Name: Karen Yeo
Burpdae: 16th June
Email: karenyeocp@gmail.com
MSN: sapphire1641@hotmail.com
My Wish List
Karen's Top Priority
Good tenants
Renovate whole hse in 2 yrs' time
Pyjamas Party
Slim Digital Camera
Karen's Secondary Priority
Learn Ballroom-dancing
A Light 12" laptop
Okinawa/Kyoto/Hokkaido
Set up my business
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Actual Day Gown Selection
After completing a last min presentation & kan-na roasted by the "chef" (this sentence contributed by Daniel), Daniel & I rushed down to the bridal studio at JB to select our Actual Day gowns. If you are wondering why am I still selecting my gowns when I am 25 days away from the wedding, that's because my thematic package offers me another 3 gowns and Kua (Cantonese traditional costume) for my actual day, which are not part of the 7 gowns that I had for my photoshoot. Great package right?
The bridal studio probably thought that we were eligible to promote their studio packages to our friends and hence gave us many of their new gowns to try. So I had the privilege of being the first to wear some of their gowns.
I love this dress because of the back details and train although the front is simple. But we didn't choose this in the end because there were better dresses..
Sneak preview of the dress that I'll be wearing for the last march-in.... I love the cute flowers!!! Daniel call them sunflowers which apparently isn't and he even asked the assistant if he needs to water them... Silly ~~~ well this dress is easy to carry around during phototaking cos it doesn't have a train. And most importantly, I'm the first to wear this gown!!! It's New!!!
And the Kua that I'll be wearing for the tea ceremony.. Hmm... I don't know how to comment.. either you like or you don't like. Personally I think this is the only chance that I can request to wear a Kua in my lifetime. Beside, I love the bling bling stuff on the Kua! Daniel says I look cute.. Am I supposed to look cute in Kua???
Next Monday we will collecting the album, poster, big wedding bedframe photo and photo DVD. They showed us a sneak preview today and we are going to post some of them here first.... I'm really looking forward to Monday where I can really put my hands to something real, physical and bring them home after all the hardwork of travelling down many times and the amount of $$$ paid.
After that, Daniel & I went to buy a gift for Mummy Annie for all the hard work of helping us with the renovation this while. Thank God for her! Since Mummy Annie is very into wearing hairband nowadays, we decided to buy her a very nice bling bling glamourous hairband to go with her night gown for our wedding night. I think she likes it alot when we presented to her just now.
Daniel & I just came back from a super long "fellowship" with my family & closest uncles, aunties & cousins.
My parents treated everyone to a dinner cos they strike lottery with "our number" and after which we went for a walk at Labrador Park which we didn't know would turn out to be an almost 1-hr plus stroll. It has been so many years since I went there.. I was telling Daniel the last time I went there was probably 10yrs ago with my first boyfriend..hehee... and Labrador Park has changed so much. It is so much brighter cleaner and much conducive place for family to picnic and fish or simple stroll or jog.
Just when we thought that it's almost over, my cousin's husband Sam suggested to go "limb teh" -> drink tea at 12 midnight??? And guess what, the entire "fellowship" ended around 130am after tea session. OMG!!! I guess this kinda scare Daniel off cos this is his first "walk" with my family after a dinner and I think he will have reserve in going for another stroll with them again.
But I must say that this is a good & simple way to bond with our loved ones, catching up with each other lives through chit-chatting, strolling & "limb teh" since we seldom spend time with each other.. Moreover our wedding is coming... haha... Anyway it has been an enjoyable time ... but we pray it will not happen too often ;)
In the midst of all the dust & dirty reno works, Daniel's family and I still managed to take some time off to shop for my dowry. As a Teochew Bride, part of the dowry that Daniel & his parents have to "deliver " to my place during the 过大礼 weekend would be the 四点金. This is what Mummy Annie has bought for me.. 四点金 - A set of gold with four items. We chose a set of gold pieces with White Gold details so that they look more contemporary - A Necklace, Bracelet, A pair of Earrings and A Ring
These are too glamorous and heavy looking for everyday wear, don't you think so? Perhaps for functions?
Daniel's grandma also got us to choose a pair of rings that she would be giving to us during the tea ceremony on the Actual Day & we chose this pair: Nice right??? We didn't know that gold ring can look this nice.. And they are cheaper and have more value than our ROM white gold diamond ring. We decided to use this pair of ring for exchange during our Holy Matrimony.
