Josephine Chow

It has become apparent to me that wedding is not a wedding without the interference of family and their attempt to take over, as if planning a wedding isn’t already stressful enough!! Aiii..

Have come across this book - ‘101 things to buy before you die’. My dream bag Hermes Birkin is one of the thing you have to have, so is my Mulberry Bayswater!! (well, I haven’t quite owe it yet it’s still on my shopping list!! but man I have good taste) And the most desirable wedding dress - Vera Wang’s of course!

Our health suffered from over indulgence in rich & yummy food lately (so is our wallet!) We’ve been eating out too much these couple of months. We were talking about cutting back but at the same time, Mike is planning a dim sum lunch at Ping Pong (but I will never say no to their lovely cocktails though) Dear oh dear..

Our favourite restaurant this month has to be Roka Japanese BBQ and fresh sushi are so yummy! Last month was Randall & Aubin for champagne, lobster and chips. Our all time favourite Al Forno in Wimbledon perfect for a cheap and cheerful Italian meal.

By the way, our wedding has been postponed to 2009 and wedding ceremony will now be held in England.

Over and out..

I’m feeling frustrated, annoyed and extremely fed up and I swear if anyone else hassling me about OUR wedding they will not be invited! I just been thinking, is this our wedding or theirs? We have been trying to accommodate everyone and consider everyone’s needs but we seem to have forgotten the most important factor, - what do we really want??

Sadly, I am about to sack our wedding organiser aswell over in Pangkor Laut Resort, so much of a dream wedding location but it has proven to be extremely difficult organising a wedding overseas especially when queries take forever to answer and not receiving service we deserved (consider the amount of money they are charging!!) Well, to sum it up - a total disappointment!!

I consider myself a well organised person but when it comes to my own wedding, nothing seems to be going according to plan. We still have not firm up venues, no booking has been made, my rock has gone back to be fixed for the 2nd time in less than 5 months… and god knows what else!

Would it be nice to go to Las Vegas for a speedy hassle-free drive through wedding then blow the entire budget on a month long honeymoon in Banyan Tree Maldives?? Perfect, exactly what I wanted..

http://josephinecwchow.blogs.friendster.com/photos/thailand_malaysia_xmas_20/

Yes, Malaysia once again!! Phuket isn’t exactly new to me neither and Patong beach would never make it to my top 100 beach holiday destinations… I must be honest this trip is hardly enjoyable, given the choice I would have gone for somewhere I haven’t been before for starter, somewhere more luxurious, quieter and not so hectic!! And most importantly, somewhere I can get some decent sleep to recharge my battery!!!!! Oh well, at least it’s good to see the family.

Umm ok.. back to Malaysia again in less than 8 months (what am I doing to myself!)

Definitely staying home for Xmas this year but I’m itching to spend New Year eve in NYC however..

So here are some photos of our artificial tree this year, theme was meant to be wooden rustic but I have left the tree decorations to the last minute so we ended up with a jumble of red and fake cookies tree. Oh well, at least I love my little moose in hot chocolate mug we bought from Minnesota last year. But I guess tree is not all that important as long as there are lots and lots of pressies underneath.

Flowers from Mike and Karen & Biff

my birthday cakes

Didn’t really do much on my birthday this year, had a meal with some close friends a week before and went for pub lunch with my colleagues on the actual day, I didn’t want to drink at lunch cos I was saving my alcohol allowance for the Xmas ball and Xmas meal at the weekend.

