Wedding dinner of Vincent and Madeline - part 2 - the nite of 20th

Both the bride and bridegroom had separate dinner gatherings at their respective homes on the 20th June. Vincent's dinner was for his brothers and other friends of the bridegroom and Madeline's dinner was for her sisters (cheemuis) and her friends. For friends of both of them, they were welcomed to attend either or both.

The day started with the contractor who was supposed to setup the canopies for the dinner. My wife and I went to market to reserve Nyonya kuehs and Tom Yam mee hoon for Saturday morning. Just as we arrived back from the market, the canopy man was there. Took us half and hour of trying to figure out how to erect 2 pieces of 20 feet by 20 feet canopies inside the house compound or just outside of it. In the end, I told the canopy man to just unload the table and chairs for the party and forget about the canopy. We would have ended up erecting the canopy on the public road in front of the house (normal in Malaysia) but the road in front of my house slopes!!

I also spent the morning washing and waxing my Camry. Just before Freddy turned up to dress up the car, a bird with possible diarrhea left specs of something all over the top. Luckily my wax could remove it.

As evening approached, the caterer came in to setup the food. I had to setup the tables! Hmphh! And by 6pm, the first guests started arriving. Despite the night being on a working day, many of the guests had time to go home, freshen up and then showed up for the dinner. I also spent the night driving to Damansara Jaya to fetch my brother's mum and also leading a Singapore cousin to the Palace of Golden Horses and then back so that they know how to get back and forth on their own. Madeline's Singapore based cousin then took Madeline's sister, Yin San, to Puduraya to fetch another couple of relatives who were arriving by bus from Lenggong. Unfortunately, they ended up in the Hockey stadium. A flurry of phone calls had to be made to get Yin San to the hockey stadium. Then Vincent called up to say there was durians available. Some aunts from Simpang Renggam visited with some durians. I rushed over to his house, grabbed 6 durians and shared that with whoever was still happily eating away. The cheemuis also consumed one big bottle of Choya. looks like I need to stock up on Choya whenever this group turns up!

As I was away from the house often to run errands, it has been good to have the cheemuis helping out. The playful cheemuis above helped in getting organized. When the day was over, 4 of the cheemuis stayed over. They were needed to help get everything ready in the early morning for the arrival of the bridegroom, the ragging and the tea ceremony.

I put 3 of them in my mum's room. My mum and the maid of honor were placed in my room, with Alex and my wife. Madeline and I ended up being the living room guardians. And Yin San, who cannot sleep in an air conditioned room or one with the fan blowing at her, opted for the upstairs living room where I had a convertible sofa/bed. That's the first time in a long time that I had so many people staying over. It would have been more, but I managed to get 4 rooms in Palace of Golden Horses to house 2 families - one from Singapore/Lenggong and the other from Malacca.

Once everyone had their bath, the cheemuis who remained started doing up their nails - varnishing and polishing. Janet helped to get Madeline's nails trimmed and polish. And the last thing for the night before Madeline called it a night - a sort of a mask.