Booking the venue

The first meet-the-parents session went pretty well. My mother left for an Australian trip mid-week, and we decided to go ahead with the dinner anyway, as there was less than a year to the wedding date, and seeing as how it's a supposedly auspicious date, we would be prudent to book a venue ASAP.

Dinner was at Soup Restaurant last Sunday, good thing a table was booked else we would have awkwardly stood around making small talk. Which would only be marginally more awkward than the actual dinner itself. Ahma came along and although the dinner was rather quiet, everyone seemed to enjoy the meal. Since there was a dinner queue, we decided to move to Lena's to have the discussion.

Honestly, we had already pretty much settled on the number of tables to book, the whole meet was us going through the motions. There was a little bit of laughter (relief!) as my dad raised the point that he was happy enough to see that we were lucky enough to find each other, and the wedding need not be complicated, marriage in itself is the reward. (I'm paraphrasing a lot here :P ) So most of the Chinese customs, like the dowry basket (huh?), fancy rituals and odd timings (double huh?) are not necessary. Tension dissipated after his gentle speech on his expectations, and we went back to our regular, boring lives as if it wasn't the 2nd most important dinner in my life. :E

I spent a couple of days looking through possible venues, hotel dinners were out as majority of the hotels required a minimum booking of 20 tables, and we were struggling to even fill 16 tables! We aren't the most sociable people either, but I come from a large extended family - Ahma has 11 other surviving siblings, and mom is the eldest of 6 surviving children. L's family is a lot smaller in comparison, so we'll see how it all sorts out.....

We settled on Qianxi group of restaurants, as the name was recommended by quite a number of friends and relatives. We also picked the mid-range menu, but opted to switch out shark's fin for fish maw soup. Placed the deposit, and the largest 'headache' was settled.

I now have to sort out the innumerable details for the Grand Day. Prior to meeting L to place the dinner venue deposit, I had met my bridesmaid, D, for lunch, and a walk through a bridal event held over this weekend at Vivocity. Oh boy, that was a stressful, though educational experience. Those salespersons are HARD CORE. Luckily, my mandarin was sub-par, so many of them were easily brushed off by my stammerings :P D helped me asked relevant questions, and translate many of their explanations.....but by then I was so worn out from having realized how little I knew about the process that I was still muddled when I met L.

Having slept over it, I think I will not take a package. I don't feel comfortable 'locked down', and after a cursory glance through freelance makeup artists (MUA) online, I feel comfortable knowing that what I want is not a difficult ask, and many local freelance MUA would be able to provide the service I require :)

Back to research.....zzzzzzzzzzzz