Wedding guests seating arrangement 31 October, 2008
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear1, Wedding.add a comment
I want to share my wedding experience with all the readers so that your wedding can be more organised and less chaotic. This time round, I’m going to talk about the main confusion of the wedding night – the arrival of the guests.
With over 400 guests, it was somewhat complicated to plan the seating arrangements. First of all, the positions of the tables were constrained by what the restaurant is able to offer. This meant that the number of tables on the left side of the aisle and the right side of the aisle is predetermined.
And then there was the problem of guests seniority. In general, the more senior guests should be seated in front, near the stage. As such, immediate relatives were seated generally in the first few tables. The next group of people to cater to is the working colleagues, especially if there are bosses in your invitation list. These people cannot be too far away from the stage either, so a middle range table is more suitable for them. And finally, the friends. Luckily, friends are people who are the most understanding of the lot. So the rear seats are mainly occupied by friends.
The problem I made with the seating arrangements was to take on the whole task on my own. I initially didn’t want to ‘trouble’ my 兄弟 because I was already very grateful for their help for the wedding and didn’t want to burden them unneccessarily. But what I didn’t realized was that those are the people who are helping me at the reception counter and those are the people who will be running the show for me in the evening. I myself will be entertaining the guests and will have no spare time to actually show the guests to their seats.
What happened on the actual day was that I only released the guest list and seating arrangement to my 兄弟 only several hours before the wedding dinner (not wanting to ‘trouble’ them). As time was short and we were busy with getting the whole banquet venue ready, testing audio visual systems, etc, I didn’t have time to explain the finer details of the seating arrangements. This resulted in a long queue forming when guests arrive. The receptionists were unfamiliar with the seating arrangements and become slow in finding the names of the guests. And some of the seats were changed because certain guests wanted to sit together at the same table but were arranged to sit separately. These changes resulted in the isolation of some guests. The original seating arrangement was planned in such a way that guests who know each other were seated either at the same table or in adjacent tables, and single guests were grouped with people they might know as much as possible. However, because I only released the guest list so late to my receptionists, there wasn’t time to discuss these details. So the solution to this problem is, to involve the people who are running the show in the planning process. Yes, it make take up some of their time to read and to appreciate the plan, but it’ll make the actual event a much smoother one.
This problem wasn’t restricted just to friends, it had a big impact on relatives too. My relatives numbered around 250, which is more than half the total number of guests for the banquet. Most of these relatives were contacted by my parents or Dear2’s parents. The problem here was that our parents address these relative differently from us. For example, my dad calls his sisters by names, but I address them as 姑. This led to some confusion at the reception area again, and the queue lengthens even more. The other issue was that my parents planned the seating arrangements on paper, handwritten. I had converted everything to Excel form just 2 days earlier so that I can make a printed copy for everyone involved. Suddenly, my parents became unfamiliar with the Excel sheet and couldn’t make out who was sitting where. The result? More chaos, more confusion.
By then, I came to understood why wedding couples always seemed to be so busy during the wedding dinner. And why wedding couple will tell me ‘Next time during your wedding you will know’. After going through this phase, I kinda feel disgusted at the inefficiency and the chaos at the banquet reception. The bad planning was because of my inexperience and also because no one has warned me about potential pitfalls ahead. And this is the main reason I want to share this experience with my readers here, so that you won’t make the same mistake as me. In the end, the wedding banquet still proceeded smoothly, despite a few minor hiccups. And all thanks to my wonderful, capable and dynamic crew of 兄弟 and 姐妹 who managed all the problems and confusion in the background for us. Thank you!
My advise to wedding couples, do not take on the whole banquet planning alone, thinking that you do not want to ‘trouble’ them. Work with the people helping you, and that includes the 兄弟，姐妹，parents and relatives who are helping out. Communicate with them so that everyone has some idea of what is going on. Disseminate information early, and probably throughout the planning process as well. Yes, I understand that there will be changes up till the last minute, but such changes tend to be minor and can be verbally corrected on the actual day. Assign key reception roles to helpers and make sure they arrive way before the first guest arrive. Receptionists should be someone who is able to recognise faces and able to find their names on the guest list quickly. I hope these advices can help couples who are planning their wedding run a smooth sailing wedding banquet reception.
