Special Delivery

Last night, a hand delivered package from a certain doctor in Melbourne was received with much anticipation and excitement. As Jo poured out the contents of the envelope, she was absolutely thrilled at what it contained. Feeling overwhelmed, she examined each item which was lovingly put together with much thought and creativity.

We are truly grateful for all those hours spent hunting for materials and conceptualising our samples to specification. The mock ups are simply gorgeous, and even more so because it carries with it much more than its physical form - thank you!

Double Take

It was one of those rare days where Jo got off early from work. Since we had the evening ahead of us, we decided to head to one of our favourite joints, which was, at one point of time also our second home. We managed to find a park near the entrance minutes after we entered the carpark, much to our surprise. It was only later that we found out that Mid Valley had revised their parking rates.

Gone were the days where you got to park your car for RM 1.00 for the entire day. Guess the MV complex management got a little wiser!

Anyway, we continued our ring hunt as we had not been scouting for some weeks now. And so we headed for Selberan, the birth place of Jo's engagement ring. We were a little disappointed with their wedding range as there were not many choices. The only consolation was that they custom made rings to your preference.

On to our next stop, Love Diamond. We had passed this shop many times before but never actually set foot in it because it looked classy and I guess we didn't have any reason to before this.

Theirs was a different concept altogether. There you get to choose the design of your ring, then the thickness of it and finally the type of finishing. We found it pretty amusing and you could say it is custom made to a certain extent.

We spent some time considering our options and settled on two rings which we then asked for a qoute. The salesgirl told us that she would check with the factory and that she would give us a call the following day to let us know.

Well, off we were to dinner when we got a phone call from Love Diamond. Apparently, a colleague of the salegirl's had offered to work out the price for us on the spot and they had called us back to the shop.

When we got there, we were introduced to the other salesgirl who coincidentally was the same salesgirl who had sold Anderson the engagement ring from Selberan. She had recognised us when we were in the shop earlier and decided to do us favour.

So much for Anderson choosing a plain band ... it still cost way more than Jo's band even though there were some diamonds embedded around hers!

Now Hiring

Available Positions
1. Decorations Co-ordinator
2. Dinner Co-ordinators
3. Musicians (strings, woodwind, brass sections)
4. Advisor (females only)

Criteria

1. Forgo social life in order to perform in a pressure cooker 24/7

2. Can make people run even on empty

3. Able to find a needle in a haystack without forgetting that the horses need to be fed

4. Willing to be a slave who can work without the master breathing down your back

5. Can do and have done personality

6. Regard datelines as DEADlines

7. Will walk with us wherever ... even without limbs

Benefits

1. 2 exclusive passes to an eat-at-your-own-risk post-wedding meal

2. Flexible working hours

3. Permission to harass those working with you

4. Meet members of the opposite sex from other 'departments'

5. Guaranteed invitation to the wedding

6. A certificate of recognition to add to your list of achievements for your resume

7. Our eternal gratitude :)

The above benefits are accorded to all who perform well. Exceptional performance will be recognised and awarded bonus points which can be exchanged for duplicate gifts we may or may not receive during the wedding.

If you posses any of the qualities listed above, we would love to hear from you! Please submit your resumes with a certified true copy of all supporting documents. Shortlisted applicants will be contacted for an interview with the bride and groom-to-be.

Two Ladies

If you come across someone who is able to provide you with 3-4 good and reasonable contacts for every food item you suggest, you've found a good help. If you have two of them, all the better! You'd be unwise not to engage their services, for they will help you stretch your dollar for what it's worth. And if those two people are related and work well together, you had better hunt them down and do whatever it takes to ensure that they are contracted for they will keep you sane by saving you much time and energy.

Options, Options

White & Lacy or That Special Occasion? Two-piece gown or a one-piece ensemble? Embroidery down the front for a change or at the back so it's more visible? 3 inch train which boasts grandeur or a manageable 2.5 inch one? 30% buy back option or a discounted keep-for-your-daughter offer? Polite and diplomatic or an upfront and honest designer?

Endless questions to be answered just for ONE dress. As McCartney would sing it ... it's 'the long and winding road' ahead.

Bangkok, Here We Come!

We will be going to Bangkok for round two of shopping thanks to Air Asia :) Since our first visit in January this year, Jo had always said that she wanted to make another trip before the wedding but didn't think that her wish would turn into a reality. In a pleasantly surprising twist of events, she had one day checked her email and found an Air Asia e-newsletter sitting in her inbox.

Under normal circumstances, she would have just discarded the mail without thinking twice. On that day however, she decided to take a look at its contents and found that they were again offering good deals for flight tickets. Bangkok was on the list so she checked for available dates out of curiosity.

Well, those of you who are frequent Air Asia flyers will know how difficult it is to obtain cheap tickets, and that these are not normally offered on weekends. Also, this was not just any other weekend, as we were considering going over the long weekend surrounding National Day.

For obvious reasons, we were surprised and excited when the cheap tickets were available on the dates we were looking at. We were already short on leave (Jo was, at least!) so being able to spend three days there without needing to take off from work was a plus point. Of course, we had deliberately planned to hit the weekend so we could head to the infamous Chatuchak Market, which houses more things than any one shopping mall can hold at very reasonable prices!

It's a good five months before we set foot on Thai soil again, but already we're compiling our shopping list for wedding supplies - hopefully we'll have enough luggage space for all the stuff that will inevitably burn a big hole in our pockets!

The Heat is On

2007 has seen it's share of weddings although we're only into the third month. We've been to two weddings in the past two weeks, and just a few days back, we received yet another 'summon'. For some reason or other, it looks like this is a good year to get hitched.

We've had our fair share of good days in terms of wedding planning, but with all the buzz that is going on and all the talk about how other people's weddings are beginning to take shape, it is quite impossible not to feel a tinge of guilt or that stray butterfly in your stomach when we think about our own wedding and how slowly things seem to be moving along.

It seems like the time advantage we had with our two year engangement is now seeping away with every tick of the second hand. Things that should have been completed and could have been done earlier were put on hold because we thought that time was on our side. It is not until you sit down and think of all the things that still need to be done that you realize that 10 months is not a long time.

Maybe it is a good thing that there are a stream of weddings before ours - they serve as a constant reminder that we need to get off our butts and get to the grind.

Before You Say 'I Do'

We've been told by those who have already tied the knot that it's a good 13 sessions of pre-marital counselling before we're eligible to get married. In a sense, it's a course we have to pass before we take our vows and before our church elder agrees to solemnise the marriage.

It's been four months since our first session with our counsellors, and we still have a considerable way to go before we turn the last pages of the book we're working through. To understand why it takes us such a long time to get through each chapter, you'll have to see for yourself the number of questions they make us answer every lesson!

It can get quite repetitive at times and we admit that it is a chore to ensure that our 'homework' is completed on time. Having said that, it is a relief to know that our other half is also suffering the same fate, hence the verse that we've chosen that two are better than one!

Nevertheless, it has been a good experience so far - being able to talk things over with input from our practical, down-to-earth counsellors and hearing from an outsider's perspective sure helps us see things we previously missed.

One thing's for sure though ... we're definitely looking forward to the day this ends where we won't have to spend our Sunday afternoons slogging through the questions in Coffee Bean or some other cafe in town!