Coming Home!

After our ROM, time just flew by. We managed to get my gown tailored (though there were some small alterations to be done) and his suit at good prices. After getting his suit, it was a huge relief as it fit him perfectly and he got a free shirt and tie along with it! What a deal! :) We looked for an anti-shine suit because we wanted him to have use for it after the wedding. So happy to have found it.

We flew back home and had a lovely time reuniting with the families. I haven't seen mine in close to 2 years! I ate so many fish crackers when I first arrived, I had sore throat immediately! Then came the steamed orange trick which saved both of us! A steamed orange a day with rock sugar. So so good. We had 70 different foods listed (yes, we made a list! I will share it sometime in the future :)) to chow down before returning to the UK and we are proud to say we managed to hit 95% of the list! Hip hip hooray!

In KL, we had a gathering with our close friends (engagement/bachelorette-bachelor party/fellowship!). It was heaps of fun playing Guesstures and Taboo! Lots of food to eat and tons of catching up. So happy to see my friends from different spheres all bonding with each other. All of them must agree that I have good taste in friends! :P Wonderful food, beautiful cupcakes courtesy of my maid of honor who was unfortunately absent(!!) and excellent company makes a happy pair over the moon! They all chipped in effort in making a beautiful scrapbook for us. Thank you Addie and Aaron for making it all come together so nicely. It was a wonderful bedtime reading for the night before the wedding. So meaningful, so worth a thousand words.... Thank you all. We love you!

Then we throttled off to Penang! We were busy in the first week with meetings- first the hotel, we had Dephany who was so helpful and accomodating. We also met with our fantastic photographer and wonderful makeup artist. Everything could not have gone better. I was adamant on not looking like another person on my wedding day. 'No glitter!' Haha. I went to a florist which I found out later knew our photographer! Each of them reassured us that the other was very competent, skillful and trustworthy! The three words every bride wants to hear. I knew virtually no names of flowers so I just picked the colours (lilac, pink and yellow) and described the bouquet of my dreams (rather vaguely I would think as it was me going "small-ish size and rounded here... maybe some big ones here and don't want so much green... er... I like daisies!") Lol. I spent only 15 minutes there and the flowers turned up at our wedding perfectly as we wished for. 

We also visited dear Uncle Mark (a brilliant chemist and a wonderful soap-maker among other fantastic things). All natural soap and very quality ingredients. I have been using his soaps for a while now and I was so so happy that he was willing to help us make some as parting gifts for our guests. Finalising the design... We also got some wonderful floral arrangements from a lovely friend of mom's. These were such a pretty addition to our garden wedding. We also picked up our scents for The Day. 

I got to see my niece and nephew for the first time! Beautiful darlings they are! So well-behaved and incredibly sweet. I miss"Abigeloo's" voice and "Baby Chee-chen's" burrowing so much! The next time I see "Abigeloo", she won't be calling "Uncle Dee-teh" anymore. :( Why do kids have to grow up so fast?

We decided to leave the week before the wedding as a relaxing week, very different to many couples, I've been told. Haha. I've also been told I am the most relaxed bride ever. Mostly, that was due to the fact that we decided on many things in the UK so most of the planning was done by the time we came back without having to hash the details exhaustively through with families and friends which I presume eats up the most time as well as risks the most tension when it comes to wedding prep. I wouldn't have had it any other way as we always agreed with each other that we have to prevent the marginal utility (econs concept haha) of the wedding from going down to a point that you want to just have it over and done with. I had time to have fun making a wedding cake with my wonderful sister for our family's enjoyment. It was so exciting to play with fondant. Mom's chocolate and fruit cakes were the bomb. 

Thanks to my in-laws, we learnt the tradition of marriage biscuits! My family was a fan of these heavenly baked goods which were made specifically to order and freshly made on the day of delivery. We hardly got a bite of the selection before it was div-ied off to the rest of my family. Every box was spoken for! Even by Abigail!! Haha! Precious cookies indeed! Love traditions!!!

We checked into the hotel the day before and we had some friends over to meet and chat (lovely MQ flew in from Singapore). We enjoyed the hotel goodies and played Cluedo with the rest of the gang while Ying and his brother went swimming! Ever heard of the groom swimming before the wedding day? That was how chilled this wedding was. Haha. 

Later that night, we had a splendid time in our respective reunion dinners. 

Wonderful, wonderful time indeed!