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her 33rd birthday celebration + the proposal
Saturday, 31 August 2013
we never leave out a celebration for each other's birthday, however, this year i decided to make it bigger. and that would means the proposal, to ask for her hand, to be engaged to each other, and officially called fiancée.
being the intellectual-romance expresser, since young, i would always imagine myself going down on one knee and propose to my partner at the top of paris eiffel tower. dont ask me why eiffel tower, perhaps it had always been associated with love and romance and seems to be the perfect place to pop the question. however, as i grew older, practical and realistically come into place, and being traveled to a couple of places, climbed a few mountains or a hundreds or even thousand steps, i realised that its afterall not a so-good idea to pop the question after trying to catch your breathe at the tower top. and apart from flashing the fancy ring, not much surprise can be done, unless you can plan for a magic carpet ride after that.
another reason for doing it locally was the fact that we wasnt sure when are we heading to europe, given our current work commitments, it seems pretty hard to obtain a 3-week getaway from office. either do i want to do the proposal after we got our flat when she is 35, i mean it will be totally meaningless since we had already stayed together by then.
and so here we go on the details..
the ring : did quite a great deal of homework on this, checking out different websites, forums and threads to gather feedbacks from other consumers on the choice of jewellery retailers, the type of diamonds each retailer can offer. after much scrutiny, i decided on jannpaul diamonds. it was a pure coincidental that i found out that one of our fren (javier) bought his proposal ring from them as well. just like me, i believed he did his tons of homework as well before purchasing, hence my confidence level with jannpaul had increased magnificently.
i took a trip to jannpaul (inside house of hung at orchard far east shopping centre) to have a better understanding of their diamonds. david, the one that served me had been very patiently going through an 1hour plus education on diamonds' cut, color, clarity and carat with me. in fact, we are looking at loose diamonds (not those diamonds already set on the ring itself), because once the ring are set on the ring, you wont be able to see the arrows at the bottom of the diamond. in the education, we also make use of the ideal scope, aset scope and hearts & arrows scope to clearly see what i will be purchasing. thumbs up!
initially, david offered me an 0.52 carat at $5.5 including the ring of $550. i thought it is still quite affordable with the installment plan, so i asked for a bigger carat, and he took out an 0.61 carat at $6.1k, definitely no compromise on color or clarity. anyway, i like the number 6 and since darling is 33 (3+3 =6) this year, so i decided this shall be the carat.
anyway, this marked the first of my every first installment item (apart from paying my school fee every semester in the past)..
as for the ring, i picked a four-claw setting (the one that she preferred) and i found a ring design which happened to look like 'w' which coincidental with the place that i am proposing. so that in years to come, she will still remember the place.
aftermath. we went back for a ring resize as she find it abit too loose, and we also did the engraving on the ring which marked 'S&C 23Aug2013'.
the location & decoration: w hotel. i did considered the others hotels like fullerton, st. regis or capella, but w hotel had already been on her list ever since she knew that the developers are building it.certainly the most expensive hotel that we had stayed locally so far. in fact, i planned for a 2-night stay so that we wont get the kind of feeling of 'check-in at 3pm today and checking out the next day at 12pm'
anyway, coordination work starts from here, with the hotel. because of the fact that i wanted to decorate the room with the flower pathway and as well as room filled with balloons, i need to tell the hotel management about my proposal plan, in hoping to check in early that day. although i was on leave the whole day, but i was suppose to bring her somewhere for lunch coz she is on half day, and that means i only have the morning to do all the preparation work.
i reached the hotel as early as 10am, but i was only given the room at 1130am, which leave me very little time as i was supposed to meet her at harbourfront vivo at 1230pm as i had reserved a lunch appt at 115pm so the first thing i did when i got into the room was to hide the pressies into the wardrobe. next, i started to lay the loose flower petals to form the flower pathway and placed our kids into the heart-shaped path end. while waiting for the concierge to bring up the balloons to the room, i quickly brought out the half-palm size photos that i had developed and pasted the blue tack so that i can stick the photo to the tip of the balloons.
however once i untie the balloons all together, i realised that the string are very long and curly, which made them very unglam. and without a scissors, i found the swiss knife at the bar counter and started to snip out to a certain length. seriously its no joke to snip out 60 balloons string when time is already running out..
