2012- A year of change

As we are starting the year of 2013, I thought I’d recap some highlights from the past year. 2012 has been a year of change but also of growth for me. Moving into hubby’s house in August and getting married next month (after almost half a year preparation and anticipation #^.^#), missing out an opportunity to travel to Dubai, working in a new company, learn new things, organise a book fair, make new friends, keeping a few fishes at home, learn to drive manual but fail and learn to cook (no more mum’s cooking). Well, maybe once a week ;p

I like my new life and my new responsibility as a wife despite more household chores. Hubby did help out once a while but can be improved lor The most important thing I have learnt from 2012 is that happiness is not about reaching for perfection but about being content with what you have which was more meaningful. As what hubby often said small things make me happy. I can't wait to embrace 2013 be it an exciting or challenging year ahead. Wishing you all happiness, healthiness and luck for 2013!

XOXO
sassycat

Part 3- Wedding Dinner

The last part that I previously wrote was about the door games and tea ceremony during the day session. After the tea ceremony was completed, I needed to change my dinner and prepare myself for the wedding reception. My make-up artist arrived shortly to do some make- up and hair- do touch ups. Meanwhile, not long after the tea ceremony, my ‘zi muis’ went to the restaurant earlier to help us with setting the decoration. Really appreciate their kind effort. 

About an hour from the wedding reception’s starting time, both me and the groom arrived to restaurant and were ready to greet the guests at the entrance.

We intentionally went to the function room 45 minutes after greeting the guest and waited for the room to be 70%- 80% filled with guests first. After the MC (who turned out to be the restaurant’s banquet captain) delivered her welcome speech to all the guests; both my husband and I entered the function room, led by our flower girls (they were initially but performed their duties well that day!) We were so grateful that they were brave to face all the crowd that day.

Our arrival to the function room marked that the wedding reception had just officially started! Our entrance to the function room was really simple. There was no fanfare and we both just had to walk with the flower girls along the stairs. But, thanks to the ‘zi muis’ who decorated the stairs with lovely balloons, the atmosphere was brightened up! We just threw some happy smile to everyone while me carrying the hand bouquet and then sat directly to our assigned seats at the host table. Next, we all (including the bride and groom) could start eating the first dish, the Chinese Cold Platter. We didn’t arrange for food parade.

Then, the tv started to play our dvd video montage and the songs we arranged to play. After the third dish was served, the MC hinted me to go inside the changing room and prepare to change 2^nd dress. By the time the fourth dish was served, I was ready to go outside and prepared for the Cake Cutting ceremony. After the Pyramid Fountain and Cake Cutting, the MC played a prank on us and asked the groom to give me a peck loudly. I was so embarrassed by the request and the groom did it sportingly nonetheless. Then, we were ushered back to our seats for a while and I gobbled down the food again ^^

Not long, it was the time for toasts (Yum Seng) where the bride, groom, respective parents and siblings who occupied the host table to go to the stage. We usually do the toast (Yum Seng) three times. The first round was led by the MC. Everyone stood up, held their glasses high and screamed Yuuuuuuum Seng (as long and as loud as possible) when doing this. The second toast was led by the groom and this was followed by my brother.

After the toast, we went back to our seats. Then, the groom’s ex- manager, who was half- drunken went on stage with a script and started to tell stories about the groom and one of his resolutions for last year was to get married! Everyone was letting out a guffaw on this. After his speech, out of sudden, my brother said he wanted to do an impromptu speech. He went up to the stage and I was so surprised when he told our childhood ‘turtle’ speech. I felt like hiding under the shell like a turtle when he started to tell about the story. But, in the end, he managed to end the story very well and touching.

Post the toast, it was the time for photo sessions. Firstly, the bride and groom took photos with core family members on stage. Next, we had to do some rounds to each table and take photo with the guests, usually only with relatives and close friends. About two hours later when the dessert was already served, some guests began to leave the venue. We had to stand by the function's room entrance door to shake hands whilst saying thank you and goodbye with those who were leaving.

In the meantime, most of the guests could do their own Yum Seng with their friends or whoever people they shared their table with on their own until the wedding reception was over! With this, our wedding reception was concluded and so were all the wedding hypes for the past one year. We really treasure the effort of my family members and close 'zi muis' for all the effort and all the wishes. Xxxx ❤

XOXO

Newlywed cat

Part 2- Wedding Tea Ceremony

After the groom successfully went through all the challenges, entered the room, opened my veil and then we proceed to go outside and were ready for the tea ceremony with my family *sweats* Just as per the advice of one of my ‘zi muis’ cum chaperone also known as ‘dai kam jie’, the first thing we had to do is to pray to heaven and earth followed by the Buddha at my house. Following the prayer ritual, we had to walk out from our house for a round outside before entered the house for the tea ceremony.

Next, we started the Tea Ceremony with the bride's elderly family members where both of us served the tea to grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts and married cousins to pay respect and give formal family introduction. ** Notice my grandma's natural smile ^^ i feel incredibly grateful to have her attending the tea ceremony session despite her health condition and she's the one who took care of me while i was young so it means alot to me... 

During the tea ceremony, we had to address formal titles of the family and the ‘dai kam jie’ will say afew good words to the seniors members as part of official introduction and to pay respect to them. We, the newlyweds, will receive a red packet or jewelry from the family members ^^

After serving tea to the senior, we had to feed each other with boiled eggs and and glutinous rice balls as a symbol of good luck and happy life together. We will then give red packets to all younger (unmarried) siblings, cousins and nephews/nieces. I remember we had to pack close to 50 red packets for our wedding day. Plus, some who help out during the wedding reception, i.e. becoming the guest receptionists, ushers, etc.