For those of you who are not yet married, 过大礼 weekend is a weekend (usually 2 weeks before wedding) where the Groom-to-be and parents are to bring some stuff over to the bride-to-be's house and in exchange the Bride-to-be's parents will give some stuff back to the Groom-to-be's parents. This is a tradition and the stuff for exchange vary according ethnic group. In our case since I'm a Teochew Bride, there's no 烧猪 like Jiaying's but these are the following items that Daniel has to bring over:
四点金
Two bottles of Brandy
Eight oranges
Eight boxes of cakes
Two pairs of Dragon & Pheonix Candles 龙凤烛
Bride's Price in a Red Packet 聘金
Yup that's right, Bride's Price 聘金!!! Hmm.. let me think... Daniel, how much am I worth ah????
What have I have busy with the past one week? Hmm.. Fell sick, sending tenants away, consolidating ideas (nice vs practical) & shopping for my master bedroom and toilet makeover, and preparing the game "Don't Forget The Lyrics" for CHC Live House over the weekend.
Initially Daniel & I just wanted to do some simple touch up and reno to our rooms after our tenants' checkout but Mummy Annie suggested that we should do up our bedroom and personal toilet to "set the atmosphere right" for our marriage life. Eh-erm.. it's not wat you are thinking right now...Basically we will still be re-leasing our two common rooms out for the next 1 yr or so.. Hence Mummy Annie wants us to have a comfortable place that we can return home to everyday... so we decided to "Makeover" instead..
Looking for a totally different look and feel to our room and toilet, Daniel and I went through the design and feel with Mummy Annie again and again over the week. Thank God for a Interior Designer Mummy who can help us save time by bringing us to the right contractor, hacker, plumber, electrician etc. and to the right places to purchase our materials. I must say making choices & shopping for the house interior design is stressful becos everything is so expensive and they are going to be there for a long time so there can be no room for mistake!!! The colour theme for our toilet is black white and we love the basin we have chosen.. For those of you who are or who will be looking for toilet accessories, maybe you can consider "Lookz".. According to Mummy, their prices are cheaper than Sim Siang Choon. The MakeOver will start from tomorrow onwards so I guess Daniel & I will be busy for the next 3 weeks at least.
Another thing that caused me to sleep at almost 5-6 am for three days is the game preparation for CHC Live House. Although I had an existing template, there was so much more to do... putting more song selections, finding the 70 songs and converting them to wma. file etc.. But thank God it turned out to be good at Expo over the last two days. You should see how crazy and funny our CHC members were.. The response was simply overwhelming and we had to stop the people from queuing to play the game. JW people, don't worry.. I think the church will bringing the CHC Live House program to JW as well.. so you guys will not miss out the fun.
Ok. enough blogging. I need to Zzzz liao... Gotta go replenish my beauty sleep for the week.
About a week ago after one of the cg meetings, Pastor came to meet a few of us in Alvin's cg to fellowship. He was sharing with us about his Housing Agent's unwavering faith on the power of tithing and walking under open heaven, that no matter how busy he is and may not have the time to attend services due to house viewing, he will doubtlessly drop his tithe personally every week at his church office, and always with great anticipation that good things are going to happen to him soon. And many times God will just bring a lot of financial blessing into his life. So after hearing this, I can't help but to agree with Pastor that sometimes tithing can become so routine for us that over time we can lose that "joy" in being a cheerful giver; that "anticipation" that after tithing we will continue to live under open heavens and experience many blessings. And I believe this is not how God wants us to tithe even though tithing is obedience to God's commandment.
Hence quickly last weekend after the sharing by Pastor, I told myself to fulfill my Building Fund Pledge with joy and gladness and today as I tithed, I told God in my heart what I'm anticipating in this phase of my life by writing them on my tithing envelope - of cos "Abundance, No lack, financial blessings" are part of the list that I've written down.
And guess what??? BOTH my parents won 2nd prize in their 4D lottery this evening with my ROM Certificate number!!! Ok.. I know this doesn't sound very spiritual but I'm still glad that my parents got a good amount of $$$ from the prize money which will help them quite a bit with many big expenses coming up.
Not only that, tonight my parents gave me a hongbao for my wedding! Super advance I know.. and I was very surprised too. Maybe you are thinking what came to my mind then. I was thinking "Maybe becos they strike 4D using my number, so they wanna bless me"... but when they told me how much was in the red packet, I knew it wasn't so cos they are not the type who would keep too much cash in the house. So there and then I knew that the 4D winning and the red packet blessing are two separate issues and God have brought about 2 blessings into my life in one night after I tithed with anticipation this afternoon! Thank you Jesus!
