The One with the Solemnization Venue

Deciding on the venue wasn't easy. We wanted cozy, poolside / garden, non extravagant and classy.
Hence we shortlisted a few venues which we thought best fit our criteria.

1) Grand Copthorne Waterfront
I'm not a fan of the location of GWC. It's not near any MRTs and quite inaccessible for people without cars. But I've heard wonderful things about the site and decide to give it the look-see it deserves. Beautiful promenade I must admit, affordable prices but beautiful setting overlooking a big fat drain?
I want a poolside wedding, not a 'long gang' side wedding. So probably not.

2) Swissotel Merchant Court
As we stepped out of the lift sharing the poolside garden with the spa of the hotel, we breathed in the amazing aromatherapy and instantly love the place (without even looking at it). The elevated pathway leading up to the poolside is beige pebbled and opens up to the beautiful site like a revelation. I said to baby,"Wow this is absolutely gorgeous!" The little downside to this place is that the pool will not be sectioned off for the wedding so we MAY have screaming kids canon-balling into the pool during our solemnization. The venue is in the midst of a romantic canopy of trees but overlooking hotel windows doesn't necessarily give us the privacy we need. But the buffet lunch that follows is popular, supposedly delicious and once a year. So we gave this place a thought.

3) Labrador Park Poolside
Eugene had a friend who held his wedding there and raved about the place. The place is idyllic, with the poolside that we wanted, a cozy setting and a great big lawn for the guests to hang out. But I worry about the grass and how it's not women shoes friendly. I'm not absolutely thrilled about having to decorate the place myself. We are fuss free people! The glasshouse fits 40 pax with most of the guests standing while dining which is not too nice. Nonetheless it was beautiful and deserves a place on our KIV list.

4) Amara Hotel
We had high hopes for Amara hotel. Excellent reviews and convenient location, we had to check it out. The location was beautiful, with a nice walkway of seated guests along the aisle I'll be walking down to the curtained canopy where the solemnization will be held. I can just visualize it... saying my vows, looking to my right at my groom and seeing an auntie attempting to sun her undies on a bamboo pole just across from the rooftop? Yes that's right. This magnificent location is right opposite HDB blocks where sticks of laundry protrudes from peoples' window sills. What a nice wedding backdrop. Sighs... maybe not.

 5) Changi Village Hotel
The set up was gorgeous! With the sitting area for guests and the aisle housed between the solemnization table and the entrance of one of my fave restaurants La Cantina in Venezia. The downside to this location is the distance from the general Singapore population and once again being inconvenient for car-less people. We were nicely alerted by the planner that we may have potential sound effects coming from the planes taking off at the nearby Changi Airport. So as much as the location is beautiful, I prefer not starting our lives together by screaming our vows at each other. On the other hand, it may be amusing to the crowd. :)

And so...our decision
The beautiful, stunning and aromatic...

Swissotel Merchant Court for our ceremony on 20 Nov 2011

Loves it! xoxo

The One with the Awesome Queue Number

Our amazing queue number "54" granted us with an excellent array of choice flats in which we got first dips.

Finally... all the selection of housing unit and the fengshui fla-di-dahs are over.
Here's our selected unit.

5-room layout

Do click on the picture to enlarge :)

This unit was selected in conjuction with the general fengshui beliefs of luck, romance, success, education, money and whathaveyous. This, according to Master Koh of House of Feng Shui (HOFS for short), whom incidentally is our good friend Jay's dad, said is the BEST unit of all there is.

Hence our choice.

Not exactly our dream unit since it has a tad of afternoon sun but as I said to Eugene, "Ok lor, now I can sun my clothes and we don't have to worry about bats."
And looking on the very bright side, we got the second highest floor. It has been a while since I stayed anywhere higher than 2nd storey but I suppose there's plenty of wind yes?

So there! One down, a thousand more tasks to go.

The One with the Wedding Bands

Been on the hunt for wedding bands since 3 wks ago. Having discussed and decided on the particular design we liked made it difficult to open our minds to anything else.

But refusing to give in to boring-ness, we scouted for more options and searched for more creative designs.

But time and time again, we ended up asking the sales people about the design we wanted. Then one day I turned to him and asked, "Why are we fighting our instincts when we know exactly what we want?" To which he replied, "I have absolutely no idea..."

So we decided to venture into Lee Hwa to purchase our wedding bands.

The sales person was delighted we came back. He happily took out the pair we saw before and just as I was about to try the original on, I saw them. Nestled on the black velvet cushion, shiny and beckoning to me.

*Tugs on Eugene's arm* "Babe? Is this nice?"

*Peers into the glass display* "Hmm not bad, can we see that?"

It never occured to me to peer into the 'Destinee' range. It was out of our budget and I was TRYING to be the good wife by choosing something more affordable, not that the range we chose was cheap either... *sighs*

I took the female one in my hands and went "Hmm... this is quite heavy..." To which the salesperson laughed and said, "Of course! The one you chose before was hollow..."

I went, "HOLLOW?! Why is it hollow!"

He went, "The one you're holding on to is an exclusive Destinee design, it's heavier because it's solid white gold."

Eugene tried his on and said, "Wah, this is super comfortable! How's yours babe?"

I slide the Destinee band onto my hand and held it at a distance. I felt the weight of the white gold and diamonds resting on my forth finger and sighed.

"Never mind la, the other one can la..."

Then he stares at me beweildered, "Are you sure? This one looks really very nice on you leh... it looks much more elegant than that one!"

*grabs the price tag* "Are you NOT looking at the price tag closely?" I asked.

He sighs and said, "This one you buy once in a lifetime. Why are you scrimping on wedding bands?"

I was very uncertain, because I know it was more than what he's willing to pay. But he seems to really like this one... and it looks really good on him.

"You want to try bargaining?" I whispered, thinking if he did a good job charming JWN's sales ppl maybe Lee Hwa won't be any different.

And finally...

We left Lee Hwa with an order to custom-make the Destinee Wedding Bands of our choice with an upgrade to D-coloured diamonds from their newest and exclusive Destinee Royale range at a preview pricing since it's not officially launched yet, with a 10 + 10% discount + $200 discount voucher which some other customer didn't want so he gave it to us.

Here they are! Classic and simple, just like how we wanted them to be.

Trilogy for Eternity

Aug 30, 2011

Closer to the date of the wedding, I've decided to upgrade my choice of wedding band because I didn't want to regret not getting what I truly wanted due to previous budget constraints. I want to thank my wonderful hubby who had no qualms about my new choice and gave the go ahead getting a nicer band for me. And because he is so sweet, I decided to customize and bling up his as well. Presenting, our new bands!

*Just a word of caution, do not shop for your bands too early because it's likely that you will change your minds*

The One with the Balloting

Anticipating the balloting results of Punggol Emerald.

I do hope however that even if we do get it, our queue number will be fantastic.

5 rooms are freaking 7 times over-subscribed.Can't be as bad as the 4 rooms which are 8 times over-subscribed. Geez..




9284 applications for 1429 flats. Wow, talk about cherry picking.

HDB has launched Punggol Wave and Punggol Emerald under its April Build-to-Order exercise and is offering 1429 units altogether.

Punggol Emerald is located at the junction of Punggol Way and Punggol Central. The project comprises of 188 units of Studio Apartments, 96 units of 3-room, 350 units of 4-room and 222 units of 5-room flats for sale. A mini-mart and a shop have been planned in this development.

Punggol Wave is located along Punggol Walk comprising of 105 units of 3-room, 259 units of 4-room and 209 units of 5-room flats. A Student Care Centre will be provided in this development.

In line with HDB’s plans to develop Punggol as an Eco-Town, Punggol Emerald and Punggol Waves will be designed for Green Mark Certification incorporating eco-friendly features to achieve energy efficiency, environmental protection, indoor environmental quality and other green features such as use of precast construction methods to reduce wastage, reduction of air and sound pollutants during installation as well as secondary roof system to reduce heat.

The selling price ranges from $73,000 for a Studio Apartment to $403,000 for a 5-room flat. Application will close on 3 May 2010.

Keeping my fingers super crossed because I'm already thinking about renovations! Talk about jumping the gun...

Bedroom Layout 1

Bedroom Layout 2

Walk-in wardrobe (if possible)

Vanity and side tables (I think I'm going overboard)

Living Layout 1

Living Layout 2




Living Layout 3








Dining Layout



  



Bathroom (I can feel Eugene's sweatbeads forming)

Bathroom Simplified

Bathroom Simplified 2

Kitchen Layout 1

Kitchen Layout 1a



Potential window frames




Study Room (Teeny tiny bookshelf is obviously for non-nerds)





Door Decor







Dining Area



Toilet layout

The One with the Proposal

I think baby spent quite a bit of time thinking about how he should propose. The weeks leading up to him attempting to purchase the ring without my knowledge is actually quite futile with his incessant questions about size and cuts and settings. Not.very.subtle. But when he was going to do it was quite a mystery to me. On 27th Feb 2010, he asked if I would like to eat in. I had this nagging feeling he was going to propose after our movie at night because he suggested visiting the Marina Barrage so of course I didn't think much when we proceeded to buy our yummy and my favourite Chilli Crab from Jumbo and camping in front of the teebee.

Later after dinner, when we sat around for dessert, I saw him disappearing from the living room and wondering where he went. As I continued to have my dessert, he appeared in front of me with a sheepish look on his face. He looked both excited and nervous and suddenly, it struck me. He got down on one knee with the beautiful ring box in his hands and he asked me to marry him. I was both shocked and surprised because I was SURE he was going to do it later that night. Home with chilli crab sauce on my hands is definitely not what I expected but I sure was surprised!

It was such an awesome day to be engaged. The bling from the ring was so blinding, it covered the tears in my eyes :) The setting of the ring is brilliant, absolutely love at first sight! 2 S's (my name) forming the heart on the ring is pure genius!

I lub youuuu!

thank you for the beautiful ring!