-Dear1
Secret Recipe Half Price! 23 October, 2008
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear1, Food & Beverages.add a comment
Yum yum! Dear1 and Dear2 like to eat Secret Recipe cakes. The first time we came into contact with Secret Recipe was its Johor Bahru branch. On one particular family outing trip to JB City Square, Dear1’s sister mentioned about the ‘famous’ and ‘delicious’ Secret Recipe cakes. Curious, we went ahead and tried some. It was great. Not just the taste, but also the price. Its already pretty cheap in terms of ringgit, and not to mention our exchange rate differences. Yum yum. Back then, I think Secret Recipe was still not popular in Singapore, maybe only 1 or 2 branches, but we still find time to enjoy some cakes if we happen to pass by one. Right now there are quite a number of branches spread out across the island.
The big news today is………. Secret Recipe Cheese Cakes selling at 50% price! Here’s the promo picture taken from their main website.
Notice that the 50% off only applies to whole cakes, not slices. And note that its for takeaway only. And note that its only for 9 days and it happens only at 1 outlet a day. Dear1 and Dear2 only found out about this promotion today, *and* we so happens to be passing by Marina Square today, *and* so we visited the Secret Recipe branch there and bought 1 whole Espresso Cheese cake (Usual Price $48+7%) for $24+7%! :D :D :D
We painstakingly carried this 2kg cake home all the way from Marina Square. After a nice warm bath, we took the cake out of the fridge. :P”’
We open up the box… tada! Espresso Cheese cake! :P”””
And we shared 1 slice as a late night supper. Slurp! :P””””’
Hehe… maybe the picture aren’t well taken, but the cake is good. And at half price too! That’s about 12 slices of cake if u buy it over the counter. It’s good to keep for about 3 days in the fridge according to the waiter so we’re going to indulge in some yummy cakes for the next few days. Cheese cake breakfast, cheese cake supper…
Grab urs quick before the promotion is gone!
-Dear1
Travel packages comparison 12 October, 2008
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear2, Nihon no koto, Travel & Discovery, Wedding.5 comments
ROM – Done
Buy house – Done
Renovation – Done
House warming – Done
Wedding dinner – Done
Honeymoon – Next
As a natural course, honeymoon usually takes place immediately after the wedding, but for practical couples like Dear1 and Dear2, we choose to ‘honeymoon’ months after the wedding. Is it still considered as honeymoon? Whatever, we just want to be able to enjoy the process, haha…..
Post wedding, Dear1 and Dear2 are currently in the initial stage of planning our ‘honeymoon’ to Japan, specifically Tokyo in Feb 09. Yep, u din miss the word Hokkaido, cos we are NOT going to Hokkaido. Simply cannot understand why EVERYONE is going there. Guess it’s a ‘u go i also want to go’ mentality of typical Singaporeans. We think contrarian…..
Our rough research discovers that there are a few ways of doing this:
1. Follow packaged tour
2. Follow packaged tour, and extend on our own
3. Book Free and Easy from tour agency
4. Book Free and Easy entirely on our own
Engaging in a packaged tour typically is the most expensive. Tour agencies need to earn, so basically there are some costs that goes towards their revenue and overheads. But following tour packages are fuss-free, u just have to pay up, attend the pre-trip briefing, arrive at the airport on time, and EVERYTHING will be taken care of on the tour. But do prepare more cash for tips for driver, tour guide, extra meals NOT included in the package and optional tours (and we have not include cash for your own expenses). And be prepared to spend probably half a day’s coach ride in reaching that ‘must see castle’, and 3 hours in that ‘famous gold refinery factory’ and amazingly long time in that shop that ’sells all the local souvenirs to buy back home’ and eating Chinese food for almost all meals becos ’some people may not get used to the local food’ and rushing to arrive on time but having to wait a while for the older folks and families with kids. So, even though u dun have to worry about ANYTHING, just arm yourself with more $$$ and more naiveness, and all can be taken care of (in short, dun believe what the tour brief says, u gotto probe further into what it doesn’t say….)
