My Hen's Night and Birthday Celebration with Friends @ I Am Cafe

Years back I had my unofficial hens night and just weeks before my wedding, the girls organized the 'official' hens night for me. It was a birthday cum hens night celebration. 

I can't remember I was on leave or just reach home early that day. But I managed to get change and dress up for my hens night :) 

#LOTD before heading out 

Here we are, at I Am Cafe 

There was a queue when we reached so we waited for a little while before getting our seats. So after we gotten our seats, the below went on..

The 'handing over' session lol. It really felt like #jasewedsclair happened just yesterday.

Pictures with the ladies after being 'crowned' the bride to be..

With YY

With Claire

With Nana

Last but not least, with Esther 

A solo pic. 

Indeed not a flaterring shot but I guess I'm too happy hence that wide smile. #cannotseeeyes

Some group pics before our food arrived..

This group pic is kind of pai seh when we were posing for it hahah! But we don't really care..

So here's what we ordered:

Fish n Chips - $15.90

Cajun-Spiced Grilled Chicken Burger  - $14.90

Claire and I had this burger. It was really good and the fries was oh-so-good. So sinful for a person who's on diet for the big day but since it's my hen's night, it's okay to 'cheat' then haha! After that I have to work out double hard.

Cajun Chicken Aglio - $14.90

I can't remember who ate what but all the food was yummy.

The surprise came afterwards..

That's me totally caught by surprise.

My all time favourite cakes - Rainbow Cake and Red Velvet Cake 

Yay I have 2 cakes :) 

#welfie 

Making my birthday wish..

The 5 of us have a hard time clearing the cakes. The cakes are instagram-worthy but the taste of it was so-so in our opinion.

After the dinner and birthday cakes, it's time to parade around with the sash and bridal veil before we call it a night.

Esther loves to take paparazzi shot so here it goes..

Anyway, all these happened towards the end of the meetup when we were walking to the MRT. As the christmas tree was up at Bugis, we took the chance to take more photos before we call it a day.

Randome #welfie we took along the way to find the Xmas tree

Solo pic 

With Clarie once again

Btw, that's nana favourite pose lol. 

With Esther 

With YY :) 

They do look like they are going to poke my face and head. lol.

Ending this pose with a collage of all the hen's night held. There's actually 1 more to be added to this collage but I've yet to add on. Probably when I start blogging about the other hen's night that happen lately #notmyhensnight, I'll do the collage then! 

The food at I Am Cafe was good in general and their food were of reasonable cafe price. Service was good too so no complains about them.  

Thanks you ladies for making my 27th birthday and hen's night a memorable one :) 

I Am Cafe

674 North Bridge Road #01-01, off Haji Lane, Singapore, Singapore 188804 

04/11/2015 - Birthday Celebration Part 1 @ The Workbench

Last year's birthday celebration was a simple one as the upcoming wedding is nearly a month away. 

Any off days prior to the wedding is all related to wedding preparation and every minute is important and not to be waste. Hence off days have become very precious to us haha! 

The day before my actual birthday, I came home to this surprise by Derp :)  I've actually knew what he was going to get for me because he did all the ordering and stuff like that infront of me lol. 

Never did I knew that he will surprise me by wrapping it up and a birthday card. Totally didn't know when it arrived too. Initially, we thought it will arrive after my birthday but glad that it came just in time so I can wear it out on my birthday itself :) 

As usual, when the clock strikes 12am, I cut the birthday cake bought by Derp. 

The birthday cake (500g) which was obviously too much for us to finish it lol. We took a few days to clear it and probably skipped having red velvet cake for awhile. 

A #welfie with the cake. The cake was too heavy so I give it a miss of holding it up. 

Mandatory shot with the birthday cake. Pardon for the messy hair because it's still wet. 

Yummy red velvet cake but way too much cream cheese for our liking.

On my birthday, it was a day filled with activities. First up, birthday lunch with Derp.

Birthday #OOTD. Birthday dress from my all time favourite Fayth :) 

Close up shot of the birthday gift from Derp. Watch from Just Tangy :) Love their watches so much and all of them look so pretty! 

I chose a lunch venue which is near to where we rent our gowns and suits as we have some errands to run after the birthday lunch.

Decide to have our lunch (also our first meal of the day) at The Workbench. It's a cafe located at the Ang Mo Kio neighborhood area. I was quite surprised to see many cafes popping out these days even at neighborhood area. Time to give them some support because they faces stiff competition. Can such cafes come to Sengkang area soon? :) 

The menu

A wide variety of ice cream 

They served rainbow cake too. But nope we didn't order that. 

We almost have the whole cafe to ourselves on a weekday afternoon.

We ordered the lemon tea crush to share. 

Our Mains - Prawn Aglio Olio ($14)

Both of us ordered the same main. I know we are boring but it's our favourite dish of all time! 

The prawn aglio olio they served was good. Despite them using frozen prawn meat, they are very generous with their servings. We were actually quite full after eating our mains but we went ahead to order dessert.

For the dessert, we ordered the ice cream with waffle. Read online that their waffle is not bad so we give it a go. I remembered the previous year I also had ice cream on waffle on my birthday itself at Ice Edge Cafe :) 

Waffle with Ice Cream - $7.50

We chose the Coffee Oreo flavored ice cream to go with the waffle and chocolate topping. 

A shot with my birthday date before we eat the dessert. 

The ice cream was good but the waffle was so-so. We still preferred the ice cream waffle from Ice Edge Cafe. 

Overall, the food at The Workbench was not bad and the price of their food is comparable to other cafes out there.  

