More happenings

We are really thankful for the use of my brother’s car during the March school holidays. We used the car to visit various bridal boutiques to enquire the packages and check out the gowns. As many of these services are found in the vicinity of Tanjong Pagar Road, we incurred quite a lot of ERP and parking charges in the CBD district.

We visited a range of boutiques, from the Taiwanese style to the designer style ones, and generally received quite good service. Thank God for that. Of course there were persistent ones who “refused to let us go”, but I was pretty firm on not committing to one until I have visited all my shortlisted boutiques. Poor Dan had to accompany me on these many trips, and he was nursing a cold through the week.

Some packages were value for money, but the in-house photography did not appeal to us. Other boutiques had acceptable gowns but Dan wasn’t too conversant with the in-house designer/photographer in Mandarin. Different “frequency” I think. Some boutiques had designers whose skills we were not too confident about. Others had confident but strong opinionated designer whom we will probably not enjoy working with so closely. The “a la-carte” designer boutiques are generally non insistent and provides us their package lists to take back whereas the Taiwanese style ones will hold onto the pricelists.

No particular shop wowed us very much, i.e. until we stepped into Divine Couture, and we were blown away by the service of the designer Kim. She radiated such warmness and sincerity as she attended to us. We have had a long day of traveling around before stepping into this boutique for our last stop. And I had earlier copied the wrong address which resulted in us entering the Orchard CBD and paying exorbitant parking charges at Meritus Mandarin. Arrrgh. So we weren’t exactly feeling very chirpy when we visited DC. But wow, we quickly warmed up to Kim as she attended to us. Amazing PR skills. She selected some lovely gowns for me to try on, and shifted her attention to Dan while I changed. They discussed ideas for groom’s suits and she freely offered useful advices. Then she got him seated comfortably on the couch to view the photographs as she brought out the bride to him. It is such subtle attention that makes her service outstanding. For the first time, Dan felt that he actually existed! Heh, Kim came across as confident, yet non pushy as she explained to me what gowns would suit my body type.

Dan was all ready to end the search and sign up with DC. We both felt assured that we would be in good hands if we signed up with her. But me, being me, wanted to do more comparison, so we visited a few other boutiques. None came close to DC when it comes to the service quality. However, the drawback of DC is its higher cost. The package including photography will burst our budget so I wasn’t sure if it is a wise decision… :( We are still deciding. I plan to make a second trip to DC to look for a gown that I really love, so that I will not need to have a MTM gown, which costs an extra $1K!

We visited a photographer on Wednesday to check out his portfolio and packages. A we are both very comfortable with him and his photography style, we plan to engage him for the photo shoot. That’s another item off the checklist. Whew! And many many more stuff to do. Praying that we will pace ourselves comfortably, and not wear ourselves down during this period.

Happenings

It has been a month since the last entry, and so many things have taken place, in preparation for our wedding and future. We have confirmed our Big Day to be in Dec 08. We have scouted around and visited several hotels for the banquet dinner package. We are considered rather late in our search for hotels as many hotel ballrooms have been booked by other couples. Yet, God has been good. He reserved for us Pan Pac hotel which Dan loves and has always dreamed of holding for his wedding dinner there. We were very comfortable with the coordinator as well. It helped that the online forums had good reviews of both the hotel and the coordinator. The perks seemed to be most comprehensive among the various hotels we visited.

After confirming the hotel, we started looking at our future housing options. We have submitted a total of 3 applications for various HDB balloting exercise. We were rejected for 2 of them (Boon Keng Design & Build, and flats in mature estate) and successful in 1 application (Build-to-order 4-room flat at Punggol). We’ve been praying together for God’s provision and leading regarding our future dwelling, and so it seemed that God has closed 2 doors and opened 1. However, as days passed, I became more unsure of the Punggol flat, mainly because the project will only be completed in end 2012, a good 4 years after our wedding! That is a little too long a wait! We discussed this several times and agreed to try searching for available resale flats. Alas, property prices are so high now, most flat owners are asking for at least 30-50k above valuation, and these are probably the older flats and a distance from MRT stations. Since we are able to stay with either set of parents immediately after wedding, we were in no hurry to find a place to stay. Hence, we are ready to forgo the Punggol flat selection and take our time to scout for a re-sale flat that we liked. We can continue to take part in HDB’s balloting exercise if more ready flats are offered in the future.