But who would have thought that I would end up going to the hospital in the evening on my birthday and was diagnosed with Thrombosis. Don’t ask me how I managed to get that but it has ruined my drinking plan for the weekend, I’m now on antibiotic and Ibuprofen for at least a week.. I have never been taken so much Nurofen in my whole life! I also suffer from the side effects of antibiotic quite badly, it makes me feel like I’m floating around, it’s so surreal! I have no mood to do any work and I just can’t wait for the week to be over, but hopefully I don’t need to on any more antibiotics so I can celebrate Christmas properly and no doubt I ‘ll need the alcohol to get me through next two weeks of ‘holiday from hell’. We will be literally living out of our suitcase, really no point to unpack our things. We are flying out Saturday to KL for 2 nights, then off to Phuket for 3 nights celebrating Xmas there, back to KL 1 night, stopping for 1 night in Cameron Highland en route to Penang, then 2 nights in Penang, back to KL for 3 nights and finally head home midnight on Saturday!! I will be happier once all that is over. I have arranged my 2nd dress fitting in the new year, very exciting!! Everyone is asking about it and YES I have bought my wedding dress for the beach ceremony. So just one more dress now for London reception.

It’s very unlike me for being so unproductive and lazy and just generally not interested in anything at the moment. Not at all excited about Christmas or my birthday, although celebrations have already been arranged and confirmed but I just can’t get into the festival mood. To be honest, I don’t even look forward to Malaysia & Thailand holiday, being dragged around and flying back and forth from places to places is my idea of hell! And I’m getting two full weeks of it! I would much rather sit at home eating turkey sandwiches and watching old boring Christmas TV. Let’s just quickly get it over and done with!!

Christmas tree is up today but it looks rather sad & stingy need to get some more decorations. Wrapped up some presents too but Mike was complaining the lack of colour co-ordination. Er… wooden tree decor along with black white paper with black ribbon, doesn’t look too bad does it?? I seriously not given much thought this time round. We’re only having a fake tree aswell, we going to be away so no point getting a fresh one.. aii bloody Christmas!!

However, I am looking forward to the new year, I needed a fresh new start. Lots will be happening and I hope things would change for the better. Well.. of course one of the biggest change is becoming Mrs Ch’ng, not sure if like my new name but I guess I just need to learn to live with it

Trying to detox again before all those Christmas & birthday parties, I’m really proud of myself for not had a single drop of alcohol for two full weeks!!

So yes I’m getting another year older in a couple of weeks, hate being old but at least one thing will never change, or so it seems - I’m still get asked for ID for buying alcohol. Just yesterday in M&S, the cashier wasn’t sure if she would allow me the bottle of free Cava cos apparently I’m not over 18!! LOL!!

Bought my first ever wedding book last week along with couple others new books. Mike bought back this huge art book from work for like 7 quid, how cool is that?!!

Not quite sure how Mike managed to sneak that new toy in the house, not that he has much playing it but at least it’s black and sits nicely with the other sound system and DVD player and whatever…

Just another 10 months to go before the big day but we still haven’t yet booked the wedding venue, we are so far behind schedule! I have checked out all the prices and put a proposal together for our civil ceremony just waiting for money man (Mike) to do the negotiation. Chinese banquet Mike’s dad is to organise for us but nothing is done for our London reception, oh hold on, I have actually bought favour boxes and ribbons and the cake is also sorted, so it’s not really ‘nothing’!!

I’m getting stressed out about my dress too, most designers will have to take order 9 months before, need to leave plenty of time for fittngs and any alterations, so I now have one month to sort out 2 wedding gowns..

If anyone thinks getting married overseas is cheaper.. well then you are wrong, they all charge London prices, can you believe corkage for champagne is working out about the same as the champagne itself? Such a rip-off!

One more thing off my ‘to-do-list’ . Photos are finally up - http://josephinecwchow.blogs.friendster.com/photos/bali_sept_2007/index.html

plus couple of other albums:

Biff’s birthday August 2007 (yes August) - http://josephinecwchow.blogs.friendster.com/photos/biffs_birthday_2007/index.html

My first night out in Watford - http://josephinecwchow.blogs.friendster.com/photos/my_first_night_out_in_wat/index.html

Was spending fair amount of time looking at wedding cakes over the weekend, I never been giving so much thought on something relatively ’small’ and un-important, I’m surprised to see the amount of choices out there, different sizes and tiers and favours and colours to suit your theme and can even be personalised to match your wedding dress! And my god, how expensive is it for a bit of jammy sponge? But me being the super organised bridezilla, I have already made my decision on the cake for our London reception, believe me, it’s going to be stunning!!