The Workbench 

332 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1, #01-1881, 560332

After the birthday lunch, we met up with my mother in law and brought her to our bridal studio to try her gown to wear for our wedding, and at the same time to collect the Derp's actual day suit. It's really 1 stone kill many birds in a day, not a single time wasted on our off day. 

That's all for now. Will be back to blog the second part of my birthday celebration soon :) 

30/10/2015 - 过大礼 Chinese Betrothal Ceremony

Shall get down to blogging bits and pieces of the wedding preparation. 过大礼 has got to be 1 of the most important process of a traditional Chinese wedding, or at least to us and especially my parents. Because we believe in doing the 'full set' for our Chinese wedding. 

After getting auspicious dates from Master Long Tian Xiang for our customary wedding day, we also referred to the dates he has provided for the 过大礼 day. 

Months before the 过大礼 day, we get down to hunting for the betrothal gifts. It wasn't that difficult after doing some research online since most of the stuff can be googled these days. 

We went down to Shuang Xi Le to look at the various packages they have. It was complicated at first(so many different type of packages) but we narrowed down on the Teochew package since I'm a Teochew. 

On top of the package, we have also rented the Traditional Teochew basket from them for 过大礼. I can't really remember the price but it was roughly 20 plus dollars. Not forgetting there's a deposit of 80 bucks or so for the basket just in the case of customers damaging it. 

The day before the 过大礼, we went down to collect the package that we ordered and also the basket. 

Here's the 2 tier basket. 

There's actually a even bigger basket (3 tier)but we are fine with renting this since we don't have much items. 

When we opened the basket, they have actually placed all the items inside for us. 

The items in the Teochew Package are: 

Four Treasure 四宝礼品

2 pairs of Dragon Phoenix Candles 双龙双凤蜡烛

2 sets of 9.9ft Red Cloth 红彩两套

2 pairs of Mini Elements Seed 迷你五谷

Bride Price Red Packet 聘金喜包

Please don't ask me what exactly each items are for and their purpose for it because I only know the common ones like the Dragon Phoenix Candles, Red Packet and the Red cloth lol. Pig trotters and the Dragon Pheonix Candles is a must for my parents. 

We rearrange the basket to our liking the night before the 过大礼 day.

All the items from Shuang Xi Le we put in on the top tier and the oranges we placed it at the bottom tier. To be honest, it's really quite heavy.

The service at Shuang Xi Le was pretty normal. They didn't really hard sell us that much but we feel that their knowledge was barely there especially when comes to answering our enquiries. But it's alright because we just want to faster 'chop' the package and settle it once and for all haha. I will feel that those traditional Chinese wedding shops sales person will be more familiar with all these customs.

As you can see on their website, they do provide you option to add on stuff like Teochew Biscuit and pig trotters. After questioning them, their Teochew biscuit needs a minimum order of 4 boxes hence we get the Teochew biscuits ourselves instead. The pig trotters were at a much higher price as compare to getting it on your own so we opt to buy it ourselves instead.

Shuang Xi Le

Square 2 #03-39

10 Sinaran Drive, Singapore 307506 (Above Novena MRT Station)

Operating Hours:

Monday to Saturday: 11am to 9:30pm (Including Public Holiday)

Sunday : 12pm-9:30pm 

Tel: 6397 2018

For the Teochew biscuits, we decided on getting 2 boxes for my parents. Once again, after much researching, we decide on getting it from Gin Thye. 

I was pretty afraid there's a minimum order but actually there isn't. We ordered it more than a month prior to the collection date and the Teochew biscuits can actually last up till 2 weeks. 

We collected the Teochew biscuits 2 days before the 过大礼 day since the day before we have to rush to get the Teochew baskets from Shuang Xi Le. 

Pretty packaging 

And that's what is inside.

I'm glad that my dad loves it alot so I guess only the older generation will know how to appreciate it.

1 box of Teochew biscuits cost $20. I'm glad my parents didn't request the wedding cakes for relatives to be Teochew biscuits (since my mum's side is not Teochew). They are actually quite heavy too. I'm not sure whether do they do delivery and the minimum order for them to deliver to your place.

Gin Thye

632 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 4

#01-964 Singapore 560632

Tel: 6458 0206

The amount of things to be carried over to my parents place

过大礼 checked! The table is too small for the stuff hence many were on the floor.

The dowry items prepared by my parents to be returned to the groom's side.

For the wedding cakes, my parents and Derp prefer those classic kind of wedding cakes. Hence we narrowed down to cake shops like Prima Deli, Swee Heng and Bengawan Solo for our wedding cakes to be distributed to relatives.

Eventually, we decided on Swee Heng's wedding cakes because they are affordable and it comes in heart shape! My favorite shape of all time :)

The pretty box of the wedding cake.

The heart shape marble cake :) Got the wedding 气氛 right? haha! 

I can't remember the exact price of the wedding cake, but it was roughly $7+ for each cake. They have various choices and also those classic old school cream cakes too. You may get the brochure for their wedding cakes at any of the Swee Heng Classics outlet. s

As we did not hit the $200 orders (we only ordered 15 boxes), there were a $20 delivery charge imposed. There were various delivery time(as early as 6.30am) and they were actually very punctual. I will definitely consider them for baby shower cakes in the future. I've always loved their pastries :)

Last but not least, ending this post with a pic of us with all the 过大礼 goodies. Pic taken by my mum and yes it took her quite awhile to get it right haha! 

That's all for now :) Hereby wishing all the brides to be good luck in their wedding preparation and jia you!