They say that this red packet is for me to prepare for the wedding and even if I don't have need of it now, this is their gift for me in my marriage. I was truly very touched in my heart.... Nope Ruxin, I didn't cry. Just touched.
Becos I had this thought in my heart sometime ago and I shared with Daniel too. "Dear... there are so many expenses.. and our parents have been asking for this and that.. but how come they have never ask us about how we are coping with the preparations and the expenses etc? Whether we have enough or not? How come they never discuss with us about the pin jin (Bride's Prize for the Guo Da Li)? How ah? Are we supposed to come out with our own pin jin during the Guo Da Li?" As much as we want to be independent from our parents, I sometimes felt we were on our own in this area.
But after sometime we come to a point believing that our parents just didn't want to meddle too much with our wedding and that they knew when to give us a helping hand.
Thank you Father and Mother for the big hongbao!
I'm so excited about renewing my attitude in bringing my tithe to the House of God! Thank you Pastor for sharing this with us that night. With Great Anticipation and Joy I will Bring! Amen!
Hi guys, as promised this are the results for the competition. And the results are.....50% thinks karen looks like fiona xie at first glance!!! I wonder what karen looks like from the second glance...
And not too bad 31.3% thinks Fiona looks like Karen!! Wohoo guess i got the real stuff huh?
And 12.5% percent of you says if you just woke up....i think you go back and sleep bah...
and finally 6.3% or only one of you voted that " Its like Obama and bush are brothers"...
i think you are color blind... and from all the people i know...only Kee Liang is colorblind....
Anyway thanks for all the voting!!! Until next time of our competition stay tuned!!
Today Daniel & I went to finalize our wedding photo album layout. Daddy & Mummy came along as well, and I was a bit worried initally about how they will think especially since the photos were not very conventional type... So when Mummy saw the photos, some comments she made are "Like Ming2 Xin1 (Superstar) hor", "Wau.. so seducive ah", "Nowadays wedding photos don't feel like wedding anymore hor, more like personal makeover portfolio.. so different!"... hmmm...I'm going to take these words positively and I guess she's impressed with the photos.. & so I also hope it will impress everyone else as well...Really excited & looking forward to 1 June when we will receive everything in our package that we have been paying and making countless trips for!!!
Anyway, I wanna introduce this boy band Libera to all of you. Libera is a non-profit all-boy vocal group directed by Robert Prizeman. Their name comes from their signature song "Libera," which is based on the Libera Me portion of the Requiem Mass. "Libera" is the Latin word for "free". Most of the boys in Libera come from the parish choir of St. Philips, Norbury, in South London. The albums, tours and TV appearances the boys do as Libera are in addition to their regular singing as part of the full choir of men and boys at parish choral services.
These boys have such angelic voices and I will be using one of their songs as my march-in song for my Holy Matrimony but I'm going to keep it suspense except for a few who already knew which song. "Far away" is also very nice and I'm going to use the Piano Version of this song during the Ceremony Procession, which is the song that you are hearing now on my blog. Enjoy!
You can also hear the full song with lyrics in Youtube.
Whereever I go Far away and anywhere
Time after time you always shine through dark of night calling after me
And whereever I climb Far away and anywhere
You raise me high beyond the sky through stormy night lifting me above
Venite Spiritu et emitte caelitus Venite Spiritu et emitte caelitus Venite Spiritu Venite Spiri tus
Whenever I cry Far away and anywhere
You hear me call when shadows fall your light of hope showing me the way
I love this dress because of the back details and train although the front is simple. But we didn't choose this in the end because there were better dresses..
I love the cute flowers!!! Daniel call them sunflowers which apparently isn't and he even asked the assistant if he needs to water them... Silly ~~~ well this dress is easy to carry around during phototaking cos it doesn't have a train. And most importantly, I'm the first to wear this gown!!! It's New!!!
And the Kua that I'll be wearing for the tea ceremony.. Hmm... I don't know how to comment.. either you like or you don't like. Personally I think this is the only chance that I can request to wear a Kua in my lifetime. Beside, I love the bling bling stuff on the Kua! Daniel says I look cute.. Am I supposed to look cute in Kua???
四点金. This is what Mummy Annie has bought for me..
四点金 - A set of gold with four items.
These are too glamorous and heavy looking for everyday wear, don't you think so? Perhaps for functions?
Nice right??? We didn't know that gold ring can look this nice.. And they are cheaper and have more value than our ROM white gold diamond ring. We decided to use this pair of ring for exchange during our Holy Matrimony.
May your love for each other be the envy of many forever....