Yippee! Finally, after much hassle of wiring the money to the resort (they don't have credit card facility!!!) I have everything set and confirmed for our honeymoon trip!
After the wedding and renovation and not much left in the piggy bank, we decided to jump on the suggestion by Thomas to book a trip to Scenery Resort at Ratchaburi, 2 hours drive away from Bangkok. A much humbler choice compared to our dream honeymoon to New Zealand but hey, at least, there are still the sheeps. hehe..
A departure from the usual beach resort lum nuah holiday. We will do major nuahing in a farm resort instead. Just hope it does not smell too bad.
Check out the photos I drool over every other day in anticipation of August. All photos from sceneryresort.com:
Major crossing of fingers that it will turn out as nice as the photos!
There are only 7 villas within the resorts and we choose Barbados (all villas named after their sheeps) which came highly recommended by Thomas. Check it out!
5 glorious days at the resort with absolutely NOTHING to do! CAN'T WAIT!!!!!
Today we decided to drop down to T Dragon to print our wedding cards. And because it was decided at a "since we are free why not?" whim, we were (yeah.. sounds familiar) taken aback when T Dragon lady told us sternly that we must try not to delay the decision on the artwork since our wedding is round the corner.
What?!!!!!
.....I thought we had plenty of time. ....
She must have saw our expressions and realised that we are still clueless on the imminent deadline.
"Today is 17th right? We will email you the artwork by next Wed, 24th. You must try to decide soon if you want to change anything k? Then we can start work that week. Don't worry. The printing confirmed done within 10 days.. soooooooo.. latest by mid April you will get the printed inserts."
Counting backwards, this is exactly one month before our wedding.
Which is just the right timing to give out the wedding cards actually.
But we are still happily distracted by the daily house chores, weekends dates, buying bedside tables, cooking, grocery shopping, etc.. Wedding is still a distant event to us. Well.. not really now..
God, this is so unnerving I can't even enjoy Glee just now.
Still holding the butterflies in my tummy, I complained to Yong that people should just get married the next day they decided to get married.
Register online, pay the 20-30 bucks, grab two witnesses, wear a nice dress/shirt and troop down ROM and there you go, MARRIED!
No need for months of preparation and anticipations and now, nights of panic indulgence over things not done and not thought of.
Perfect recipe for good night sleep. Thank god I got Irene to buy me more of that Bach Night remedy spray thingy from London. I think i will need that for my impending insomnia. *bleh*
What is wrong with AI??? Just check out the original song "I fall to pieces" and Lilly's version.. Not that I don't like the original.. but she re-invented into something so modern.. that is one talented gal!!
First location of the morning shoot. Arrived at somewhere near Lavender HDB area and was wondering why the location till I saw how the morning sun was coming in, bathing the rustic lanes between the shophouses and the little green fields in the warm orangey lights. Cooks at the kopitiam puffing away on their early morning smoke. Hurried office workers half running and walking to the bus stops. Drivers slowed down and waved as we quickly cleared the chairs on the small road for one of the shoots. The morning in one of the most nostalgic places in Singapore.
Taken against the white HDB wall. Love how Thomas soften the colors
Chanced upon the bench and Thomas went *clickclickclick*
Love this candid walking shot... ;D Captured our feeling then. Giggly. Nervous. Fun.
Climbed up one of those old winding staircases. Love the angle.
Drove and parked alongside the shophousesd near Mount Emily Park. Thomas snapped these before we changed out to the wedding gown and suit.
I have a thing for washed out polaroid kind of effect. Don't you love the pop of color from the red letter box. Catches the red from Yong's pocket square.
My uber efficient photographer has just passed me the pre-wed photos! Exactly what he promised. Within two weeks!
And I have to say I was kind of nervous! But all these for nothing! Cos the photos turned out fine after all!
I love how natural everything turned out. All those smiles, laughter, the colors, the fun! Bush, Thomas' hardworking assistant, suggested throwing dried leaves during one of the shots and even went to the extend of climbing a tree so the leaves would fall naturally. His effort really paid off as the shots were amazing!
My mum was quite taken aback since it is quite different from the usual 摆 bai pose wedding photos. Thomas made us laugh and talk alot with each other while he snapped away. Minimal posing needed. And thank god for that cos it made the whole experience so much more intimate and memorable!
We first saw Thomas' works while surfing around the net and I don't know how else to explain it, but let's just say that his photos simply spoke to us. We surfed many of the more acclaimed photographers portfolio and while Wansheng remains one of our favorites, many others just did not "communicate" enough for us to want to stalk their website. We found ourselves going back to Thomas' website again and again and we did not even bother to meet up with any other photographers in the end.
Anyhow we never looked back. Every time we view the latest portfolios on Thomas website we would be more assured that we made the right choice. He just gets better and better!
Thank you Thomas and Bush for making us feel so at ease on a otherwise stressful day!