I have also purchased one of my dress - yes I have! (I know I have only been engaged for less than a month!!) It’s a red Vera Wang satin dress for KL banquet. It needs some alteration cos I want it to be prefect, I have arranged for a seamstress to come to our flat to have it done this week. it’s probably going to cost a bomb but Mike is paying for it, hahaha!

Another busy weekend coming up, I’m seeing a bridal dress designer to try on dresses that I probably can’t afford to buy, and planing on a visit to The Vintage Wedding Dress Company, how cool would it be to walk down the aisle wearing something from the Victorian era?

Back from our hol over a week ago now and yes, we’ve got engaged in Bali on our 4th anniversary, Mike got on one knee while we were having our romantic dinner, I did wonder why he was ordering two bottle of bubbly but still I have not suspected anything so it was a total surprise when I open my eyes and see a diamond ring right in front of my face! (photo attached here’s taken shortly after our engagement)

Aside from the excitement of becoming Ch’ng2b, we had a lovely time in Bali, people are just genuinely friendly, weather is nice not too warm or humid (September is the best time to visit), it is far better than Thailand and Malaysia in my opinion and we are definitely going back. I’m loving the millionaire life style aswell, we are literally spending millions (local currency of course!)

While we were in Ubud we did fair bit of sightseeing, we visited many temples, art gallery, seen a Balinese dance performance and even went to see the volcano (but that was a disappointment)

Shamefully, we hardly set foot outside our hotel when we stayed in Jimbaran, we only managed to walk 5 minutes along the beach to a BBQ seafood stall for dinner one evening which I must say, was the best meal I had and it was the cheapest! (I wanted to go back there on our final evening in Bali but Mike said he’s sick of lobsters) rest of the time was spent lazing around by the sea or swimming pool sipping cocktails. The sunset was amazing and we were there watching it everyday without fail.

Unfortunately, I did not do yoga out there as planned as I was too busy pampering myself, I had a total of 210 minutes of massage, and a facial, manicure, pedicure and reflexology. Mike did make the most of the hotel gym but judging by the size of his belly he has put on a little bit too much weight :p (just want to take this opportunity to remind him that he has 3 months to get in shape for Thailand!!!!)

As soon as I have a moment I will upload other holiday pics, at the moment I’m occupied with wedding planning and looking for the most important, above anything else and probably the most expensive purchase of all - wedding dress! And I will need 3 of them! For 3 different receptions we have planned to have (Sadly the beloved Lela Rose silk chiffon dress doesn’t fit, why can’t I be 5"10 tall??) Like I keep saying.. while Mike is busy looking at finance and budgeting, I’m tearing my hair out trying to find the prefect dress. Stressful business isn’t it??

I cannot believe how cold it was this morning, I’m not joking I had my scarf on walking to the office. By the time we get back from Bali I probably need to get my winter wardrobe out again! We hardly had any summer this year (what global warming!!) We were so lucky to have a sunny bank holiday weekend last week, although our annual Bournemouth trip with the gangs has been canceled and we ended up relaxing at the park and having BBQ etc which is equally as nice!

So yeah, 3 more days to Bali! Very excited! We are dividing our stay in two locations, Ubud and Jimaran.

Ubud in central Bali is known for it’s art and Balinese culture & tradition. This is going to be our home for the first 5 days -

We are spending another 6 days in Jimbaran , I believe there’s nothing to do except lying by the beach sipping cocktail and sampling the local delightful seafoods! What a boring place!!

Hopefully we won’t be gaining too much weight, I am ‘planning’ of a yoga session everyday in between those spa treatments and sunset dinners on the rock. I will make sure Mike bring along his gym kits too :p I will be posting all my lovely photos on my return, speaking of which, I’m still waiting for my lens and camera bag, they better turn up tomorrow!!