Fine, having some experience in the above, take it that we are prepared to endure it all, how about taking option 2 so that we can save some of the ‘torment’ by extending the trip on our own. But hey, the extended hotel will have to be the last hotel of the tour (likely to be near airport, means far away from the city!). And gotto add extra $100 – $200 for the air tickets extension cos it’s already discounted rates for tour groups. Hmm……… Doesn’t really seem worthwhile leh……
Fine, tour agency can value add, so how about getting a free and easy deal from them? But the rates for Feb 09 are not out yet, and even if they are, the airlines and accom are a few limited choices of 4 and 5 star hotels and the very good airlines only. Hmm……. Means that we may not be able to get the best deal hor…….
Booking free and easy entirely on our own offers a few advantages.
1. Cheaper – Can save on the air tickets. Northwest Airline seems to be able to give attractive rates to Tokyo. And overall MUCH MUCH cheaper than a packaged tour. Might as well use the money on other things, like shopping.
2. Better timing – Can choose the departure dates and time (subjected to whichever airline we use), vs a 5D4N trip means that u depart on night of Day 1 and having to set off for the return flight on morning of Day 5. Believe me, this is NOT uncommon. And not forgetting that I dun have to wake up at 6am in the morning just to go to that 6 hours away ‘must see famous waterfall’.
3. Visit places of MY choice – Only go to those places which I want to go. Pls, I dun need to visit sooooo many shrines even though Japan is well known for them. And I DON’T want to visit this zoo and that park and this zoo again and that park again. Now I can appreciate why our Singapore Zoological Gardens and Botanic Garden are popular tourist attractions…
4. Real local experience – I want to have sashimi and ramen and bento for every meals, and not Chinese food and Chinese food and Chinese food….. And I want to experience local living in a ryokan or a minshuku, no need to stay in 4 stars and 5 stars all the time one…. And sit in the bullet trains and the subways, no need to travel on a coach all the time one… Seriously, I din pay dollars to spend hours on the coach and end up sleeping throughout the bulk of the journey.
Of course, planning a free and easy trip is by no means easy. There’s plentiful of research to be done – libraries, online official and unofficial sites, personal blogs etc to be researched into. And we have not come to the booking phase where there’s bound to be many coordination, communication and currency conversions involved. Japan has an extensive railway system which even the locals may not be well versed in, let alone foreigners like us. Plus the daunting task of planning out the route and itinerary for the trip, given Japan’s wide geographical layout.
Take heart, enjoy the planning process, and may we have an enjoyable ‘tour cum planning process’.
- Dear2
Baking Golden Biscuits 12 October, 2008
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear2, Food & Beverages.add a comment
Dear2 got a recipe for baking cookies from someone, and has been experimenting with it for 4 times already. Let’s take a look at the recipe first:
Ingredients
8 oz butter
6 oz fine sugar
1 – 2 eggs
8 oz plain flour
1 tsp vanilla escence
Method
1. Cream butter and sugar together.
2. Add in eggs.
3. Lastly add in the plain flour and mix until the mixture is smooth.
4. Place the cookies on the baking tray
5. Bake in TEFAL oven rack 2 for about 20 – 30 min at 180 – 200 deg C
6. Bake at a slightly higher temperature if you prefer darker texture.
Though a very simple recipe, Dear2 insists on using it, cos the ingredients are the simplest among all the recipes that I could find. No need to waste money and waste food on getting additional ingredients. Haha.
But the problem with this recipe is, the biscuits dun turn out well at all. Firstly, what is ‘cream butter and sugar’? Should I just mix the butter and sugar together? But the butter is hard leh, how to mix!? Den ‘1 to 2 eggs’ means what? That’s 100% difference in the amount of eggs used leh. With all the ingredients in, the dough is still super duper watery. Within mins of getting into the oven, you can visibly see the butter melting from within the dough, and gets charred well before the dough is cooked. Haiz…. Finally, the cookies are chou da, ie, the sides of the cookies are so burnt that one bite, and you feel that heatiness is rapidly on the way…..
A general state of the first 3 attempts:
Den, Dear2 asked a fren about it, and read some cooking books, and made further adjustments on the recipe at the fourth attempt.
‘Cream butter and sugar’ means to mix it with a mixer! Gotto mix in the eggs as well until it is fluffy. The choice of butter also plays a part, using good butter gives the biscuits a nice flavor and texture. And yes, melt or soften the butter first. How did I ever think of mixing cold hard butter with sugar!?
