Woke up early this morning, just before 6 o’clock. Then the alarm rang at 5:55AM. I felt good and energized, but decided to stay in bed for a little while to think of what were the things I was supposed to do.

Yep, I’m staying home this morning to take care of some things, like paying the utility bills and buying the plywood for the wedding ceremony. I spoke to my mum about the makeup for the ‘miko’ girls and she said that my aunt and cousin could do it, since my ‘luk sum’ has an appointment at 2PM. The other alternative is to have the 2 ‘miko’-sans come to my house and have their makeup done before they go to the dojo.

The 2 flower girls’ flower-baskets are sitting on the armchair. I’m supposed to bring them over to Chin Jin’s for her godmother to fill with flower petals. The baskets are nicely wrapped and decorated.

Yesterday, I sent the email to the photographer without the attached map. How careless. Anyway, I resent the map this morning. Me and the boys have some planning to do tonight. Chin Jin and the girls have their gown fittings to do. So it works out just fine.

Nine days…

09 Part deux

Spent the evening with some of the ‘heng tai‘ at Hock Shai’s place. It was so nice of him to lend us the use of his den. We made progress with the plans for the wedding dinner night. Also Shai was watching his favourite movies “Lord of the Rings”. Pretty neat set up he has. Nice and clean now that he removed his old computer that got zapped by lightning. He even made us some ‘bubur‘. It had some peas, and bobor cha cha… (is that how its said?) Nice and hot!

We finished late. Eventually I got home at 11:30 and I found myself latched out of the house! Wah! I had to phone in and let my dad know that the front entrance was locked from the inside. Luckily he was still awake. So we chatted for a bit and he went to bed, while I continued to work on some more preparatory things for the wedding.

Boy, was I sleepy.

Wow, this is it. The countdown begins. Still plenty to do. More so, business is picking up. Wow, I’ve got to be better at this gratitude practice.

Things to do:

1. Total number of guests to be confirmed. Now we only have about 480.
2. Delivery of the matrimonial bed confirmed for Friday.
3. Room is ready for inhabiting.
4. Maps done and sent to the respective officials.
5. Final wedding ceremony practice has been set and all participants confirmed.
6. Grooms coat and suit sent for dry cleaning but waiting to be collected.
7. Honeymoon package to be confirmed, faxed to hotel.
8. Corsages to be made and car to be polished.
9. Registration helpers confirmed.

Well, there is more, but I can’t think too much now.

I was hoping that most of my family would be attending the wedding ceremony that afternoon. In fact, this ceremony carries far more meaning to the both of us, than anything else that day. The ceremony of spiritual union is the one thing that makes it all so special. It is a union of families, and union of the ‘fire’ element (male) and ‘water’ element (female). This ceremony joins us spiritually. We both take our vows before the Creator.

However, since some can’t make it that time, whatever the reason, we are doing our best to make a video and still slideshow of the event. Since it will take time for the video to be ready, I suppose the slideshow would be the next best thing to be shown during the dinner reception.

We still hope you can make it, but whatever it is, we understand. It is going to be a whole day of things happening. We can’t really expect you to spend the whole day just for us. That’ll be too selfish. To all our friends and family helping out, we really are grateful.
Now, 10 is coming to a close, we’ll be on to 9 soon.

Cheers!

The groom and entourage bring the gifts over to the bride’s family. That is what the title is all about. So this morning it was my turn. Getting up early, and waiting for the 25KG roast “Golden Pig” to arrive, and packing the car with all the gifts and fighting the morning traffic to get to the house. Well, it’s done now.

I’ll leave you with some photos of the event. Now, to air my car. It smells like roast pork now.

Lai Kum