My Wedding: A dramedy over three exciting days.

QQ: What do Belinda Carlisle and I have in common?

A: We both had landmark moments on the 8^th of October – she performed to an (almost) full-house on the Fort Canning green alongside Bananarama; and I wed my knight in shining armour, who on my request (more like a epic nervous breakdown), prevented her from performing at our wedding.

Well, she ALMOST performed at my wedding – you see, the half-wits who let us book the White Studio were not supposed to rent out the room that faced the Fort Canning Green on the day of the concert. Of course, being slightly touched, they did not call to let me know they’ve organized a concert just for poor old me and our friends on our Big Day; My DJ who went to check out the venue almost had a fit when he realised he had to combat and was expected to perform against 100dB of noise a few inches from his station!

This was two days before the wedding. And so, the fun began.

Anu, Raine and I, Before the adventures began

I was with my BFFs crossing off things on my To-Do list when I received the distressed call about the DJ’s musical enlightening. We dropped everything and showed up at the Fort Canning office to confront the clueless staff, only to realise that the only persons more surprised than us were the bewildered, now headless minions and one manager who looked at us like we just took a collective dump on her lawn!

Oh did I mention, the naïve DJ thought that we could shut the doors, bolt the windows and pile on speakers in the original room to counter the noise from the concert! I almost died laughing at the visual in my head – everyone in our room being blown away by the combined wall of cacophony like Macaulay Culkin’s dad in MJ’s famous music video.

Digressions aside, the still stupefied manager magically provided us with another (supposedly better) venue that had a quaint roof, 12 French doors, no projector, no loo and a long, winding cobbled path that wrecked havoc with the girls’ high heels – my guests were compelled to walk up because cars are not allowed in to the park. Awesome isn’t the word that comes to mind.

At this point, I also realised the decorations would not go with the new (improved) venue. Trust me, I’ve never said “FML” so many times in one day as I did on that Thursday before my wedding. My GFs and I scrambled to find a florist who would help us fill in the gaps at the last minute, because there was no way we could DIY anymore. Thanks to Rajiv’s colleague who got hitched a few weeks before us, we went in search of her philanthropic miracle worker of a florist who only does weddings through referrals. Long story short, the lady empathised and took on my wedding despite being swamped and having to work with my stupidly tiny budget. Bless her.

The Fairy-lights and gigantic pots

The next day was one day before D-Day, my husband-to-be and his BFF visited the venue, only to realise there was a gigantic flaw in our floral arrangements. Thus began another scramble to the florist to change the entire set up, and my knight in shining armour upped the budget at the last minute, giving the florist more options to play with. Result? Gargantuan pots with gently dangling tea-candles from wriggly branches – truly magical, especially when we turned the lights out.

By this point, I was a nervous wreck and bit my nails to the quick; I was thus forced to get fake nails (if any of you reading this are EVER planning on getting these, DON’T. They’re evil. I need an entire post to explain why).

The 8^th dawned wet and gloomy, an honest reflection of my mood when I stabbed myself in the eye and realised I would have to saw off half the length of my newly acquired talons, or I’d never make it through the day without maiming myself. That done, I waltzed off to get my hair done – the one thing completed without incident and my stylist gave me the exact Audrey Hepburn pile of curls that I wanted. But obviously, the day wouldn’t go by without incident. So sir, it wouldn’t.

I went home to get dressed and peeked at my wedding cake from Awfully Chocolate that was delivered while I was at the hairdressers. To my horror, I discovered I was to wed a man called “Rajid”, because that was what was scrawled on the cake!

We had an hour and a half to touchdown at the venue and I was convinced by this point that finding me a “Rajid” from Mustafa would be easier than trying to get the cake guys to rectify the misspelling before it was Showtime. But miracles do happen and I cut the cake with my “Rajiv” a few hours later, with a proper silver knife (another long story – I forgot to find us a knife to chop the cake with!).

The ceremony itself was done and over with in exactly 12 minutes – the JP was late, but nobody really cared because the bar was already open anyway. She arrived and quickly explained the sequence of events, we walked in to Mika yowling “Love Today”, exchanged teary vows and rings (Rajiv dropped my ring and I had to retrieve it myself), signed the official documents and He Kissed His Bride.

The Money Shot. All thanks to Shyam!

Lots of wine, dancing and picture-taking later, we took the party back to our place, where we had the friendly local cops pay us a visit at the crack of dawn. Cops at a party – positively the mark of a successful evening!

Things I’ve learnt from this wedding exercise:

1. The Man (Rajiv) knows best
2. Pets should be at weddings. Sparky was with us and he was the most well behaved little fellow there!
3. Never trust a photographer you’ve not worked with. Always have a backup.
4. Same with the DJ. Give him your top 50 songs or he’ll play random Bhangra that you don’t really want to Jive to.
5. Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong.
6. People always step away from the cold wrath of a Bridezilla; (especially one with a sharp, witty tongue). And then, things magically get done!
7. If your wedding’s DIY, expect LOTS of excitement.
8. I want to be a wedding coordinator! The stress is beyond awesome!

This wedding was NOTHING like I envisioned and I almost felt like I was part of a reality TV show where I was given 48 hours notice of my impending nuptials and I had to get my shit together or else…

As I write this, Belinda Carlisle sings “Circle in the Sand” on the internet radio. She will forever be associated with my big day, even though I did not dance to that track like my friends half expected me to.

Well Carlisle; we won.

Suck that!

My Girlfriends in Black and Red

My Boys and I, all dressed up.