Happy 5th Anniversary, hubbs!!!

23rd May 2010!!! Happy 5th year wedding anniversary, hubbs!!! Time flies so fast! It's been 5 years since 23rd May 2005 - and now we have 3 babies already! 3 babies in 5 years - that's like less than 2 years average - we outperform our target!!! kekeke...

This will be an extremely long post... you have been warned :)
These are some of the pix we took pre-wedding. There are many more nice ones too, but in this post, I shall concentrate more on the actual day pix, 5 years ago today. These few... are just to whet your appetite hahahaha... if you wanna see all the pix, I'd be more than happy to pass you the CD I made of all our pictures - you can slip it into your dvd player and view on tv.
It's been a great run, this past 5 years. And we're still having a great time. Sure, hubbs is balding more than ever, and my tummy's flabby and body falling apart - but we believe we're young at heart - and we believe at working together to have a happy family.

This below is my favourite picture :)
Our pre-wedding pictures were taken in Malacca, Malaysia. Nah, we're neither Malaysians, nor have any special attachment to Malacca. It's just that our photographer Triston wanted to make a trip up there to take pictures for 2 other couples, and asked if we wanted our pix taken there as well. Sure, why not?! :)
I was much slimmer then, wasn't I. Slimmer than now, at any rate. hahahhaa... So slim you can see the vein in my forehead and my jawline was very distinctive. And hubbs had more hair then. Haha just on Friday night, my mum saw hubbs' diminishing island of hair above his forehead, and started telling me which hair tonics to buy for him... ;p
Chinese toggs! Marry a cheena-man so must take cheena-pix, ya know! :) This Chinese suit is hubbs' own suit. And he's very proud of it. The kuah (traditional dress) provided by my bridal place was very nice, with lots of embroidery. I look properly domesticated in it too ;p Think the above picture is my mother-in-law's favourite.
We managed to buy this cheong sam in Malacca. Cool huh. hubbs looks like a businessman like that, and me sitting on his lap with the slit so high... look like Shanghai tan? hahaha...
People who know us personally will all know how cheena (chinese sort) hubbs is, and how angmo-fied (english sort), I am. Our volunteer friends who knew both of us before we got together, would have never guessed that we'd get together. Well neither did we, really. That story another time.

But when we did get together, our common friends were most surprised. For we were very different in that sense - me so english, hubbs so chinese! In fact, one question we often get asked is - what language do we converse in? ;p

My good friends from school, and family, sometimes would laugh and comment, that me of all people, would marry such a cheena man - me, who at 15 years old, wanted to marry an ang mo (caucasian) in future - so that I'd have pretty and goodlooking kids. Me, who had to take O'Level Chinese 3 times in order to scrape a pass. Me, who can't speak proper Mandarin...

All I shall about this for now, for this post, is... God works in mysterious ways. He sent me what I needed. So I just took what He gave me, and I've not regretted it one bit, since. My hubbs, my Matthew - do you know what Matthew means? It means "Gift of God". I chose this baptism name for hubbs, my gift from God :)
These are our wedding rings. They're the best rings ever. When I set my eyes on them, we knew these were the perfect rings for us. You see... I wanted white gold, whereas he wanted yellow gold (so obiang?!)... voila! Our perfect rings - both white and yellow gold! :)

Here we go! In celebration of our 5th year wedding anniversary, I present you a summary of this day, 5 years ago! :)

My parents putting on the veil for me. Very soon, I flipped it back. Everyone was like "Pamela! Why you flip back the veil so soon?! Supposed to be done by Eng Wee!" Sorry hubbs, but it was irritating my mascaraed eyelids and I couldn't see properly, so I'd flipped up the veil long before you came! :p
Look! My bevy of beautiful 'sisters'!!! My best friends from university, and volunteer group - which consists of friends from uni and JC as well. Circles of friends overlapping! Six degrees of separation - sometimes it feels like three degrees of separation!
Here comes the groom! My knight in a yellow Jeep!
The sisters laugh and grin sheepishly in anticipation of the torture they'd be putting the guys to. Seems like Zanne and Minjie were the chief negotiators that day. Peishi looks formidable with her bamboo pole.
Here's hubbs, shouting for help from my parents, I think. Sorry - tough luck, you'd have to gain entry the usual way - the hard way! :)

Hubbs and his gang of men in blue. I asked him why blue? He said he didn't know what else to ask the guys to wear. And besides, every guy would probably have a blue shirt. So blue lor.

