Posh, Broke, & Bored

How considerate are Marcus & Michelle? Instead of taking the typical route ie. having a single wedding dinner to cater to the most common denominator, they hold three wedding dinners to each cater to a different crowd.

With the first wedding dinner---the traditional Chinese one to appease the bride's parents and for family friends---done & dusted a week ago, it was time for wedding dinner number two. This one was for the pleasure of Marcus' company, colleagues, and clients. This wedding dinner was a simple, straightforward affair---the type where the restaurant handles all the details; pick your 'package' and the venue handles everything from menu to drinks to decorations to music. All you have to do is show up, shove food in your mouth, drink Blue Label, and not pass out face down in your dessert. Easy!

7th November 2012, Petaling Jaya.

Photo credits; all pictures taken with a DSLR lovingly stolen from Chris's Facebook. The Instagram pictures are mine.

I treated myself to a blow-dry at Hair Quarters, Publika and road tested the Tiffany Blue nail polish I intended to wear for the #mlovem church ceremony and third wedding dinner.

I love how the Kiss Me 'Pure' bottom lashes do wonders for creating doe-eyes out of my tiny peepers.

Ever a huge fan of convertible dresses, I wore a two-toned (mint & peach) number from Lexi Lyla...

...CHANEL Jumbo 2.55, an assortment of friendship bracelets from Ashley's boutique On A Cloudy Day (Jalan Telawi 3, Bangsar) and House Of Eight (Publika). Necklace from ShoesShoesShoes.

Ashley if you are reading this please set up an Instagram for your boutique!

One more photo of me golek-ing on Michiekin's bed while waiting for her and Sheena-chan to get ready.

En route to the #mlovem stress-free, pre-planned wedding dinner. Really, it was like a party held for the benefit of the adoring court seeking an audience with Maharaja & Maharani Ng.

Michiekins & Sheena-chan, 2/3 of Golek-Unit.

With Jillykins and Sheena-chan.

The Ng family. How much do Marcus look like his siblings?! The resemblance is so uncanny it's actually scary.

M&M's grand entrance...

...the royal wave hahaha.

Ice cubes clink gently in glasses of Johnnie Walker, which we sip throughout the night instead of drinking water. Because sobriety is simply not an option at a Chinese wedding dinner.

Ng Yee Soon and Ooi Cheng Pin---hahahahha we all know your Chinese names. With this knowledge I can cast spells on you. Sumpah kalian beli saya Aston Martin Vanquish yang paling baru.

Dinner...!

Roka, the Malaysian Ferrero Rocher. Or as Jillykins says "The Malaysian Ferrero Rocher wannabe." Ha!

Towers of food are brought out to the tables...

Four Seasons Happiness Combinations. I love Chinese dishes and their elaborate, poetic, slightly kooky names!

Bird's nest & crab meat bisque. I'm glad that serving shark's fin soup at wedding dinners is now increasingly unfashionable. It's cruel and doesn't even taste of anything...! Dousing vinegar onto rubbery bits of fin ripped painfully from a live shark who's thrown back into the sea to drown, what for? Ugh. Bird's nest is just as good a status symbol and 'show off' piece at wedding dinners, no, it's better because bird's nest is actually good for your complexion AND doesn't involve cruelty. Angry rant over.

Baby duck with romaine green salad.

Poached tiger prawns with 'Shao Hsing' wine & wolf berry.

Pan-fried white tuna fish with pomelo sauce.

Braised stuffed whole Chinese cabbage with baby abalone & broccoli.

Braised ee-fu noodles with lobster meat.

Pudding...

...glutinous rice dumplings with black sesame and thousand layer cake...

...and double-boiled snow pear with sea coconut.

Sheena-chan & Po Hsu Yang are happy diners.

Nine courses and several bottles of whisky later we were fit to burst.

Oh wait, there's cake. *dies*

CHEERS!

Or as we say in Chinese...YAAAAAAAAM SENG!

The longer you hold the yam seng, the better the toast. Cue a roomful of hoarse larynxes, sore throats, and a lot of noise.

With one of my START Society students, Evon, and The One Academy alumni Pojoo and Haniz.

More cheering...!

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam SENG!

No wedding dinner is complete without Gangnam Style.

The night ended with the groom's clients, colleagues, & company shuffling out of the venue very full and all 'partied out'. What an excellent way to save having to call in sick at work the next day; get your entire company drunk with you! Noone's going in to the office tomorrow, just close the company for a day haha.

The rest of us typically spend the rest of the night drinking, cheering, singing, and carrying on for as long as we could until we were kicked out by the tired staff who wanted to actually go to bed before dawn.

This second wedding dinner was exactly what everyone needed.

A (relatively) quiet, stress-free, laid-back, conservative prelude to the 'real deal'. Call it practise for THE wedding---church ceremony, third wedding dinner, and after party!

Steady does it...!

Next...THE OFFICIAL WEDDING OF #MLOVEM.

