This is the first time the husband and I would be apart for so long.  I’d always thought that the husband and I are not really that dependent on each other.  I was so wrong.. I don’t know if I am too paranoid but as the day draws nearer, I couldnt stop crying every time I thought of leaving him behind. (yes I know its only for 5 days.. still!!!) Maybe it’s becuase I am married now. My life with the husband has just started, so there are a lot of things that I want to do with the husband.. For the first time, I actually thought of all the negative things, like death…  Moreover, this is the first time that I am leaving the country without the husband. Somehow, I just don’t feel safe. Even though I am always the adventurous one.

One word. SUCKS!!

I love you hubby. You are my world.

When the make up artist arrived, my whole world came crashing down. I remembered my knees trembling along with my hands while I greeted her. The walk from the door to the area where I was supposed to do the make up was soooo long. I didnt want to sit down because I so wasn’t ready for anything. Yes, and I wanted to bolt out of the door as it was conveniently a few steps away. All I was thinking in my mind was how screwed up my day already was and how bad it is gonna be for the rest of the day.I honestly wanted to cry and have a meltdown. I had this mental battle within me and finally, with a short prayer to God, I left everything in His hands. The make up artist was really nice, as she tried her best to ease my nerves. Actually, I’d rather not talk and call me a guy but I absolutely HATED the procedure of sitting on that chair for 2 hours while having someone to paint my face and make my hair. I literally had to mediate by saying the Lord’s prayer over and over again to get me through the 2 horrendous hours. Don’t get me wrong. The make up artist is really nice and professional, but I guess it’s just me. And I could even hear her stomach growling haha, I guess she didn’t have a good day as well, as she probably has a lot of brides to attend to, being the 090909 day. Did I mention that I was hungry as well..

Anyway, within the next half an hour. the photographer and videographer came and in my mind, I thought, “THAT’S  IT”.  My fate is sealed. While both of them were snapping and videoing away, my phone and the husband’s phone rang non-stop as we were getting calls from friend,cousins, dads and uncles and what not, to confirm a whole spectrum of things. I remembered sitting there, watching the husband answering one phone from the other, shouting across the room to update me every now and then. It came to a point whereby I have to stop the make up artist from doing whatever she is doing. In fact, I didn’t even do anything. Maybe she could tell from my constant movements, or my anxious look. Whatever the case, she nodded at me, giving me a silent approval,as if she had already understood what I truely needed and wanted to do. For that, I am eternally grateful. I grabbed my phone and began typing like a mad woman, sending last minute information and advice to people. While the vain husband took the opportunity to let the make up artist style his hair.

Shortly after that, the husband went down with the phtogographer and videographer. Without all the buzz, I actually managed to calm down and let the make up artist to do whatever she needed to do. However, it was short lasted. The husband called at around 6.10 in a ‘bad news’ kind of voice and told me that the JP had ARRIVED!

Sidetrack

Okay. The thing about our JP. She is a very well sought after solemnizer and as I continue to describe her, perhaps, you will get a very clear idea of who she is. (Of course I won’t be putting her name here. ) Both the husband and I actually wanted to be solemnized by a priest, or even a pastor because we both agreed that our solemnizer should belive in what God says about marriage. Especially the no divorce part. Bascially, we wanted a ‘holy’ person. Haha if I can put it that way. To our dismay. our priest told us that he cannot solemnize our marriage outside church, so we either do it in church or find someone else.  Holding the ROM ceremony in church is out because we can only marry once in church and I really want a big white wedding, with my dad walking me down the aisle and everything. To cut the story short, I decided to go to forums to collect names and numbers of solemnizers that are ‘tried and tested’ by other brides.As this JP is the only female, I put her name first on my compiled list of JPs to call. We didn’t give much hope into getting a JP so fast,especially her,since she is so highly raved. I do not know if we are lucky, but she agreed to be our JP. We didn’t keep our options open because I was studying and everything while the husband was busy with work. So case closed. When we first met her, I felt that she was what everyone said on the net, and wasn’t susprised to follow her strict arrangements of her arrivals and departures. But I was really disappointed and shocked that she was rude to the husband when she called him, on a Sunday, 4 days before our ROM. The husband received a call from another couple who was going to be soloemnize by this JP after us. He found out that a lot of the couples had already gone to collect their wedding certificate and called the JP to confirm all details, which we wre required to do so after we collected our wedding certificate. The couple even mentioned that the JP was wondering why we did not call her. SO imagine our shock when we realized that we were probably the only couple who had not collected the ROM cert. which was funny as I remembered that we only can collect it 3 days before our ROM date. On that sunday we received the call, it was the 6th, but ROM was closed so obviously, we could only go on the 7th. Till now, I am still wondering why the other couples could collect the cert before the 6th. Anyway, she took the liberty to call us, probably to check why we didn’t call her and all. According to the husband, she was rude, even when he apologised for not calling because he didn’t know others had collected their cert(she told us to call her only when we have collected our cert), she said she didn’t care. And demanded to know what are the arrangements like for her on that day since we were the first couple on that day. She was not pleased that when we wanted to send a cab to pick her up, insisting that if the cab should come, that cab driver would have to call her. Seriously.. what kind of arrangement is that. After he hung up the phone, his first reaction was to find another JP, as he felt that she was too difficult to work with. As I was hearing their conversation as well, I cant help but to agree with him. I can totally understand that being a popular JP, everything has to be in order so that no couple is being affected on the actual day. But that attitude that she had while speaking to the husband was so uncalled for. It’s not like we get married all the time and are familiar with all the procedures. I cannot understand why is she so harsh on us. We really wanted to change the JP that instant, but unfortuantely, we did not know how to and since her name was already printed out on the certificate. From that time, both the husband and I were so afraid of making mistakes because we didn’t want to make her angry. Fancy having that kind of worrying to do n your big day. Anyway she played a big part in our ROM, though not for the right reasons.