I felt touched when serving the tea to my mum... Memories of how she single- handedly brought us up....

Soon after, we took photos with family and friends too during this session before we went downstairs and were ready to make a move to the groom's house for tea ceremony with his family. On my way to ascend the wedding car, my aunt held a red umbrella over my head outside the house as according to Chinese wedding traditions, this red umbrella would protect the bride from evil spirits. As we were about to leave,i threw a red fan out from the car window to avoid taking bad temper to the groom's home. 

Few minutes of driving later, we arrived at the groom's house where his mum and sister waited. All the ‘zi muis’ and some of my family members also followed us to the groom's house. Once we went inside the house, the guests were served with simple delicacies and we had to go straight to the bridal room. We did not serve the tea at the groom side as most of his family members are in Kota Kinabalu (KK) and the tea ceremony will be served there.

Next, i invited my nephew to jump on the bridal bed as the Chinese custom believe that children invited to jump on the bridal bed are to bless the couple with fertility #^.^# Once this was done, my other nephew jumped into the picture by punching through the red paper on top of the “tam tung” to take out the orange and ang pow inside. POW!

After we completed all the customs for the wedding ceremony, we ended with flower throwing tradition and so happen one of my ‘zi muis’, Chelle managed to grab the bouquet lolz ** Notice the sweet smile on her face! ;p 

Some light food refreshments (sandwiches, fruit tarts, mint tarts, muffins, cup cakes, sushi cakes, osmantus jelly etc.) served to guests...

So that's all about the tea ceremony, here’s to some of the pictures….. Enjoy! J

Wedding Dinner- To be continued… 

XOXO
Newlywed cat

Part 1- Wedding Preparation and Door Games

Sorry for the long hiatus~ Yes, I’m still here but been quite busy with my little newly wed life and new job >.< Thank God wedding preparation was all over now… It has been 1+ month in fact… In the beginning, we had some hiccups with people RSVP at the early stage, last minute cancellations, couple of rejections, unexpected declines, and etc. But, all in all, I was really glad and happy to see some of my close friends and cousin who came back from overseas just to attend our wedding dinner… I’m really grateful to have this bunch of wonderful people. Anyways, here are the recaps of what happened during our wedding day last month:

A couple of bear dolls sitting sweetly on our wedding car ^^

The wedding car.

The groom and his best-men a.k.a "heng dais".

Me and bridesmaid a.k.a "zi muis".

My make-up artist came to my house at 8.00am and started working on my face and hair for almost 3 hours.   TADA! Me with make- up :)

At about 11am, I waited for the groom and his entourage to pick me up from my house. Like the usual practice in Chinese wedding for picking up the bride, the groom and his ‘heng dais’ would have to go through some of the interesting and creative ‘door games’ planned by the ‘zi muis’ before they could enter the bride’s house. We had 6 official bridesmaids versus 8 best- men for the 'door games'.

The gals posing with their ''secret weapons" ;p

I started to feel nervous when the groom and his ‘heng dais’ approached the bride’s house, they were honking the cars upon arrival. My brother went down to open the groom’s car door and present two oranges to the groom. In return, he received a ‘special’ red angpow packed from the groom.

From my room inside, I could hear people’s loud laughter, cheering, screams and other noises during the ‘door games’. I was so eager to peek the games and so was my make- up artist; so we opened our bedroom door and take a glance but too bad we could not see anything from inside and since I could not my room as well, I just sat in chit- chatting with my make- up artist, for almost 45 minutes. Oh,here is a candid view with my make- up artist ^^ Isn't she pretty?

Here are the chronicles of the ‘door games’, the games summary are based on discussion with the ‘zi muis’ as per our plan earlier on since I didn’t get to witness the whole game myself...

First Challenge: The groom and his ‘heng dais’ were asked to do some push- ups while eating bananas to warm up first before anything. There were afew bananas prepared by the ‘zi muis’, and the ‘heng dais’ had to team up in a pair where one had to hold the banana in his mouth while the other had to bite the whole banana stuff in the partner’s mouth. Looking at the pictures, the whole scene was hilarious!

Second Challenge: The groom had to eat a ''special'' Konnyaku Jelly prepared by the ‘zi muis’.

Third challenge: Q&A sessions. The groom was later being tested with 10 questions prepared by the ‘zi muis’ and for each wrong answer, one of the ‘heng dais’ were asked to pick the exclusive envelopes with special penalty imposed to them. These include the cruel wax strip, brush teeth with wasabi toothpaste, kissed each other by applying red lipstick to each other and etc.

Fourth challenge: Now that the groom and his ‘heng dais’ could enter the bride's house, they all went straight in front of bride's room. However, for the groom to enter the room, the groom was asked to read the vows out loud in Hakka whereas the promises were printed in English. Everyone was laughing as the groom read the vows as some of the promises set by me were quite "strict" *devilish wife grin* Only when the bride said "Yes or OK", then the groom could enter the room.

Fifth challenge: When he was about to pick me up, the ‘zi muis’ blindfolded the groom with a yellow cloth and was asked to guess the bride’s hand. 

It was quite a tough challenge as the groom had to choose the ‘correct’ hand among all some of my ‘zi muis’, cousins, nieces, nephews and even my AUNTIES’ hands. It was quite amusing to watch the groom grabbed all the hands and initially, he shoved my hand but after afew tips, he successfully guessed the correct hand. Hmphh!! 

Last and finally, happily ever after ^^

XOXO
Newlywed cat