♕ "KEEP CALM AND GET HITCHED-IKINS, MICHIEKINS!" ♕ MICHELLE'S HEN'S NIGHT

#MLOVEM ♥ MARCUS & MICHIEKINS GET MARRIED! PT.1

#MLOVEM ♥ MARCUS & MICHIEKINS GET MARRIED! PT.3 THE FINALE

THE KINS---MICHIEKIN'S BLOG

lifestyle

December 20, 2012

#MLOVEM ♥ MARCUS & MICHIEKINS GET MARRIED! PT.2

How considerate are Marcus & Michelle? Instead of taking the typical route ie. having a single wedding dinner to cater to the most com...

Marcus & Michelle's wedding.

How do I even begin to describe Marcus & Michelle's wedding? In true #mlovem (the official Twitter/Instagram hashtag for their wedding related festivities) style Mont Kiara's golden couple weren't going to just have a simple church ceremony and deprive us, their beloved friends & extended family, a chance to celebrate HARD.

The parents want a Chinese wedding complete with traditional Chinese pre-wedding games. Marcus' clients want a wedding dinner where they could toast to the couple's happiness. And of course Bridezilla Michiekins wanted her dream wedding, a contemporary Western one worthy of Pinterest and Tumblr. And of course WE want to share in their joy not for a single night, but for weeks. Happiness shared is happiness doubled! Tripled...quadrupled...multipled.

So #mlovem had THREE weddings, not including the actual church ceremony. How thoughtful of them! Thanks guys, we know you're getting married for US.

First up; the traditional Chinese wedding dinner and rituals in Michiekin's hometown of Taiping.

3rd November 2012, Taiping.

Photo credits; all pictures taken with a DSLR lovingly stolen from Chris's Facebook. The Instagram pictures are mine.

Lady Butterworth and I pack our bags and hit the highway. Taiping here we come! Excited does not even begin to describe how we feel.

First port of call; Ooi Mansion aka The Bride's Family Home.

Chinese tradition dictates that before the groom is allowed to see his beloved, he has to earn the right to 'pick up the bride' by completing challenges & tasks set by the bride's devious bridesmaids. The groom of course is aided by his 'heng tai' (brothers) and he usually has 4-5 heng tais. But M&M are so popular that they have 10 on each side hahaha. That makes the challenge 10 times harder, or is it 10 times easier? Oh, and bribery is involved in these games. The boys have to at some point give the girls ang paus (red packets) of money, and also as fines for failing tasks or buying their way out of tricky games. For every task they fail to complete to our satisfaction, we fine them RM50. We are tyrants!

But the biggest tyrant of all is the antagonist in the Picking Up The Bride, yours truly, Jasi Von Kins The Evil Queen.

With the bridesmaids, clad in our tiffany blue convertible maxi-dresses.

Can I just say that convertible dresses of the same colour are a great way to have all the bridesmaids looking their best? The colour scheme keeps it united, the maxi length is incredibly flattering & elegant, and the convertible straps allow each girl to wear it in a style that suits them best. Happy bridesmaids are good bridesmaids.

With Briekins, Sheena-chan, & Jolynakins. Love how each bridesmaid makes the dress uniquely their own!

Jokins & Linakins; sister of the bride, maid-of-honour, and the mastermind behind the Picking Up The Bride games.

Before the games, we hide Michiekins in her childhood bedroom. Mummy Ooi performs what I call the Blinging Of The Bride.

Michiekins with her six bridesmaids who made it to Taiping. The other four are saving their work leave for the other two weddings.

We wave goodbye to the bride, shut the door, and lock her up to wait for her groom to rescue her.

While Princess Michiekins waits it out alone, her brideslaves get to work on the games.

Linakins' concept for Picking Up The Bride is nothing short of inspired. Princess Michiekins, fairest & most stylish in the land, catches the jealous eye of the vain Queen Jasi Von Kins. The evil queen locks the Princess in a tower and erases her memories of her love for Prince Marcus. Only the love potion can break the queen's spell, and the prince, aided by his faithful brothers, go on a quest to collect the ingredients for the love potion and to rescue his beloved.

Who else would play a vain, over the top, campy evil queen? Good casting.

The boys arrive with NO idea of what's in store for them.

We make them wait for a half hour in the sweltering sun. Adversity builds strength boys, and oh you ARE going to need it to get through what we have planned for you.

And it begins...!

"Once upon a time, in a magical land called Taiping, there lived a stylish princess called Princess Michiekins..."

"....and only the love potion can break the evil queen's spell and restore Princess Michiekin's memories of her love for Prince Marcus!"

*cue cards* 'Heroic sounds'

Go, Prince Marcus, go forth and rescue your beloved!

The first task; to reenact the proposal accurately down to the last detail. "But beware! The guards remember EVERYTHING!"

Ahahahaha the boys even acted out the Eiffel Tower!