anyway, once i was done and out, its already 1230pm, waiting for a cab out in the hotel lobby. its then i decided to call her and asked her to make her way to sentosa, and i will meet her at the waterfront monorail station, so that she dont hv to wait too long at harbourfront and yet we can still make it on time for our lunch!
aftermath. w hotel was indeed a nice place for a staycation. the location was a pro and con, although its located deep in a corner of sentosa but its quiet and calm environment is really relaxing. we even took a short walk near the yacht docking berth. they do offer some shuttle bus services (which bring you around various sentosa hotels) to and fro to rws or even vivocity / orchard. staying in w hotel does give us a feeling of being overseas.
as for the room, the bedroom wall decor with the lights, carpeting, artistic furnishing, bose surround sound system, rainforest shower and bathtub were very impressive. in fact, they also gave us a complimentary birthday cake and two glass of red wine, knowing that the stay was meant for both the birthday celebration and proposal.
our stay comes with free breakfast (kitchen table) for both days, and im delighted to find out that their spread of international cuisine food was somehow different on both days. in fact, surprisingly, the turnout crowd was pretty high, given that its quite an expensive option to pick while traveling to singapore.
the flower petals: weeks before the actual day, i already did some homework on where can i get the loose flower petals. there is always a need to check beforehand, as not all florist will carry that big amount of loose flower petals. i had combed places like white sands and tampines mall, tampines one etc.. however on the eve of her bday, i met her for dinner at bugis, and afterwhich she went for her manicure at chinatown. so i went to the florist at bugis junction to try my luck, and indeed they only have one normal ntuc plastic bag of loose flower petals for sale, and i bought it at 12bucks. fearing not enough, i went back to tampines one, and i bought 2 extra bag for 5bucks each. the owner was very nice that she actually gave me some fresh stalks so that the petals will last abit longer for the next day.
so back home at night, i actually started my 'selection process', eliminating those petals that had already turned brown or kinda look ugly, as well as plucking the petals from the fresh stalks..
the rainbow roses bouquet: how can there only be flower petals on a birthday? moreover, this is a proposal.. after the blue roses episode on vday this year, dar mentioned that she would like to receive the rainbow roses.. so this shall be the best time for her to receive this! again, not all florists carry rainbow roses, many need to ask their supplier and the price are pretty steep.. in the end, i arranged mine from singapore florist sg.
and in order to have one burden less on my mind (collect what time? when?), i decided to arrange the bouquet to arrive in dar's office in the morning, at least it will be a time range for the florist, which make things easier. but the next thing i had to worry was to ensure they deliver on time. called them a couple of times to remind them that they need to send the flowers and reach by 1130pm, knowing that dar is on half day 12pm..
the balloons: ordered the balloons from harvest well enterprise....
15 red heart shape helium latex balloon
15 pink heart shape helium latex balloon
15 hot pink heart shape helium latex balloon
15 lavender heart shape helium latex balloon
1 be mine pop-Up 3D card helium mylar balloon
as usual, there are price comparison mission to take on, and see if they sell the type of balloons i want.. and the next thing is the negotiation, because i need the balloons so early in the morning (preferred 10am @ the hotel), and furthermore its in sentosa, so the staff also need to check with the owner when i mentioned my request over the phone. in fact, these balloons are filled with helium in order to stay afloat, but maximum only 5-6hr. this means the company staffs cannot pump the balloons the night before and send in the next morning, if not, my balloons will not be able to last when dar entered the room at 2-3pm.
anyway, they managed to delivered the balloons so promptly, they are even 5min earlier than myself reaching the hotel lobby. and the items are in order, and i would say good quality as well.. the items are also reasonable-priced. truly impressed by them..
the half-palm size photos: developed the photos from the most trusted photo processing shop named digital imaging in orchard far east plaza.. simply love the friendly lady that help with the order, and taking the extra mile to resize the photo and make sure the photos look good...
the handmade birthday + proposal card: this is definitely the one and only card in the entire whole world, because there is definitely no way that i can find a birthday + proposal card, so i decided to handmade one! although i do have some 'art and craft' sense in my blood, but it had been the longest time since i draw. and since now dar love minion sooooooo much, i decided to use them as the front cover. also spent some time to decorate the sides of the card, so that it doesnt look so plain..
and i did a pixely pop up heart to place inside the card.. although i downloaded a template from the net, but seriously, i lost count of times that i tried making the pixely pop up heart, it involved alot of patience as well as skills to cut, score (not that score goals type of score) and fold. making the right measurement is equally important too, so that the card will turn out well and nice..
and for the envelope, i purposely make an additional trip to art friends in orchard to purchase the envelope, although me and dar bypass the shop one evening.. all the stationary shops that i went to doesnt sell the right size of envelope that i need..
the bday pressies: five wrapped up pressies! but technically 12items.. hahahahaa..