After I hung up, all the fears that I had felt earlier came crashing back to me. This cannot be happening. The make up artist is still doing face,my hair not even done and this woman is here, 20mins early for the ceremony. I was wondering what she was doing and if she was giving the husband a hard time downstairs. I guess the make up artist could sense something and bless her soul, she tried to calm again. We started talking about her wedding and later on, to church and God, as she happens to be a Protestant Christian. I like talking about God, even to Protestants, as long as they do not have strong reactions to the teachings of Catholicism (because you know, everyone loves to attack the Catholic church). Not surprisingly, I was once again relaxed, as the topic kind of drifted me from reality. I do not know why, but I feel excited when I talk about God . Lol.

OKay I will have to finish it off in the next post because I’ve disgressed a lot on talking about  our experience with the JP.

Anyway, the husband reminded me that today’s our first month together as being husband and wife. I am still getting used to the being someone’s wife. I mean I don’t even look like a ‘wife’. Like the other day we were doing this survey for HK tourism board and the person asked the husband if he came with his girlfriend and the husband proudly replied, No, I came with my wife. No doubt it felt good, but there’s still a tingling of weirdness running inside of me.

To commemorate this special day, I want to write about our solemnisation. This is a good test to see what really stands out on that day.

I could not sleep before and was on the phone with the husband for a very long time. I remembered being very worried, for the uncertainties ahead in the day ahead and also the future. Afterall, I AM GETTING MARRIED AT THE AGE OF 19 YEARS & 9 MONTHS.Even though I know and tell people around me that everything is planned and we are ready..but WHAT IF  something goes wrong!!?!?! (For the record, everything that I was afraid would happed during the ROM did happen. Haha)  The husband was very patient and gave me 101 reasons why I shouldn’t worry and get some sleep. To be very honest, I’d really appreciate that the husband is very strong in this department, that he always know what to say from what we’ve learnt during our Engaged Encounter and World Youth Day.Most importantly, he reminded me to keep faith in God. Getting to this stage was not easy, the husband faced a lot of challenges getting approval from my family, especially my mother. Thankfully, his determination eventually moved my family and me of course.

After we hang up, I went through my vows again, doing some last minute editing and practicing it in front of the mirror. I remember listening to our wedding song over and over again for at least two hours before changing to Matt Maher’s songs, reminiscing the time we had in Sydney during World Youth Day and reflecting on the meaning of the talks and sermons we have heard. As you can imagine, I fell asleep at around 5 am in the morning. I remembered waking up at around 10 in the morning and slept in till 11 plus. I was so afraid that I would forget something and so I ran up and my house for at least 8 times  before leaving the house.

Initially, I plan to reach the hotel at around 1 pm so that we can have enough time to rest and settle last minute stuff. Being the dilly dally people that we are, we arrived at the hotel at around 3 plus. The husband was nice enough to treat me a Green tea latte to calm my nerves and we met with the coordinator at around 3.30pm to finalize everything. To my absolute horror, I received a message from my makeup artist, asking for my room number as she is reaching is half an hour’s time. It was then did I realized that it was 4pm. With that, we left in a hurry and went up to the room. Okay, this WAS the bomb.. I swear my heart did skip a beat when Ryan told me he left my shampoo and undergarments(which were really important). With that, I jumped and cried loudly on the spot, threatening to run away..instinctively to the bathroom.. hahah yes, sometimes I am really drama.. In the end, I managed to bathe and get ready to be in time to open the door for my make up artist.

What I want to  write about more is life being a Mrs.. Well, it is definately not as glamorous and the amount of stress and responsibilities is too much to bear… Or MAYBE it’s because I have three exams to study for after rushing 3 different essays.. If we really made it to Masters, I’ve already made a mental note to leave a gap between studying and preparing for wedding which would be 10000000 times more stressful.

One scary thing about married, is to open the letterbox and be greeted by BILLS! So far, the husband had received bills for maintainece fee for HDB and bills for utilities. HELLO for a house that we’ve yet to move in. That is on top of the credit card debt(mainly for ROM related stuff), housing loan and renovation loan.. yes that is enough to crush us.. I’m gonna graduate in 1 month’s time and hopefully get a job quickly to repay for all of these..

Somehow, I regretted booking the tickets to Hong Kong… Nonetheless, it’s still nice to have someone share the burden with me.. It has been one week since we’ve been married..I do not know what God had planned for us, but I am sure no matter what, with His help , we will get through..   

Good night world.

I am starting another one now because I want to write about the next most important chapter in my life, and also other thoughts that spring out occasionally.

To start off, I’m Veronica. and am a proud Catholic convert. I am turning 20 at the end of the year, and am finishing up mydegree. I’m a firm believer of what my Church teaches even though it might seem ridiculous to some.  I am aslo engaged to this wonderful guy named Ian and we are gonna get legally married in this coming 9th Sept.

In one of the modules that I’ve studied, I came across this theory which proposes that our actions are motivated by our ideal self and ought to self. And so, my blog would be mainly focusing on my actual self  and when there is a discrepancy between our ideal/ought to self with my actual self. I am sure this happens to all of us, which explains the dilemma we face from time to time.

I might not have time to update from time to time but I would try.. Stay tuned!! Lots of things are happening =)