The first ingredient for the love potion; ten hairs from the heads of the ten bravest men in the land.

Legs, noses, heads, face. All the hairs go into the bottle from which Prince Marcus will later drink the love potion from...

The next ingredient, five fishes from the pond of everlasting love. Into the potion you go!

I'm shuddering just thinking of how it's going to taste.

The next ingredient, hairs from the three most fearsome beasts in the land, the queen's hounds! Actually two Shih Tzus and one Maltese, but they ARE quite hard to catch.

Serenade the princess to try and awaken her memories!

Marcus and his heng tais have forever ruined Stand By Me for me.

The queen summons a forest of bananas to block their way. Eat your way through the bananas!

I can't stop laughing at David's unimpressed face (second from right).

"Prince Marcus, noble and tall,

Despite your love today you fall!

You are nothing without your brothers all,

So with this spell I turn them into babies small!"

I think I have a knack for writing spells hahaha.

Babies!

Giant, snivelling, smelly babies!

Strutting down the catwalk to 'I'm Too Sexy', to remind Princess Michiekins about everything she loves about fashion!

It didn't work, she has yet to regain her memory! Only the love potion can break the spell!

A concoction of live fish, pond water, body hairs, and furs of the fearsome beasts. Prince Marcus asked "Can I get the heng tais to help me drink this?" NO! Do you want ALL of them to fall in love with your princess? "Just down it like a shot, you have PLENTY of experience with doing shots!"

GAG.

Kidding, unbeknownst to him we swapped it with grape juice.

Several weeks ago, Sheena-chan forebodingly said to Marcus, "Whatever we make you do during the games, just remember, you won't be ill or die. Think of me as Gandalf. My advice doesn't make sense now, but when the time comes, my words will all come together and give you the strength to carry on."

Right before Prince Marcus downed the love potion he saw the twinkle in Gandalf's eye, remembered the words of wisdom, and that gave him fortitude to carry on.

"Princess Michelle, let down your underwear! For I have just completed the Banana Beware..."

"I promise to buy you an Hermes Kelly...to love you...and never go to bed angry..."

A pair of panties flies out the window with a note 'I remember you!' The queen's spell has been broken.

After paying the bridesmaids a nice little cash bribe, we girls finally deem him worth to climb up to the tower and rescue his Princess.

SUCCESS!

And they lived happily ever after!

Exhausted and grinning, the happy couple change into red for the tea ceremony.

M&M with Michiekin's mum and dad, who will hereby be referred to as Uncle Jagger because I SWEAR he looks like a Chinese Mick Jagger.

He likes the nickname because he's cool like that. Now EVERYONE calls him Uncle Jagger. And we call Michiekin's mum Aunty Jagger as well hahaha.

After the tea ceremony, the girls decamp to the salon to get our hair done for the wedding dinner!

Yes, this will hide my horns nicely.

Sean shows up in his Panamera and lets me have a turn behind the wheel.

While the bride & groom get their swag on, the bridesmaids & heng tais go ahead to the dinner and greet the guests as they arrive.

Lady Butterworth guards the box of ang pau money. She's literally a door bitch.

Here come the bride & groom...!

Uncle & Aunty Jagger.

The family---the Ooi brothers, Uncle & Aunty Jagger, M&M, and cousin Sheenakins. Where's Lina? Fashionably late.

Dinner was a flurry of giant lobster, abalone, ridiculous amounts of luscious Chinese dishes...

...crates of Chivas 18 year...

...a ballroom full of tipsy people toasting...

...speeches that made people cry...

And the curtain closed with Brigette giving an emotional speech and me doing the Gangnam Style dance on stage. Uncle Jagger came up on stage and started doing the Gangnam Style as well. COOLEST DAD EVER?

The older, conservative crowd---mostly the bride's parents friends---slowly trickled out.

Leaving the young 'uns to PARTY!

Sheena-chan's dance of victory when she caught the bride's bouquet! Omodetou gozaimasu Sheena-chan!

Eventually the lights were cut and chairs started going up on the tables so we grabbed the rest of the Chivas, beer, ice, and made our way back to the hotel for the after party!

At this point the groom was gone.

...please note the groom (top right, at the bottom of the bed) passed out and completely oblivious to his friends bullying him.

Eventually we leave the not-quite-yet married couple alone and make our way for a 5am supper.

The next morning I curled up in the back of the car with my favourite snacks and made my way home to Kuala Lumpur...

...feeling very tender, very fragile, and very hungover.

The next day I ended up ill with a raging flu. From the sound of it, everyone who was at the Taiping 'wedding' also felt like death the next day!

Totally worth it.

Soon to come, wedding dinner #2, the church ceremony, and wedding dinner #3!

God save our souls.

December 19, 2012

#MLOVEM ♥ MARCUS & MICHIEKINS GET MARRIED! PT.1

Marcus & Michelle's wedding. How do I even begin to describe Marcus & Michelle's wedding? In true #mlovem (the off...

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