As for the flour, add in the listed amount, and add some more if the dough is still watery. Dear2 seriously suspects that the portion listed in the recipe is lacking. Notice that the essence is left out in the recipe? There must be a typo error somewhere…. And oh, books says that u can refrigerate the dough to get a less watery constitution, but to speed things up, I’ll just sieve in more flour. Heehee.
We bought a new baking tray. This one seems like it is able to better conduct heat den the normal tray in the oven. So that the cookies can cook more evenly?
And flatten the dough on the tray (pls, this is not baking those rock cookies that we used to do in sec sch. wahahaha)
Finally, the ultimate cure – baking soda. Online sources all include baking soda in the recipe, but why does it sound foreign to me? Nvm, let’s just try that.
Dear2 was so confidant on the fourth attempt, thinking the improved method in ‘cream butter and sugar’ is the correct solution, but as it turns out, it looks no different from all the previous. Less heaty taste and less watery maybe, but the feel of the biscuits still dun seems right. Just as all was about to give up, we added in the baking soda (this ultimate cure was found by Dear1 by comparing different recipes online, and was implemented only on the second tray of the fourth attempt). Mmm……………… Yummy! The butter and flour bits is distinctly visible, unlike the initally cookies where it’s just all lumped together. Guess the baking soda is able to fluff up the ingredients so that the biscuits has a lighter feel to it.
Here’s the yummy cookies, successful, on the right plate.
Ok, they all look the same, but believe me, the ones with baking soda are just the way Dear2 would like it to be. Yum yum. And ya, you know you’ve got it right when the biscuits are bigger than without baking soda. hahahaha
Some more tips, courtesy of Dear1:
1. Leave 3 inch apart for each dough on the baking tray, as the biscuits will swell up during the baking.
2. Use a higher rack in the oven, as the bottom tends to char faster than the top.
Ok, thats’ all for now, even just writing about the cookies make Dear2 hungry…..
- Dear2
Our CorningWare 12 October, 2008
Posted by dear1dear2 in Around the House, Dear1.add a comment
Several weeks back, OG had this redemption program for CorningWare. For every $30 (i think) spent, we can get a redemption stamp. For 2, 3 or 4 redemption stamps, we could purchase a CorningWare of increasing sizes at a discounted price. Both of us thought that it was a good idea and a CorningWare cooking set seems a necessity in every kitchen, so we decided to actively shop at OG to accumulate those stamps.
Fortunately, we didn’t have to delibrately splurge on items from OG. Incidently, it was the time before our wedding and we needed to get quite many things anyway. For example, Dear2 managed to accumulate 6 stamps just by buying evening gowns and shirts for her mum and dad. With our 6 stamps, we decided to redeem 4 stamps for the largest CorningWare pot available. This is the one.
It’s the largest available for redemption and the only one that comes with 2 ear handles, one on each side of the pot. It’s 2.25 litres and it looks big enough to cook a healthy soup or pasta for a standard family. We’ve used it for boiling vegetable soup for 2, and the portions turned out to be huge. Luckily, whenever we have vegetable soup for dinner, it will be the one and only dish of the night, that’s why both of us are able to finish everything.
We’ve tried cooking pasta for 6 people using this pot and it turned out good as well. The pasta was evenly cooked and it retained heat well so that people eating later still get to taste hot steaming pasta.
It wasn’t long before we decided that we should get a smaller pot as well, partly also for a smaller serving of our vegetable soup. The redemption period was still on and we were eyeing the medium sized 1.5 litre version. However, we were 1 stamp short. For that, we hunted around OG and bought some fondue chocolate for our never-used-before-house-warming-gift fondue set, and some underwears to stock up at home. With the additional stamp, we bought this next CorningWare are the redemption price.
The box on this one had the original price tag on, its $68 on a normal day, I think we paid $20 something for it, good deal! I had a worry about this pot at first becos of the long handle. I was afraid that it would snap if the soup was too heavy. But after using it for some time, I’m convinced of the sturdiness of the build and I also trust the made-in-France label too.
