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Wedding Preparations Part 4 – Pre-Wedding Shoot!

Posted on January 31, 2021 by Cheryl T

Gotta admit, despite having hated the thought of wearing make up and dressing up in big beautiful dresses, PWS was really a fun experience.

Sometime around June I was reading up r/Singapore’s daily discussion thread, I spotted someone mentioning about having a singleton photoshoot (sort of like a celebration of turning 30 without getting hitched) and that someone was asking about whether this photo studio, Yikeshu, is value for money. I was curious, having turned down the idea of PWS because they’re ridiculously priced at $3000 to beyond $10000, I thought ‘value for money? Pfft’.

I googled the name Yikeshu and immediately got a hit for Yikeshu Bridal and Photography Studio, and boy is their packages priced lower than what I would expect.

All these for under $2000? What is going on

Shared the screenshot of the PWS to Fad and we both agree this sounds a bit too good to be true. But hey, no harm trying, we can leave the studio if we’re not interested. So I dropped them a message, only took a few hours for them to get back and schedule an appointment to try on some outfit and find out what else they can offer.

They are located within the industrial estates of Ubi, at a building near MacPherson MRT station along Downtown Line. We had to remove our shoes to enter the vinyl covered studio and before that scanned the safe entry QR and took our temperatures because COVID-19 is still a damn thing. The studio is quite a dainty place, with enough room for just a small front desk, a photography area with backdrops and a closet full of colourful gowns, white bridal gowns Chinese qunkua and men’s suit.

The consultant Qiqi, whom I believe to be the one who own the business, asked what sort of styles we are looking for and we both answered no. We haven’t thought of any styles as we have not been to a professional gown fitting place before.

‘Ladies first’ she said as she took us to the closet area to look at some of the options that would fit my size UK12-14 body and picked out a few gowns that are different from each other. I know my bridal gown lingos, I’ve watched Say Yes To The Dress, I know what are mermaid dresses, ball gowns, A-line and what is a sweet heart neckline, I just don’t know how they’d look like on me when I put them on.

Qiqi proceed to help put on the first dress on me. It’s a off-shoulder dress with ruffle skirt and a sweet heart neckline. First thoughts, it’s very heavy. Heavier than anything I’ve worn. I didn’t expect it to be so heavy, haha. It felt good to put it on, like a luxurious experience.

The sleeves can be tucked inside, which made the dress looked even better.

Next, I tried on a dress with laced sleeves and details. Looks better than the first dress but both didn’t wow me at all. I asked Qiqi if I could bring my own dress for the PWS and she said I’m free to bring whatever I want as long as it fits the photoshoot schedule.
Qiqi did mentioned that they’re expanding and will be moving to a larger location and a fellow bride-to-be on Telegram has mentioned that they often update their wardrobe to include newer designs which is why the BTB would make several trips to the studio to try on new gowns.

There’s something I’ve always wanted to put on. Despite my fiancé’s protest (he doesn’t want anything ‘traditional’), I asked Qiqi if we could have the Qunkua included in the package. I’ve always wanted to put one a Qunkua!!

She answered yes and that it can be included in the 3 gowns and 2 suits. Meaning instead of having 1 premium gown and 2 non-premium gowns, I can have 1 premium gown, 1 Qunkua and 1 non-premium gown, which the latter can be used for outdoor shoots, while my fiancé gets 1 suit and 1 traditional Chinese suit. Fad has been sourcing for tailors to make his actual day suit, so he’ll be having 3 outfits in total and I will have 4 (including my own bridal gown).

First set of traditional Chinese wedding outfit we tried on. The feeling was surreal. Can’t believe I finally have the chance to try on a Kua! Argh it’s so beautiful. Well, for my dress at least. The men’s outfit seems ‘off’ and doesn’t match the women’s. Even Fad was not having it, his facial experience is a mix of having just 3 hours of sleep (‘cuz night shift) and irritated by the mismatch between both outfits.

The 2nd outfit. I know, I know, it looks like as if I just photoshop the 2nd outfit onto the first photo. Trust me, he definitely did put on the outfit in person. Did I mentioned that he only had 3 hours of sleep? Anyway, these compared to the previous ones, is wayyyyyyyyy better. The results I got from the
poll I held on my Instagram story comparing the two sets of Kua was 20/80, with the majoring opting for matching Kua with blue details. My followers, you guys are amazing people.
🙌🏻

After the Kua trying session, we proceed to men’s suit.

