I had planned for this day some time in advance (though several things worked in my favour, the Great Singapore Sale notwithstanding). So the plan was for my parents and my 大姑 in her alternate capacity as my godmother to meet her family over a lunch at Peach Garden - my third most frequented restaurant in the world, with KFC and Mac being the first and second respectively. And this was thanks to Laura Foo and her mum.
As is always the case, fate has the last say in determining my itinerary for the day and my eyes were to be denied their rest for another 14 hours...
The 提亲 event was originally scheduled to happen in July, with the plan being that my mum and dad would pay a visit to Sonia's place to undertake the necessary negotiations in the comfort of their home. Then it became a visit to her place followed by a lunch at someplace nearby. The home visit scenario prompted her mum to buy a whole new set of dining table chairs for the occasion, but again, a last minute suggestion by Sonia's dad prompted a sea change in our schedule.
Thankfully, Laura's mum stepped into the picture and I'd always longed to bring my parents for a good meal at the nice locations in my working area. Since I could not have afforded Tower Club and China Club (a.k.a. canteen by Boon Kiat), Peach Garden @ Executive Club in OCBC Centre seemed like a good bet. Situated on the 33rd floor of the OCBC Centre tower and given a private room facing the Esplanade (thanks to Laura's Mum's hospitality), we held our discussion in relative comfort supplemented by the excellent (as usual) collection of dim sum and Peking Duck.
As I was anticipating a fair bit of parry-riposte (though not like the tales of table-banging and hand-wringing that were making their rounds in our age group), I was pleasantly surprised that the whole affair was a very cordial and polite one, given that demands on either side were nothing like the horror stories told by my well-meaning colleagues and married friends.
Over wasabi prawns and shark cartilage soup, the bride's side had the following requests:
- Cans of pork leg and cakes for the parents' siblings;
- Tables for the wedding;
- Some traditional sweets for the elders in the extended family; and
- A nominal sum for the 嬪金
My side requested for the following:
- Sets of Dragon and Phoenix candles;
- Traditional sweets for my elders;
- Nominal red packets for my sisters to replace the 手信; and
- Red packets to replace the 痰桶 and the other (quite antiquated and unnecessary) betrothal gifts
We concluded the meal with an exchange of pleasantries, with both sides agreeing that other requirements could be added if something was thought of later. And it was during this time that Sonia's handphone rang, and it was Kat from La Belle Couture on the line. She told us that our photos were ready for selection and scheduled a Monday slot for our that purpose. I knew that Sonia was terribly excited about the photos and I suggested that we go down today, an idea which she immediately warmed to. And so we arranged with Kat to go down at 6pm that very day, which really should have warned me that the day would not see me getting any rest (nor
any chance to visit the ongoing PC Show).
My mum, aunt and I first adjourned to SGH to visit 阿公, who was in significantly better shape since his admission some 2 weeks ago. His spirits hinged on the date of discharge though, and I was feeling quite helpless at not being able to accompany him through the days here. In the ward, 小姑 (who had been there since noon) was suggesting that we visit On Cheong for our 四点金 needs, and so yet another impromptu plan was formed.
We met Sonia at the On Cheong outlet at Chinatown along Smith Street, but the array of gold pieces (as well as the lacklustre service quality) did nothing to convince me that they were interested to do our business. We switched over to Poh Heng and Tian Po at People's Park Complex, and though we concluded our visit to the small Tian Po outlet in a jiffy, the Poh Heng store was one of the largest that we had seen so far. 大姑 was especially mesmerized by the intricate traditional Chinese neck adornments like the following piece:
We looked around the area and decided to proceed on with our remaining task as there was nothing exceptional about the selection at that particular Poh Heng store. We trekked some 1 km (in a roundabout manner thanks to my trusty iPhone and the buggy Maps app) to reach La Belle. Kat was all ready for us - and for the ensuing bargaining war.
We had looked forward to this day for quite some time, and when it finally arrived, we were not let down by the works of the photographer, Kenny. It was really a sight to behold, and we had a very difficult 2 hours poring over the selection of photographs trying to isolate the best shots of the lot without financially crippling ourselves.
The fondant colours and vivid hues introduced by the expert editing of Kenny really put us in a spot, and we eventually paid an additional $1,500 for more pages and poses. That brought our total expenditure at La Belle to $5,400, and whilst I had heard of astronomical sums, this figure was quite a big outlay for us as well.
We ended the day on a happy note, and some sneak peeks of the photos chosen are as follows:
