couple poured the champagne and thanked their guests with a toast and a speech before the customary table shots and send off.

Do I sense some relief here?

Bel with Wen and Darrel, with his signature "damn happy" look lol

Ending the day with a shot of the FYP mates, aka the Teochew ah nias!
Cindy, Bel and Mich

To my dearest sister, congratulations again and I’m so happy to be able to share your joy. May God’s blessings always rest upon your marriage, as you love and respect each other deeply.

And finally Bel, I must say this! To have known you since our high-waisted jeans and platform shoes JC days, to seeing you blossom over the years and now someone’s Mrs, 我真的真的很开心!! 爱你!!

Text and photos courtesy of Cindy Teo unless otherwise stated :)