To be very honest, their collection of men’s suit is nothing to be wowed at. It’s as if it hasn’t been updated for the past 15 years. I would cringe at the sight of white tuxedo, you know, those lined with black folds running down the chest area. No fucking way I’m seeing Fad in those. Despite all the awful suits they have there’s still a few that are acceptable 👌🏻.

Hmmm not feeling it. 👎🏻. The suit he’s planning to get it tailor made will be checkered patterned as well and the colours will be vibrant. So, no to dull grey checkered suits.

He can’t even move his arms properly in this 😂

Dayumm. Purple suit is an unusual choice but he does look 💯

Once we’ve tried out all the suits that’ll conceal his 4 months pregnant tummy, we told Qiqi that we’re gonna go for their local PWS package. We paid 50% of the package price and schedule the dates for the dress fitting & selection and the photoshoot date.

That night Qiqi made a WhatsApp group to share the invoice, dates and photoshoot reminders.

The exact message they have sent which included a Dropbox link to a photo gallery for inspiration. I don’t own a pair of silicone bra but I managed to get a pair off Shopee for less than 5 dollars.

Fast forward to later half of December, we visited their new location also in Ubi. This time round it’s a larger and more spacious location than before. This time assisting us is Nichole.

Nichole said that for me I would look good in a mermaid dress, something I’ve not tried before. She picked out a few white dresses from the rack to show but as I was stepping back to have a wider view of all the white dresses they have, I fell back a little. And whilst trying to balance I grab hold of a emerald green ball gown. I couldn’t let go of it. I kept tugging on it and pulling it out for Fad to catch a glimpse of it. Nichole said that’s a premium gown for indoor shoot and I could try it on if I really want it.

I’m obsessed with all things green. Especially emerald green. So I told Nichole that I’ll be bringing my own wedding dress and I’ll only be interested in non-white gowns today but because that mermaid dress she showed is also beautiful, I don’t mind having it a go…..I didn’t take pictures haha, not a fan of the dress at all.

After the white dress, Nichole helped put on this thing of beauty. I’m in LOVE! The dress I immediately fell in love with. Even Fad was like, CHOOSE THIS! I kept showing myself off in front of the mirror, obsessing over each and every details of this dress.

It’s so beautiful. I joked to them that I might take this home for myself.

2nd premium gown I tried on. Love the sparkly details of the dress but the off shoulder sleeves were constricting the movement of my arms.

3rd premium gown. My bridesman gave a thumbs up for this but I’m not feeling the tablecloth patterns on the bodice. Hard pass.

4th premium gown. A ball gown with a plunging neckline. I love the bright colours of it but Fad kept talking about the 1st green dress.

The train of the dress is super long! Really matches the tight grey suit but as mentioned before, that first dress tho 🙌🏻

For outdoor shoot, we have the non-premium gowns. First up, this bright blue off shoulder dress.

2nd non-premium gown is a similar dress but in ruby red. I love this so much but I prefer something less usual like a blue coloured dress.

3rd non-premium gown is also a bright blue dress. Nichole didn’t spread out the skirt of the dress and I didn’t notice that, hence the bell shaped look. Anyway, the straps made my shoulders look extra broad. Nope to this dress.

After all the gown wearing is over, we put the traditional Chinese Qunkua. Not sure if I’ve noticed this before, the outfit is tight! Can’t lift my arms above my tummy at all. It looks great but it’s so uncomfortable to move around in.

Nichole then ask us to try on the other set which comes with a larger size. First of, the men’s one 😒 no. I prefer to endure a tight outfit than to see him wear this.

Fast forward to the actual day of the photoshoot, on a Monday

Woke up pretty early to have breakfast and prep all the stuff we need. The weekend before Fad had rented a car from TribeCar to move us around during the weekend and today, rather than spending $180 for the photographer to drive us around to random spots. The night before we had our hair professionally washed and our face clear of hair and a pair of well tamed eye brows.

It was Fad’s first full face threading experience and he didn’t knew what to expect. The beautician had asked if he’s alright with ‘everything’ not knowing ‘everything’ also meant the removal of his patchy moustache. My man was crying real tears after the session while trying to put on a brave face. Poor thing.

