Hello Everyone,
in this blog post, I will be sharing with you the insights to Jacqueline’s 24th Birthday and Surprise Proposal Party and how the event was conceived.
Well, the idea for the proposal was conceived in January earlier this year and the plan was to coincide it with Jacqueline’s 24th birthday. In fact, the main plan all along was to coincide the proposal with her birthday. I had about 6 months to plan this entire event and there were many ideas that came to my mind.
Some ideas for the proposal were:
1). Tell her that I have regimental duty in camp and won’t be able to book out in time for her birthday celebration; then tell her sister to bring her out to the movies and viola, screen a video proposal in the cinema where family members and friends have all been seated by then.
2). Bring her out for lunch with family members and friends at a restaurant and propose after the lunch; then have a staycation with her and a romantic dinner by the waterfront.
3). Take her to the Universal Studios Singapore for a day of excitement and fun; then have a dinner at one of the restaurants where family members and friends have all already been settled down to celebrate her birthday; and finally propose during the fireworks show.
4). Rent a private yacht that can accommodate 12 people for 3-4 hours and have a romantic dinner and propose to her out at sea.
As you can see, there were so many ideas for the proposal but there were also two main considerations that I had to bear in mind and they were:
a). Finance/Budget
b). Number of people Attending
Being a NSF [where allowance is just barely enough to make ends meet], I had to save really hard so that the proposal could come to pass. Hence, this was one important consideration that I took note of as I only had 6 months to save. The number of people that would be attending the event was also another important consideration for me as the greater the number of people, the more it would cost.
So, after much planning and re-planning, I finally decided on the final idea for the proposal and that is, to hold a birthday celebration for her at a function room where family members and friends would be present, do a “disappearing act”, and then dressed up in a mascot costume to surprise her during the cake-cutting, sing our favourite love song, and finally propose to her.
With that idea in mind, I went on to meetup with lots of vendors/suppliers to negotiate for a reasonable price for their services and it was really quite a draining process as I had to send out emails after emails for quotations and confirmations.
As I was counting down to the day of the proposal, I was naturally anxious because I wanted to make sure that everything would go smoothly. In fact, two weeks before the proposal, I had to change the date of the proposal from the 16th of June to the 17th of June as the function room wasn’t available on the intended date for the proposal! Hence, I really thank God that we managed to book the function room for the 17th of June even though I had to liaise/communicate with the suppliers/vendors via email regarding the changes.
Well, the day finally came when I had to propose and all the hardwork and effort that I put in was all worth it as Jacqueline was so surprised and touched with the proposal that she said, “Yes!”
Check out the photos below:
As the theme for Jacqueline’s birthday was, “Candylicious”, I decided to get handmade candies from Sticky so as to distribute it as door-gifts to all the guests. Each bottle would normally cost $2.50 but I was given a discount of $0.30 per bottle and hence paid $2.20 per bottle. On top of that, I was given a 5% off by Sticky. I’m so glad that all our guests loved the door-gifts!
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
To make the event a rather special and memorable one, I engaged Party Blasters to be the official decorations team for the event and I must say this, they did such a fantastic job that everyone talked about the decorations and commented that it was so fairy-tale like! So, if you are looking for someone to decorate your event, do check out Party Blasters and I’m sure you will be blown away with their stunning creativity!
The Hello Kitty Walker was quite a hit with everyone as everyone wants to have a picture with it.
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
The Tea-Light Candle set the perfect mood and ambience for the event and it was on every table and the buffet line as well.
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
Here’s Cheryl and Winnie whom were manning the reception desk where guests had to write their well-wishes on the heart-shaped sticker and then take a Polaroid photograph to attach to the guestbook!
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
The Food Caterer was Foodlink Catering and it was our first time engaging their services. There were mixed reviews about the quality of the food as some said it was excellent, some said it was so-so, while some said it was not good. I guess everyone have their own taste but well, there were tons of leftover food because 10 people backed out from the event at the eleventh hour [yes, they said they could not make it on the day itself! If it was more than 3 days before the event, I could still accept, but well, on the day itself is a bit too much uh!] Honestly, I was quite disappointed as the people whom flew my aeroplane were the ones whom I thought I could trust and depend on. Well, from this experience itself, I could kinda tell who’s my friend and who’s not.
Overall Buffet Line
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
Pineapple Fried Rice
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
Xin Zhou Bee Hoon
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
Curry Chicken
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
Butter Prawns
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
Spring Rolls
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
Ngoh Hiang
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
Sweet and Sour Fish
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
Braised Toufu with Mushrooms
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
Alright… so now on to the more interesting part of my blog post.
Ming Wei, Winnie, Xin Ying, Wanli, and Shaun were doing the “behind-the-scenes” work for the proposal and they went to my car to prepare the light sticks to form the words, “Will U Marry Me?”
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
And here’s Xin Ying and Winnie helping me out with the costume! Yes I looked retarded cause it was so hard to get dressed up!
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
In case you are wondering where I rented the mascot costume from, I got it from No. 1 Costume Costume and this was perhaps the cutest costume that was recommended to me by Jordan, the staff from No. 1 Costume Costume. They have a whole range of costumes for parties and you might want to check them out should you be attending any dress-up parties.
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
On my way to the function room from the carpark, with Winnie and Wanli guiding me!
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
Meanwhile at the function room, Ming Wei was coordinating the whole birthday celebration and they were all getting ready for the big moment! Baby thought I was still in the toilet answering to nature’s call.
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
The cake that I gotten for Baby was designed by myself and it was baked by Pine Garden’s Cakes. Honestly, their cakes are really awesome. I personally tried it myself and I really like the soft texture of their cakes. The top tier of the cake that I designed for Baby was Bailey’s Chocolate Crunch while the bottom tier of the cake was Black Forest, both of which were simply delicious! If you are looking for delicious-looking designer cakes, you have to try Pine Garden’s Cakes!
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
And so.. the celebration began! Baby thought I wasn’t able to make it on time to celebrate her birthday as I was still in the “toilet”.
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
After the singing of the birthday song, I appeared in the Mascot costume and she was so surprised that she teared!
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
Needless to say, she guessed correctly that I was the one in the Mascot costume.
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
Then, a proposal video produced by Calista was shown to her on the iPad while I was preparing my guitar to sing our favourite love song, that is, Telling the World by Taio Cruz.
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
And so… I proposed to her!
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
and she said, “Yes!”
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
This was my birthday gift to Baby and I got it from TeddyHub at a really good price! The bear is 1.4M tall by the way.
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
And these are all the presents that Baby got on her birthday! She’s truly blessed indeed!
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
Alright, for you guys out there who are going to propose soon, you must be wondering where you can get a 99-flowers bouquet! For mine, I got it from Bloom Room and they did a rather excellent job of designing the bouquet and wrapping it up. Well, I didn’t expect that a bouquet of 99 roses would be so huge and heavy but really, a 99-roses bouquet definitely adds a “WOW” factor to the proposal! I got the 99-roses bouquet at a rather decent price and many people whom asked me about it were so surprised that they asked me for their contact!
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
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| From Jacqueline’s Birthday and Proposal 2012 |
So, this is the story of my proposal and how it all went about. Well, I’m sure all of you would surely have your own story to tell too!
If you are interested in engaging the services of the vendors/suppliers that I engaged for my proposal, do feel free to contact me and drop me an email at melvinlee@awinsomelife.org
Stay tuned for my next blog entry as I share with you the details about the various vendors/suppliers whom I engaged for the proposal!
God bless!