Come to think of which, I think I didn't know what to ask the gals to wear as well. Then someone suggested whitish, off white, pastel colours. *shrug* sure! knock yourself out!
Not sure why there're mini-umbrellas behind hubbs' and Jeff's ear, looks cute though. hubbs was also getting hot and started to take off his jacket. He was wise to do so... he had a long way to go!
Then obviously, the gals demanded that the guys strip. 5 guys I think. Wenbin, Jeff, Yenn Wah, Kin Loong and Ronnie. Look at Jeff's shy shy look hahaha. Must get Wenbin to see this too. hummmphh laugh at my flabby tummy, lets see how yours now compares to that 5 years ago :p
Guys who didn't strip got to do some pumping. The gals are having a great time, aren't they?!
Well the guys got tired of the proceedings and decided to storm the fort! Ahhhhh!!!!
Mayhem mayhem!!! Bamboos apoking, water hose aflying! The gals scrambled into the house before the guys could sneak in!
Safely in the house, the gals continued their haggling with the men - through the window.
Acknowledging that hubbs is getting on in years, they decided not to physically torture him and his friends anymore. They wanted more entertainment, though...
Singing...
And dancing...
hubbs knows I'd be in my bedroom which faces the back - so he decided to go to the back of the house and seranade me from there. How considerate - I only caught a bit of the action from here onwards. Before that, I couldn't see anything from where I was.

Now at the upstairs windows, the gals continued their duties very well...
Pole dancing!!!
See where Isaac got his drama genes from... not only from mama, also from papa okay... :p
Finally, the gals take pity on hubbs and gives him the go ahead to enter the house!
They cheer on the valiant man as he mounts the steps in search of his beautiful bride in the aircon bedroom :)
Down on his knees, singing at my bedroom door... with the sisters pleading on his behalf too...
He sweeps into the room and plants a kiss on his bride to be!!! Wooohoo!!! Mission completion!!!
We proceeded with the tea ceremony for my side of the family, starting with my parents. Due to time constraint (we were to have the traditional ceremony, church, and wedding dinner all in one day) - we decided to have the tea ceremony for the bride's side over and done with immediately after hubbs gets to me.
My father's side of the family - the Tan Family! :) Not in full force here. We have 9 families, and 23 cousins (my generation) in all. As of 2010, we have 11 grandkids (Isaac's generation) already! :) Grow grow growing!!!
Just the crazy cuzzies! :)
The sisters! Peishi, Daphne, Pey Yng, Weiping, Minjie, Baofen, Weiqin, Cecilia, Suzanne, Ing Shan, Junhui, Huijun and Irene! Thank you gals so much!
At the point in time when when this picture was taken, only Irene is already married. Now, five years later, 11 out of the 14 of us in this picture, have all gotten married. As of today, between us 11, we have 6 kids and one on the way!
As for the men... if I am not wrong... At the time of this picture, 7 out of 14 are married, kid count: one. Now, as of today, All the men are married (except James - soon to be!) - kid count 16 + 1 on the way! Not bad, eh!
Spyderz, this should be the picture in facebook, ok ;) Hmmm... we should collate all these pix :)
Beautiful pix of the girls - I actually look like I'm almost as tall as Peishi! Thanks to the heels I'm wearing and the rest all barefooted! :p
Our wedding car! I had wanted a Hummer or something like that for a wedding car. We tried renting one but it was too expensive, like $5k for that few hours. No way we were going to pay for that. I was sad, and kind of resigned myself to not having a big and fierce vehicle (I like!!!) for our wedding day car.
Hubbs, seeing how sad I was, started smsing all his friends to ask if anyone had any lobang for something like that. He just "smsed blindly" so to speak - for he didn't know if anyone would reply. By chance, one of hubbs' secondary school friends, had business dealings with Daimler Chrysler - and apparently they have a yellow Jeep that they loan out for events such as weddings!
It was a wish come true! Ask, and you shall be given!!! Indeed!!! They did not even charge a fee for it. We wanted to give an ang pow, but the lady refused to accept it either. In the end, we just gave her some oranges, I think. hahaha... We were really most fortunate. Blessed!!!
The only thing about the Jeep was that I had trouble getting on and off it coz it was quite high, and I was in my wedding gown, you see. But no matter, hubbs swept me off my feet into and out of the car with ease! kekeke... helped that I wasn't too fat at that time.
Here we are at our own home, for the groom side tea ceremony. That's our master bedroom. Looks different without the cots, isn't it? :D
Then off to our church The St Mary's of the Angels Church for our church solemnisation wedding mass.
Father John Paul conducted our wedding mass. Here he is talking to hubbs and his two best men: Wan Seng & Zhonghui - hubbs' secondary school best friends.
Here comes the flower girl - Rebecca! my sister's oldest daughter. She was just one and half years old at that time, so we got Yew Ling my cousin, and Junhui my best friend from uni, to walk Becca down the aisle.
See Wenbin behind the girls, carrying Jarrod? Jarrod's my cousin Joel's oldest son. Jarrod was just one and a half too (a month older than Becca), so we got Wenbin (Junhui's then bf, now hubby) to 'walk' him down the aisle too. But... apparently Jarrod was on the floor and refused to walk. So Wenbin picked him up and scuttled down the aisle with Jarrod in his arms.
And here comes the bride, all dressed in white...
I was actually almost tripping over my gown. I'd forgotten to bring my shoes when I went for my final fitting, you see. Coupled with the few kgs that I had lost just days before the wedding (from extreme stress!!!), my gown had gotten looser and so was slightly too long for me!