Thank you for using your bare hands to sweep away all those army ants, twigs, dried leaves, etc to make us more comfortable!
Thank you for climbing up and down (not metaphors!) amidst the hot hot weather to capture the best shots!
It has been a while I watched a good movie. You know those that make you want to own the DVD so you can go through all the favorite lines again.
The story revolves around Ryan Reitman, who is the corporate layoff officer, simply put, fires people for bosses who do not have the guts to do it themselves for a living. First movie I saw that gave some insights on the recession story, not from economic or corporate point of view, but from us, the employed. The movie is not just on that, of course. The director has cleverly touched on many different aspects of life that many of us, the busy corporate executives would relate and empathize with. Natalie, the young fresh graduate we all used to be, proud, eager, driven and determine to continue the excellence they achieved from college to their work, life and marriage. Alex, the female corporate fox, probably was once a Natalie, toughened with life, empowered with wisdom, understood and played the game so well, separating her Up in the Air romance with Ryan and her real family life in Chicago expertly. Quite aptly, the Ryan Reitman but with the vagina.
But is Ryan really the cold, detached, unfeeling guy, trained from the thousands of layoff negotiations he has done? He understood the harshness of life, that how the house, kids, wives, family, attachments became immense burden when the company you had worked for your entire life forsakes you. The helplessness you feel when the backpack is full and you can't take a single step forward. He stops himself from developing any deep relationship with anyone which effectively makes him the 12 years old kid in love. Someone who is in the game who can't really play the game, unlike Alex.
I love how the director built the characters so well, so credible, so three dimensional, that we can easily identify with the choices and struggles that the three main leads made and went through.
The one thing that really stood out to me in the movie was the heart breaking scenes of the shocked about to be retrenched employees. It reminded me of my fears. Why I could not sleep well for a month after I sign the mortgage. Why I felt uneasy being in a company for too long. Why I still hope, how ever small the hope is, that one day I can be a self-employed. Why the dismay when I realised marriage life is not just love but endless bills, loans and commitment that will postpone financial independence indefinitely.
I used to be an insurance agent. Semi self employed. Everyday in the two years I was there, I told myself I am doing this because I can control my salary. Because i do not rely on the company for my livelihood. But because I do not have the flair and I crave for stability in the job, I went back to corporate world and did reasonably well. But however stable my current company is, I am worried that one day I will find myself jobless, not by choice. And by that time, I would be older and with a bigger paycheck expectation to meet my equally bigger loans. With the buoyant foreign talent populations, all younger, better educated with much smaller paycheck expectation, how would I be able to compete?
Have digressed a little but you get my point. ;p
Do go catch this excellent little movie. Besides, you get to see George Clooney and Vera Farmiga's ass. Woah, and that is one fine behind! :P
Complained to my cousin, Agnes, yesterday over email about my incapability to keep my house clean. I know, I know.. I have complained beforewhen I first moved out but this is a chronic problem and I think after trying hard for the last 3 months, I deserve another opportunity to whine.. :P
When we reached home yesterday, and freshly inspired by Agnes with her daily cleaning routine, I started to bug Yong to mop the floor together. When normally obliging Yong declined since we are really exhausted for the day, I started to re-think about hiring the weekend cleaner.
Agnes advised to put aside an hour everyday to clean a portion of the house and do the major cleaning stuff over the weekend. I know these are sound advice cos god knows how fast the house gets dusty! What is up with the air these days..? During one of those really busy weekends, we did not clean the house for 1-2 weeks and I tell you, the layers of dust everywhere is just GROSS! Just thinking about sitting on dusty toilet bowls makes my butt itch.. So I made a pact with Yong that we CANNOT leave the house uncleaned more than a week cos it is just disgusting.
So to hire weekend maid or not? I really do not have the discipline to do what Agnes does. Sometime we just plonk ourselves in front of the TV and ignore each other for the night cos we are just too exhausted at the end of the day. I visited one of my best friend's place over the CNY and she just hired a live-in maid since she had a new baby recently. The new maid is really good and I can tell they do have better quality life, more time with each other and baby.
Having said that, I really do not like to sit at home and stare at someone else doing the house chores. My best friend felt weird and strangely guilty to let the maid do everything and I totally understand what she is saying. It is liked making someone else do your homework. Hee.. okay, bad analogy..
Anyhow I need more time to ponder about this. Perhaps I just need to do abit more time management to fit in the cleaning chores. Gee... can't believe I am obsessing about the frequency of doing housechores... The changes you go through becoming a Mrs..
Find this cute little website which picks up cool home tips from old housekeeping magazine and books. Cute website name: Things your Grandmother knew. :P I really dig this tip:
Totally love this picture of mummy. Taken by my talented cousin, Xavier, with his new DSLR camera. Damn, I am itching to buy one. I am eyeing the new Nikon D3000 which is meant for amateurs liked me. Just slightly under $1,000.