We head over to Yikeshu’s new location in 63@Ubi, just few minutes walk away from their former location. It was my 2nd time having make up put on my face by a professional, the first time was back in secondary school when they hired a random professional to do a 3-day programme related to their field – it was a women who owned a beauty salon that also retails Amway beauty products.

I’m not a fan of eye make up. It’s so uncomfortable, like a piece of stamp stuck on my eyelids and I had to resist the urge to remove it. Not gonna lie, I looked really good. The make up was done by the other studio assistant that I’ve forgotten her name. She did a good job except she left two feelers on the side of my head and it was so damn annoying trying to shove them away and beside my ears only for her to put it back where she had them.

After the make up, the assistant led me to the mirrors and helped put me into the beautiful green gown while Fad wore his tailor made suit he bought for $600. First scene is an all white backdrop with windows. I smiled for the camera but inside I’m irritated by the hairs in front of my eyeballs. Even the photographer called out to her to remove the ‘feelers’ because it was affecting my ability to radiate positivity into his cameras.

All was well until the photographer commented that my height is affecting the whole vibe of the shoot. I’m a bit annoyed by his comment but went along with it by removing my heels for the rest of the indoor shoot.

Oh by the way, their bouquets are all damn cui. The faux flowers looked discoloured and the ribbon that’s holding the flowers together is so sticky. Given a choice I would set fire to all 10+ faux flower bouquets they had made me choose from. I left my own flowers in the car and we’re all too lazy to collect it.

Most uncomfortable shot was this one where I had to climb up the fake piano. The piano was a little shaky I told the photographer “you serious?” My tone was awkward so he must have thought I was joking and continue to urge me to go up the piano. Oh, notice in all the photos I’m holding the bouquet in the same manner? Photographer said it’s to conceal my fat arms. 🤷🏻‍♀️

This shot can be improved by removing the damn piano and having less arm fats.

We look adorable in this shot. Just don’t focus on the bouquet.

The next scene is a library backdrop. As the past 50 photos taken were us smiling and showing our imperfect teeth to the camera, I asked that we would like to have one serious shot. The photographer said it won’t look good and we’re suppose to be happy and smiling for the marriage to come. “Just one will do, please?” I asked. After he snapped this photo and showed us, I was about to say “ooh it looks good!” But he interrupted by saying “ah you see! Not nice! So angry, not happy, not beautiful”, I wanted to roll my eyes so hard the uncomfortable false eyelashes would pop off my eyes on its own.

Continue with the smiling and with the awful bouquet that looks like it’s rotting.

Next we have a scene at a corner filled with dangling light bulbs. Not really a fan of this backdrop but oh well. We do look cute in the photos.

One thing I hate about this is the amount of times I knocked against a burning hot bulb while Fad is all protected in his tailor made suit. I wanted to just get over with it.

Right after an hour of lunch and rest, we went for another round of make up and changing of hair accessories for the Chinese Kua shoot. Fad PayNow the remaining sum of the package, including the cost of the false eyelashes, and we went on to the next shoot.

This is the most enjoyable part of the indoor shoot experience.

Other than the oriental painting background, they have a plain white background for the Chinese Kua shoot.

And the very common ‘round glasses with Kua’ shoot.

Once we’re done with the indoor shoot, the assistant did a final round of make up and helped put on the floral hair pieces that I had purchased from Etsy, which also included a pair of floral earrings.

For outdoor locations, we wanted Jewel Changi Airport but Jewel was like “you need to fill up this form and give us the name and identity of your photoshoot people, and also here’s a list of places you cannot go and also as there this Christmas thing going on some of the places are barricaded. Good luck finding a nice location, buh bye”.

We have talked about having a shoot at the rooftop garden of Skyville@Dawson, on the 47th floor of the building as early as October but days before the shoot the newspapers have reported that the residents of the building were complaining there were too many outsiders ‘trespassing’ to their building and making a mess. Tbh, if you’re worried about random people hanging out at the gardens, you need to move to a condominium or a private estate, not a HDB.

Anyway, Fad gave HDB a call to ask if we can go up there to have a photoshoot. Long story short, person A said person B is in-charge, person B is still on leave so person C take over but person C cannot answer and refer to person D, person D don’t even know the answer. We then drove to Dawson for our outdoor shoot without even knowing if it’s allowed or not.

(By the way, I’ve edited this photo) Not bad right? I have to say this: that’s my own faux flower bouquet, so much better than anything Yikeshu has offered.