Now, to talk about its advantages. Firstly, it retains heat very well, making it very suitable for keeping the soup warm over long dinner chats. Secondly, it boils very evenly and rather quickly. For boiling potatoes, it worked very well, softening the potatoes much faster and deeply to the core compared to using steel pots. However, when we tried making potato porridge using the CorningWare, it didn’t turn out well. This is because the pot retains too much heat over the course of cooking such that the porridge charred very easily at the bottom even with constant stirring. I suppose CorningWare isn’t a 1 size fits all pot after all, so it is up to the cook to decide how to use his tools best. Potato porridge still tasted better using a normal steel pot. But for boiling a potato soup base for our vegetable, CorningWare is great, the potato literally crumbles and melts into the soup. Yum yum.
This pot is also useful for making pasta sauce. In our case, we boil standard Campbell soup and add our own potato cubes. The result is a soup that boils slowly and produces a consistent cream soup. But this is just the cookware. Good food comes from a good cook. So somehow, the pasta that Dear1 makes tasted bland, but the same pasta made by Dear2 tasted wonderful. Yum yum. Sob…
That my review of CorningWare. I think it is every kitchen’s need and every cook should get one, or two, or even three! :P
-Dear1
Honeymoon or not? 4 October, 2008
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear1, Travel & Discovery, Wedding.2 comments
Whenever one meets a newly wedded, the natural ice breaker is to ask “Where are you guys going for your honeymoon?” When I asked this question to my couple friends, all 47158 of them answered “Hokkaido”, which is rather unsurprising, especially for Singaporeans. After all, we live in hot and humid climate all year round and every young adventurous youth out there wants to visit a snowy place for their sweet honeymoon. Except perhaps Dear1 and Dear2. Here’s our take on honeymoon.
We feel that the concept of honeymoon was developed in the past when overseas trips were luxuries that many were unable to afford frequently. And also perhaps becos in those days, the wedded couple tends to move in together with the groom’s parents. Hence, as a celebration and a chance of intimate romance away from the eyes of the family, many couples chose to go on a post wedding trip called a honeymoon. And maybe it was also during those times that travel agencies began marketing honeymoon packages to boost sales and this in turn encouraged more couples to go on honeymoon trips. This is just my view of how things had happened, but it could have been the other way round, starting as a travel marketing gimmick.
Back to present day, the idea of honeymoon got attached to weddings and it had become a norm. However, there are some differences. Couples nowadays are much more open with their courtship and relationship, and many go on overseas holiday trips even before getting married. Parents too are less conservative and more open minded in allowing their kids to go on these “romantic” twosome trips. As such, traveling is no longer viewed as a luxury for most couples and some might have already visited faraway places such as Hokkaido even during their courtship. The idea of a once-in-a-lifetime-romantic-honeymoon thus loses some of its significance.
Moreover, weddings are becoming a very expensive and tiring affair. Looking back at some of our wedding posts, you would have realized that everything from wedding photos to banquet, to buying a house, renovating, furnishing, everything costs quite a bit of money, and if there’s something that a couple can save on, that will probably be an elaborate honeymoon. It is also not advisable to embark on a honeymoon trip directly after the actual day wedding since the preparation of the wedding itself would probably have already taken up a lot of the couple’s energy. A honeymoon immediately after the actual day will in fact add to the fatigue due to the packing, long travels on coaches, sheep herding by travel groups and changing hotels everyday. If anything, setting off about 7 to 10 days after the actual day seems like a better choice.
One other thing, since travel agencies tend to make use of “honeymoon” to attract customers, we as consumers can also leverage on this by taking up honeymoon discounts to visit places at cheaper prices. But most of the time, these honeymoon discounts are only valid for expensive Europe and beyond tours that will likely burn a bigger hole in your (already badly torn) pocket than the snowy Hokkaido. And likely, they only allow 1 honeymoon couple per group, so be sure to book early to make sure that you are that lucky couple. The value of these discounts also varies. We have encountered discounts of misery $50 per couple for Europe trips, as well as 1 free air ticket deals for Taiwan and China.
Dear1 and Dear2 had not planned for any honeymoon trips so far. Unless we can find a good enough honeymoon discount. So for the time being, Dear1 and Dear2 are reading Today newspapers everyday, hoping for some tour agencies to offer honeymoon promotions that are truly worth getting. A 1-for-1 Tokyo trip would be nice. :P
-Dear1