I literally had to kick my gown as I took each step, to make sure I didn't step on the gown and trip. I was terrified that I'd trip down the aisle, so I took my time walking. So long, in fact, that the music (Pachelbel's Canon in D) ended before I reached the altar!
But reach the altar I finally did, and my Daddy smiled happily as he gave me away ;p
We had a good crowd in church. At least 500 strong, we estimate. That's coz we invisted all friends and family and hubbs' students from school, to the church. We were going to have a 30 table (maximum already) wedding dinner that night, out of which 24 was family and 6 were friends. We both had big families. So, the only other way in which we can invite all our other friends, was to invite them to the church.

Both hubbs and I had a lot of friends each. We joked that if we really wanted to get a venue which could contain all our friends and relatives, it'd have to be the Singapore Indoor Stadium. hahaha...
Our church is beautiful. I've been attending this church since young, and we continued to do so even after we got married and shifted to Jurong West.
Rebuilt in 2004, the building architecture is modern and sleek looking. The architecture has also won a number of design awards.

It is only the wedding couple who would get to sit in the middle of the church like that. It was exhilarating to be there at that moment in time.
We got to do a full wedding mass, complete with communion, because hubbs was baptised by then. I was born Catholic. But hubbs wasn't even a Christian. He did attend some churches before he met me, but wasn't consistently going to one. After he proposed to me, he decided also to be catholic and get baptised :) Of his own free will, ok. I did not force him, I didn't even ask him to do so.

Thanks to hubbs wanting to attend RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults - you had to, before you can get baptised), my father decided to join him and attend RCIA too! Thus, after approx 20 years of attending mass with my mother every Sunday, my father was finally getting baptised!!! hurrah!!!
The flesh and blood of Christ - was like 30% of all the things I ate that day. There was simply no time to eat. Thankfully I had the flesh of Christ to keep me going, eh ;) Almost got drunk on His blood though - coz drank it on an empty stomach!
This is the Unity Candle we're lighting... some symbolic significance :)
Here we go! Signing the wedding registry and wedding certificate. Did you know we forgot to provide a pen? kekeke... Luckily my father-in-law had one on him. So all of you out there who have yet to get married, please remember to prepare a pen to sign your wedding cert with!
Yay! Mission completion!!! On to the church reception!!!
I didn't like wedding buffets coz everyone would feel kinda lost and scattered. Thus, I thought of an idea. I'd have tables at my church reception buffet. Like huge 10 men, wedding dinner sized tables. And I'd assign each different cliques to each table. One clique per table, didn't matter if there were more than 10 pax, some could stand. At least people will have a gathering point.