The photographer was lying on the floor to get this shot. Despite how annoying he can be, he’s actually really professional at his job.

(I’ve edited this photo). I really love this shot.

The photographer had his light stand set up at the back to brighten the shot. It was quite gloomy due to the weeks long rain. By the way, in order to make my fiancé taller, I was wearing sandals, which you’ll see it later.

After we’ve been through all the places in Skyville, we head over to our next stop which is Gardens by The Bay. I had spent $80 of my SingaporeRediscover vouchers to purchase tickets for us, the photographer and one of my bridesmaids.

First dome we went to is the Cloud Forest dome. Since we couldn’t snap our PWS with the tallest man made waterfall in the world, we settled for the world’s 2nd tallest man made waterfall. Perhaps the most funniest looking shot we have ever taken throughout the entire day.

We’re actually not allowed to remove our face mask even during phototaking (as told by the loud announcement and posters at the entrance). I asked the staff if we’re allowed to remove our face masks, they said it’s allowed as long as we put it back on before we move.

Have a peek at my Teva sandals. I think the photographer wasn’t expecting such a short wedding dress, haha.

We blocked two groups of people for this shot.

It’s nice to sit down while strangers stared at us for hogging the path.

We blocked another group of people for this shot.

After we have covered all the areas in the Cloud Dome, my bridesmaid and I head to the handicap toilet to change into the blue gown. She’s like 1.5m and petite so it was two of struggling and figuring out how to put on the blue gown properly. End results was me feeling like half my lungs had died.

Once we’re out, it was Fad’s turn to change into his 2nd suit while I sat outside the toilet gasping for deep breaths.

The Flower Dome was decorated in Christmas theme. A pair of teen girls snapped a photo of us posing in this shot 🙃.

Notice the way I carry the bouquet. Gotta conceal my fat arms.

Fad didn’t like this photo because of his butt. Personally I think his butt is perfect.

My bridesmaid had to throw the skirt up while running away from the shot at top speed.

A kiss shot to end the photoshoot. If you’re wondering why it’s always this side of my face being shown, it’s because the earring on my left ear had gone missing, never to be found. 😭

After sending the photographer back to the studio and my bridesmaids back home, we drove pass our BTO to check it’s progress! It’s at 2-3rd floor now, hopefully we get to see our unit at the end of this year.

The moment we reached home, first thing I did was to massage oil cleanser into my face to get rid of all the make up. Tearing away false eyelashes is as shiok as removing the bra at the end of the day. Shampooed my hair twice to get rid of all the hairspray and dry off my hair before going to bed. I slept like a baby.

Took around 2 weeks for the photos to be shared to us so we can select 20 photos to be edited and another 2 photos to be printed into 20×30 inch canvas and 8R acrylic table top frame. And another 1 week for them to photoshop all 22 photos and another week or so to print. I’ll update this post again when we collect the prints.

How much do I rate this? 7/10. You get what you paid for. Some parts may be anger inducing but overall a fun experience.

Would I recommend Yikeshu? Well, you be the judge.

Wedding Preparations – Part 3 (Our wedding bands have arrived!)

Posted on November 11, 2020 by Cheryl T

Hello all, hope ya’ll still following with my wedding planning journey. If you’re new here, check out the Part 1 of this story by clicking here.

Last blog post I’ve highlighted that our expenditure has soared beyond $10k mark and it seems like its still rocketing higher with not clues of when and where it’ll stop. We’ve now included a 100-cupcake dessert table, 60 sets of cookies for wedding favours, new pair of heels and a couple of other things that I will post about in Part 4 instead as those are still in planning phase.

But first, the moment I’ve been waiting for! As you have read in the title of this post, OUR WEDDING BANDS HAVE ARRIVED! We’ve been waiting for this day since November arrived. We ordered our custom Niessing rings back in 4th October 2020 and was told to collect on the 16th November 2020 but it happened 2 days earlier! Yay!

Funnily enough, we received their WhatsApp message to collect the rings right after we had our first ever manicure session. The ring pictured in this is our $80 couple ring bought 2 years ago from Couple Lab, which our wedding bands also have similar engravings on the inside.

Since the nail salon we were at is quite close to Orchard, we decided to head straight to the jeweller at Scotts Square to collect our long awaited wedding rings! Ahh the excitement!

Here’s what’s included in the bag:

A total of 6 items inside the bag. Weren’t expecting all these at all except the rings but I’m happy to receive them.