This had been our stand until 2 Sats ago on 8 March, Dan received a call from the agents for the Boon Keng Design & Build project. We have been shortlisted in the second round for selection of flat! We were told that we were unsuccessful about a month ago, and it was a disappointment as we had liked the convenient location. We prayed and thanked God for His closed door, and put this option aside. Little did we realize that God would open the door for us again. We were so excited at this news and went about doing our homework, calculating our finances, recording the sale prices of each unit, reccee-ing the surrounding, going up to top floors of nearby flats to check out the views etc. It was truly a fun and rewarding experience. Before our selection date, I experienced the anxiety pangs as we checked the units left from time to time. Top floor units with sea view were quickly snapped up. On our selection day, we managed to get our first choice unit at the 19th floor. Whew! Thank God for His provision! We trust that we can enjoy unblocked sea view from that level. Although we will be saddled with huge 30 year loan, we trust that it is a good investment and we can get to enjoy the prime location for many years. The construction has started, and it is expected to be completed in mid 2011, if not earlier. :)

Right after we signed the documents, Dan received a call from the developer of a private condominium asking if we are interested to get a unit at its condo. There is now a 20% discount of the sale price. Since we have already committed to this, we just convinced ourselves that the condo option is not as good. Although we will get the unit immediately, we will have to pay at least $100+k more for the unit, have higher interest rates for bank loan, cough up cash to furnish the house now, endure the inconvenient location without MRT, possibly have a harder time selling off the unit in future… Yup, so we are still pleased with our purchase at Boon Keng. Another testament of God’s provision.

Update 2

The other person who entered my life is Daniel. Am so amazed to see God’s hand in bringing us together. He has indeed been our source of strength, wisdom and direction. I marvel at how God turned my heart round, from one of disinterest to openness in building the friendship, and eventually to fall in love with this man whom He has prepared. Yes, I am touched by Dan’s love, sweetness, maturity, generosity, humor, persistence and many more attributes…

Though we have only been together for 4+ months, I have learnt much in the process of growing this relationship, to communicate, to understand each other and to know our likes and dislikes. We have shared times of joy, excitement, tension and tears, and I do say that these moments have strengthened us as a couple. I thank our Lord for leading and guiding us thus far.

Dan joined my family for visitation in KL this CNY. It must have been a bit of a culture shock for him, to visit relatives in a “Kampong” style neighborhood, to take in the different sights and sounds, to taste local food, to feel the heat, literally, in KL. I was a little worried that Dan might not be used to it. Thankfully, everything turned out quite well, and we even managed to spend some couple time in the midst of this festivity. On the third day, my family also managed to drive up to Genting to spend an hour or two in the resort.

We celebrated our first V-day together this year. Dan painstakingly planned the evening’s program, and he themed it “Sweet Surprises”. I was so full of anticipation for the evening cos he had hinted at something special. It was indeed a night of sweet surprises!

First surprise – Dan rented a performance car for the occasion. Didn’t recognize his car when he came to pick me after work. Actually he wanted a convertible car, but the car was sent for servicing last minute, so he settled for a turbo-charged car. Heh, guys’ toys…

We headed to Botanic Gardens and I was pleasantly surprised that we were fine dining at au Jardin, a French restaurant. Wow, the food was great, exquisite and delicious. Waiters were all decked in jackets. The restaurant accepted only 12 couples for the evening. So there was a lot of quietness and privacy. Was initially quite tense and self-conscious, but settled in comfortably as time went on. It was a 7-course dinner, served at a comfortable pace. We took in the ambience and classiness of it all. I couldn’t resist taking pics of the food that were served. Unfortunately, I left out one or two dishes and only remembered after the food was eaten. Heh. This dinner is definitely a rare and fine experience for me, and it costs Dan a bomb! A big bomb I must say! Am so touched by his extravagance.

Venus clams in salsa verde, horseradish & caviar d'Aquitaine

Smoked quail with foie gras & Jamon Jabugo

Slow roasted Wagyu beef tenderloin with braised beef blade, shallots marmalade

Sometime through the dinner, Dan arranged for a bouquet of roses to be delivered. So sweet of him and I loved it very much! Dan also prepared 6 little notes to hand me, at various intervals through the night. And each of this constitutes a surprise for me. He has gotten 2 tickets for us up the Flyer on our next month’s anniversary J He has purchased a blouse online, to be delivered to my home, which I am to wear on my birthday. He also bought me a sweet Precious Moment figurine featuring the “unbreakable cords of love”.

Heh, my gift to him is a humble fragrance, and a DIY snack jar for him to have in school, whenever he is hard pressed for time and has no time to grab a proper meal. Don’t want him to go about on an empty stomach. Had wanted to buy him some biscuits initially, but it developed into this gift idea of packing him a nice snack jar full of goodies. Hope that he likes it and finds it useful.

After the dinner, we took a slow walk in the garden and Dan found a nice spot at the symphony lake and sat me down. He read me a sweetly composed poem, and I almost teared as I listened to him. Such words of love, affection and sincerity. Dan handed me a box with the note “Will you marry me?” It was then that he went down on his knees and presented a most beautiful ring to me. I was very moved and said yes to him even though we’ve not been together very long. It helped that I was prepared and had seen it coming cos we’ve talked about our future oftentimes. I was also assured that God was the One who brought us together and we had been working toward possible marriage when we first started the courtship.