1 apple ipod nano 16gb sliver color
1 despicable me2 minion hasbro monopoly
2 pop! minion (dave and carl) vinyl figure by funko
8 macdonalds minions (US set)
the apple product was straight-forward, just ordered from apple website. although the color-choosing period was a killer, but in the end, i decided to choose the same color as what dar choosed for mine. i mean it make a couple ipod nano set right? and for the engraving, it set as "Happy 33rd Birthday, Darling!"
as for the minion-related items, i meet up the 3 different sellers on 1 day between dhoby ghaut, raffles place and bugis.. okay, i dont have too many available days since i am meeting my darling almost everyday after work.. and my workplace is not in the most convenient location.. so thankful that all the sellers are very accommodating and helpful..
and the tedious part was to wrap them up, because darling want minion wrapping paper, and so i had to print minion design on A4 paper and merge them up to form the wrapping paper. and because of normal paper is kinda of thin, hence i had to wrap a layer of white paper before using the 'wrapping paper'!!
the bday lunch: ocean restaurant by iron chef cat cora @ rws, yes the one in the s.e.a aquarium.
initially, i wanted to book this place for dinner, but because they are closed for a private event in the evening, hence i have no choice but to make a reservation for lunch.
interestingly, dar tot i was bringing her to a chinese restaurant, as the given name of the restaurant sounds abit cheena. and the walk to west zone carpark where the entrance was wasnt very appealing and she is somehow whining a little as she is not sure where we are heading to.. but when she entered and saw that its the colossal s.e.a aquarium theme restaurant, she was starstrucked. accordingly to her, her mouth was slightly wide-opened, i guess she muz be too enchanted by the majestic backdrop..
as like two highly-excited kids, once we got ushered to our table, we starts to snap pictures every now and then, trying to capture every parts and corners of the big fishtank!
in fact, cat cora is the first and only female iron chef, among all the celebrity chefs. i would say it is pretty a unique experience to have your dining table right next to the gigantic glass panels with the awesome view of the marines creatures. it was hypnotizing and fascinating. however in term of food, they did not really reach up to expectation, the portion were really too small to fill our stomachs (although the price is reasonable as well).
anyway, dar gotta her first cake of the day, as they gave us a complimentary birthday cake as well..
the bday dinner: moonstone @ the jewel box @ mount faber.
i was thinking what other interesting places to dine for her bday dinner, and since we are already in sentosa, it will be pretty dumb for us to get back to singapore island. and then i arranged and planned to take the cable car (non-peak, hence we got a cable car to ourselves) from sentosa to mount faber where the jewel box is. yes, although mount faber is in singapore island, but me and dar seldom frequent the place as it cannot be reach via common transportation, so i guess it will consider as a refreshing place for her.. which i think she is pretty pleased with this arrangement.
reason for choosing moonstone, mainly was because it is japanese cuisine, as she had already took the western cuisine in the afternoon. we were offered a nice table and seats to a hilltop view of sentosa island facing the sentosa island and the cables cars going to and fro, because it is a outdoor restaurant and bar concept, im so truly thankful for the nice weather for that evening! and i would say the ambiance was totally romantic for such an occasion.
for the food, they served freshly grilled yakitoris and skewered nibbles, a variety of cocktails and drinks. as usual we are not into drinks, so a normal soft drink will make the day. dar immediately fall in love with the garlic fried rice that is the only carbs of the day which goes really well with the yakitori sticks.. i guess dar enjoyed the dinner more than the lunch, mainly because she is too famished by the small lunch portion.
well, this entry pretty sum up almost everything happening on her 33rd bday as well as my big plan of proposing to her. definitely glad and thrilled that she said yes! although she did not move to tears, but she said that she's indeed surprised and happy for what i had done..=)
Labels: birthday, first-time, hotel, love, makan, minions, present, proposal, ring, surprise
xoxo,
dear |
23:54
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