Item No.1 is of course the rings. I love the presentation of the rings. The ring box comes with geometric shaped patterns (not sure how to phrase it) on the box which you can see it yourself as you scroll further down this post. I love every bit of it.

We had our names and wedding date engraved. Similar to our rings from Couple Lab but instead of double hearts separating the names and dates, we got each other’s fingerprints instead! How cool is that!

Love the diamonds. All 12 of them. They’re not protruding at all which I guess it is a lower risk of the diamonds falling out – *touchwood*. I got the diamonds on the satin side of the ring as recommended by the sales assistant so that the contrast will make the diamond appear shinier.

Oh if you’re wondering how’s the fit, it is SUPER comfortable. The Navette ring pattern is thin and doesn’t push against my other two fingers when I’m wearing it.

But if you prefer something bulging there’s the Oval pattern.

This is how the boxes look like. If I was proposed with a Niessing engagement ring, I would be more fascinated by the box than the actual diamond ring. Oops!

Next, we got Item No.2 which is a nice little pouch with a mesh screen inside for purpose of keeping the rings in situations where you need to keep your fingers bare. I work in a clean room environment so my hands need to be clear of all accessories so this pouch will definitely come in handy.

I don’t think 1 pouch is enough since my fiancé might be needing one too. I’ll probably go back to the shop to ask for another one for free.

Item No.3 is the Tax Invoice. We were presented with two copies and I signed both of them. They kept one copy so as to show that we’ve collected the rings.

Item No.4 are the Certificates. One for each ring. Was told by the Sales Assistant that if we’re ever in another country with a Niessing boutique and wants to get it polished or anything, we’ll just need to present this to them to get it done.

In it says that we can contact a Niessing partner to get regular, free-of-charge and professional jewelry inspection, and can even get it refinished or completely refurbished. Sounds really awesome.

Item No.5 is a dish! Coincidentally I had something similar in my Etsy shopping cart, guess I’ll remove that since I got this. Comes with a sticky tape to hold the ribbon. What we have to do is to slot the rings on each ends of the ribbon. I wanted to get a plate so we don’t leave our expensive wedding rings on random places like the kitchen counter, bathroom and shoe rack like we did to our couple rings.

That’s all for this post! Really excited for our wedding day to come.

Thanks for reading 🙂

Wedding Preparation – Part 2

Posted on October 5, 2020 by Cheryl T

Many months since the last post! Here’s an update of our wedding prep thus far.

Our expenditure has exceeded the $10,000 mark and we’re not even close to our wedding date yet! Most of them small purchases while others are one-time big purchases like wedding bands and Pre-Wedding Shoots.

Here’s a breakdown of what we’ve spent so far:

I’ve joined a couple of bridal telegram groups hoping to source for reliable and more affordable wedding items but we still need to get most of the items new.

Wedding Band

Awhile ago before we first started sourcing for wedding bands, I got my eyes set on a German brand called Niessing. I was attracted by its manufacturing process and the attention it takes to form its signature wedding rings. I told my Fiancé about this brand and as typical guys would respond, “okay. See how”.

You can design your own ring on https://configurator.niessing.com/

A quick navigation around their online wedding ring designing website, we found out just how expensive Niessing rings can be (average of $5,000). We decided to just go with a set budget of $750/ring as per my friend’s advice, since we had BTO downpayment to worry about.
Throughout the past few months of searching for the best wedding rings ever, we had visited over 20 jewellery shops, looked through many online jewellery shops including Etsy and Glamira, even visited Poh Kim Jewellery to talk about getting custom made rings.

One of the few samples we tried on at Poh Kim. We almost settled with the knotty ring that we’re quoted for $1.5k

Yet we still haven’t found the ring we want and feel right about. One Monday afternoon we decided to visit Lee Hwa Jewellery to try on some wedding bands we’ve noted down on. None of the rings hit the ‘wow’ factor but in one of their display case were the Niessing rings! No harm trying right? Since we’re already at Lee Hwa.

Some of the rings we thought of trying but the Lee Hwa we went to didn’t have them.

The moment we tried on their rings, WE WERE INSTANTLY BLOWN AWAY. Like legit, blown away by how comfortable and weighty it felt. However that Lee Hwa shop only had a limited variety of sample rings to look at and try on so the retail assistant handed us a brochure to look at and suggest we schedule a visit to the Niessing shop in Scotts Square, which we did.
That Sunday we spent about an hour at the Niessing shop trying the rings.