It worked fantastically well. Everyone had somewhere to be, and it was organised groups for us to go walk about and talk with. We could go table to table to yam seng, like a normal wedding dinner. Was great fun. Very proud of my bright idea ;p
See above, my JJC odac group. Again, at that time, only Baoling & Leslie were married before us. After we got married, Jeff & Pey Yng in the same year as us. As of today, 5 years from then, everyone in the clique has gotten married (including Ian who is getting married in Sept this year), except for Raymond. Kid count: 7 + 1 on the way!
hubbs' Raleigh group! Forced us to kiss for as long as they could hold the 'yam' in the 'yam seng' . Paul, can see your hand on my head, incriminating evidence right here. Oh and look! Chan Peng with long hair! hahaha... Let's just count, between 5 couples: Paul & Swee Ching, Chee Beng & Mui Hong, Joe & Joyce, Chan Peng & Xiaofeng and us... from kid count of 2 at that time, the kid count today is a grand total of 14 !!!
The Crescent table!!! Wooohooo!!! With majority of the gals that day being band girls, our Crescent yam seng was the loudest and sharpest and bestest of the day!!! :)

Wedding dinner!!! We initially did not plan to have a wedding dinner. Seeked the permission from both sides parents and all said ok. Only in January 2005, like 4 months prior to the wedding date, did we decide to have a wedding dinner. hubbs' parents and family felt that there should be one. Ah well, alright. Ask and you shall be given!!!
It was too late to book any decent hotel ballroom for the dinner. These were usually booked a year in advance. So, it was suggested that we have the dinner in a Teochew Chinese restaurant smack in the heart of Chinatown, People's Park Complex.
Onz lah! Since I had my angmoh-fied church wedding, I was open to letting hubbs have his ultimate ching chong dinner. Complete with me in a red cheong sam, and 3 roses in my hair. Mei gui ah mei gui, wo ai ni...

That's me and the ang pow box hahaha
See, sweet Becca, how much she's grown since then. What a difference 5 years makes! Oh and if you think my sister's face looks a bit bloated - that's coz she was heavily pregnant at that point in time. She was pregnant with Isabelle who was born the very next day after my wedding! So, it's Isabelle's birthday tomorrow, 24th May!
That makes 3 birthdays in May! Mine on 12, my mum's on 14th and Isabelle's on 24th. I wanted to have a May baby as well. But it's tough enough getting pregnant, to dictate their month of birth is defnitely not easy!
See, super cheena ching chong venue. I'd also decided not to have any gown changes like one normally does at hotel ballrooms. This is largely because I would need to change in the public toilets in People's Park Complex, which would be quite gross, I think. So we decided that I would wear my cheong sam all the way. This way, we'd also have more time to spend with our guests. Good!!!
Look at the 3 roses in my hair. Hahaha... I love this hairdo. So ching chong, cannot stand it! hahahaha...

Oh oh, look below - side view of my sister - huge huh?!?! But do you know she only put on 5kg for this pregnancy with Isabelle?! *faint*faint*
Look! We danced during the dinner! hahaha... actually, I can't dance for nuts. hubbs can, a bit. He actually took ballroom dancing lessons before!? So I was basically just moving along with him guiding. Fun fun.

Drama queen, drama king. We're as animated as can be. Whadya expect, we're having fun! kekeke...
See here, hubbs is singing and making actions along with the ching chong songs that's being played. Think the one above is hubbs showing me how the moon is representing his heart to me. Something like that.
This must be about a big house that he wants to buy for me next time *giggle*
Karaoke on stage! Gosh, so cheena ching chong, I can't believe it. Our guests had a whale of a time though. Even my mother-in-law went on stage to sing!
For weeks after the wedding, hubbs relatives were still calling my mother-in-law to say how much they enjoyed our wedding dinner. They said it was the best wedding dinner they've attended in ages. I can't read much chinese, so after having some fun, I gave hubbs a kiss, and let him have the stage to himself to do some serious singing...
Our Happy Friends Club volunteer group! :) They were so high after our wedding dinner that they adjourned to Fong Seng to have prata and hang out some more.
Hey, you can see the ringlets in my hair in the pic above hehehee...
So, this day five years ago, in one fell swoop... I went from Miss Tan to being Mrs Tan or Mdm Tan. Hehehe... great difference, you know... for there was born another Tan Family! :)

actual day pix taken on 23rd May 2005