A Wedding Tale - a day before the day

Friday, 23rd May 2008. Eve of the Wedding.

Woke up after 8am. Had breakfast with the family. Cup of coffee and nasi lemak.

Went to the park with Yin and Josh. Josh was happy sitting on the swing while watching the local kindergarden kids dancing to action songs. Then he had a whale of a time at the playground, climbing up steps, sliding down winding tubes, et cetera.

Back around 10am. Updated the guest list and table arrangement. Changes coming in even on the eve. Managed to get them printed on the home printer.

After lunch, went out to get guest list, song sheets, actual day programme photocopied. Wedding car arrived. A 60s era Volkswagon. Vicky's brother highlighted the many shortcomings of the car before leaving. Uncle George and Auntie Mary soon arrived.

Went out to fetch Vicky to decorate the car, but made u-turn after her mum advised that the bride should not be entering the groom's house on the eve. We have broken or ignored so many customs, a rule observed won't help salvaged the situation.

Tried to attach 'wedding bears' to front deco. Then Louie and Khye arrived. Soon Steve, Shireen, Ray, Willie and Sigrid arrived. Willie brought prawn noodles, otah for tea. Went through the songs for the church ceremony.

Headed to Church at 5.15pm. Started up organ and began practice. Only four songs, but not everybody knew all the songs. Vicky, her dad, and cousins arrived for 'march-in' rehersal. Flower girl had some problem walking in with the right speed and throwing flower petals at the same time. Florist started work with the pew flowers - pink and white gerbera bouquets.

Headed back after 7pm. Walked over to Yan Style restaurant for dinner. Three tables. Guest who joined us were Uncle George and Aunt Mary, Uncle and Auntie Gan, Mrs Peh, Uncle and Auntie Er, Aunt Mary Seah, 'Lau Kim', Steve, Shireen, Pauline and my own family. Went out to fetch my photographer friends just before dinner.

Started fixing up the car deco after dinner. Thanks to friends, the car actually looked quite smart and elegant. Steven and Jeff took the car on a test drive around the neighbourhood. Soon Ray, Carol, Marina, Ryan, Will, Sigrid, Justin, Hsu-ann and Adel came over. Went through the church songs one last time. Fortunately Adel was around to correct my version of 'Lead me Lord'. Before calling it a night, did a run through of the next day's programme with the team. Everyone left about 12.30am.

Bathed and called it a night around 1.45am. Sleep was hard to come by. Probably slept about 2 hours before the alarm went off ....

(to be continued)

We're Married

Yes, we're officially married ... in the eyes of the law - tick, in the customary tradition - tick, and in the eyes of God - tick.

And for once, I don't have my own pictures to show of a wedding. Will have to wait for the official ones from my phtographer. Meeting him on Thursday after work to collect the CD. So expect some pics coming up by the weekend after I resize them down to manageable size. By the way, there are already a few photos up on Facebook, courtesy of friends who were there.

Meanwhile I'll be writing my account of the events that trasnpired on the eve and actual day of the wedding, so do look out for it.

Invites

By now, all our guest should be holding on to one of our invitation cards. Well, it took quite a bit of sweat and labour to produce our own cards.

We, being believers that 'Made in Malaysia' is the best way to keep our wedding budget in check, took another step further by deciding to make our cards in Muar. What could be so hard with Vicky's cousin being in the printing business back home. We got to find that out real soon when we got the card design to her. Her shop did mainly digital prints, choice of paper and evelopes were also limited in Muar, and the preference was always for customers to choose a ready made card and add on a customized inter-lay. We already had a design in mind with the help of Vicky's sis, a recent multimedia design graduate, and really wanted our own simple design to come into print.

What followed was a long process of finding a printer who could print the way we envisioned, choosing the right coloured card, finding square envelopes (the only available ones came in red), and deciding to make our own stamp. Much communication over the phone and trips back home finally resulted in our cards coming into print. It must have taken an anxious 2 months to get it out. Special thanks to Sis-in-law who assisted us patiently throughout the process!

In the Director's Box

Who would have thought that stitching together a string of photos into a 10 min slideshow could be so difficult. Did I say 10 mins?! Darn, that means back to the trimming board.

Well, I started with a ready bunch of scanned and digital photos, so I figured that I just needed to play around with the animation, timing and music, and in no time I will be done. Wrong! Thoughts like 'these photos need some adjusting', to 'I need to hold that frame longer and add fade away to those' , to 'how do I get the songs to fade at the right time?' keep popping up, even after the nth time I'm replaying the slides.

After two weeks, the project is still in development stage. Haven't mastered the music transition and still working on the ending. Anyway I have a two weeks deadline till the premier, so got to do whatever it takes.

Back to lights, camera, action ....