The Boutique Supervisor serving us was a lovely lady named Lovina Ang, who carefully took down our information such as the size of our ring fingers, desired colour of the rings, the number of diamonds we want, width of ring etc. We even talked about the quality and features of each rings, such as their Aura rings can’t have diamonds on it due to the way it’s manufactured (sized down from one material, so the diamonds won’t be able to ‘stick’).

When talking about the positioning and quantity of diamonds, I voiced my desire to have 12 diamonds on mine to signify the date of our wedding day, in which Fiancé joked that luckily we didn’t set our wedding date on the 30th or else I would have 30 diamonds and it’ll cost a bomb. Once she had input all the details we want on the customisation site, the costs of the rings came to $4334. Beyond our initial budget of $750/ring. A bit reluctant to proceed but hey, we still have time to look at other options.
We told her we wanna have a look at other options first, so she wrote down the ring description on a design card and attached her name card inside so we could contact her if we decide to proceed with Niessing. I give it a 10/10 for her customer service attitude.
So we went on to visit 10 other jewellery shops in Orchard, which I could summarise the whole experience as a huge waste of time because our hearts at this point were clearly with the German jewellery brand already…. here’s why:

One of the jewellery shops we went to was Ling Jewellery. We tried on their signature Celtic weave rings, all 4 of them, and also some other rings they had on display. Although Fiancé said the Celtic weave rings looks nice, something he could see himself wearing, I could tell from his expression that he was still thinking of the first pair of rings we tried at Niessing. The same expression reappeared at 5 other jewellery shops we visited, and we spent on average of 3 minutes at each shops as we’re reluctant to say yes to any of the designs and wanted to leave as soon as we tried 2-3 pairs of rings as none of the designs appeal to us.

They look nice but we’re not sure we’ll feel the same 5 years down the road.

We decided to return back to Niessing with the design card to get those rings we really wanted. Fiancé smiled when the sales assistant began to process our rings!

Instead of a heart shape symbol like we did for our couple ring, we went for something more unique – our finger prints!

We opt for laser engraving to include our names and wedding date. We chose ‘antique italic’ but there’s also an option to use our own handwriting. Fiancé’s handwriting is horrendous and borderline illegible while I was too lazy to write something.

The rings would usually take 3 weeks to process but because of Covid-19 they told us it’ll take 7 weeks to process instead. As for resizing, it’ll be free of charge if done within first 3 weeks of ring collection, which is good!

They also got a massive display version of their signature tension ring. I really want this.

The receipt. We went for half satin and half glossy finish on the exterior. The diamonds will be lined on the satin side. The interior will be glossy for the sake of comfort.

This is what our rings will look like! Just that instead of diamonds on the glossy side, it’ll be on the satin side. Can’t wait to hold it!

Wedding Cake

Sourcing a wedding cake was such a tiring process. Mainly due to the many dietary restrictions we have.
The cake has to be Halal or Muslim-friendly, it has to be vegan-friendly and it must not contain any chocolate. No chocolate due to some of my relative allergic or hate chocolate, I can’t afford spending so much on a cake that nobody eats. Size must be for 50 pax and at least 2-tiers.

Process of sourcing for bakeries that meet my requirement took 2 weeks.
First, Nomvnom does cakes but they can’t commit at the moment.
Sayang’s only do chocolate cakes.

All The Better doesn’t do tiered cakes.

25Gram can do a 3-tier cake for $725 which includes delivery fee. Size they quoted us was 50 pax but 3-tiers of 6, 8 and 10 inch round cakes and approximately 4.5″ tall for each tier. Vanilla frosting with choice of flavours like Vanilla Bean, Earl Grey Vanilla, Strawberry Vanilla, Mango Brown Sugar, Chocolate Mudcake, Mocha, Lemon Blueberry (suitable for top tier only) and Vanilla Cherry (suitable for top tier only).

Delcie’s is a halal certified (yay!), allergen-friendly (nut-free, dairy-free etc) and all-vegan bakery. They quoted us a 2-tier 50 pax cake, suggesting the top tier to be 7-inch round cakes with 4 or 5 inch height at $200 and bottom tier to be 8-inch round cakes with 4 or 5 inch height at $260 and a $20 stacking fee. The flavours they do are Banana Vanilla or Vanilla Point for the bottom and Red Forest or Blue Forest for the top.

They’re diabetic-friendly, which means my own father can enjoy the cake too.

Flavours aren’t as many compared to 25Gram but it is more affordable. Delcie’s also offer free decorating services but the flowers will have to be sourced by us or by their florist but they could only secure the florist when there’s a minimum of $100 value. Alternatively, they suggest that since we have already engaged a wedding decor team, it will be better to have them decorate our wedding cake instead with their flowers. I asked Jezebel of JCraftYourEvents (in which I’ll write about in my Part 3 of wedding preparations) and they’re up for it! We will only order the cake when it’s closer to our wedding date.

Wedding Dress

Budget of wedding dress is clear. I ain’t spending $1000 on a white dress that I’m only gonna wear a few times.
As an avid-fan of ASOS, that’s automatically the first (and only) place I look for a dress. I did watched a couple of episodes of Say Yes to The Dress and fell in love with some of the designs on the show but I’m more interested with the simpler designs available on ASOS.

I was torn between two choices. The Maya Bridal plunge front all over embellished full prom maxi dress in white (what a mouthful) and the ASOS EDITION lace halter neck maxi wedding dress. Fiancé liked both but my wedding is only 3 hours long, not necessary to have a second dress for the night.

I held a vote on my IG Story and Reddit. ‘A’, the lace halter neck dress got the higher vote on both platforms

And yes, I went with the majority and got the lace dress. Original price was $222.99 but that week ASOS was having a wedding dress sale and I got it at $200 instead. It took 3 weeks for the dress to arrive.

When I opened it the first time I almost shed a tear. IT IS SO BEAUTIFUL! Fiancé ruined the sweet moment by comparing it to his dining table cloth. Okay lah, it does look like a table cloth. A BEAUTIFUL, SOFT, LACE TABLE CLOTH and it’s MINE.

With the $32 faux bouquet I bought from a graduated bride who was willing to let go of the bouquet for less than half the original price.

I definitely need to get some fashion tape to keep the laces stick to my body. I’ve ordered some 3M Nexcare Non-Exposure Tape off Shopee which do the trick.

Wedding Veil

Not sure if I want to wear a veil. As shown on most bridal websites, veils are used to cover the brides face as she walk down the aisle to her future husband so that he could unveil her. I’m not sure about this whole unveiling thing but I really want a veil to compliment the ASOS lace dress.
Etsy veils are nice and beautiful but most of them cost half or more than my dress. So I turn to the ever reliable Taobao site to search for the veil I want. As you can see on the picture above my lace wedding dress has these little hairs at the end and on Taobao its called 睫毛蕾丝 or Eyelash Lace. I use those characters to look for wedding veils and I found one! For $6.62, I found my wedding veil. It doesn’t come with a comb but just stabbing it with hair pins will do the same.

I wasn’t really sure if it’s ‘normal’ to wear a wedding veil without using it to cover my face but my own bridemaids said “aiya, buy already just wear!”. For a second set of opinions, I asked fellow brides on bridal telegram discussion chats, 2-3 of them said they’re wearing it just as a hair accessory too. I’m gonna wear mine.

Wedding Shoes

The makeup artist (which I’ll write about it next time) that I’m going for offers complimentary mani & pedicure. Not wanting to waste her efforts, I’m going for a pair of shoes that’s gonna show off her hard work. Beside that, I want something less restricting.

At first I wanted something shiny like these pair of heeled sandals in rose gold by Simmi London Samia on ASOS but bridesmaid said it’s a bit out of place.

Fiancé’s height is only about 10cm taller than me so I’m not choosing heels that are taller than 4 inches.
I bought a pair of Charles & Keith sandals while on a shopping trip with my bridesmaids. Thanks Lisha for using your membership discount!
Tried it on a few weeks later (I was busy with work) and noticed there’s a difference in the shade of white. I was initially turned off by the difference in colour but my bridesmaids and fellow brides said it looks good. So I guess I found my wedding shoes.

For Part 3 I’ll update about the wedding decor, accessories, pre-wedding shoot, makeup artist, actual day photographer and others. Oh, we have secured a Justice of Peace to solemnise our wedding! I’ll share with you our experience next year when we meet up with our wedding solemniser.

Wedding Prep – Part 1

Posted on July 4, 2020 by Cheryl T

After Signing of the Agreement for Lease for our future BTO, we immediately shift our focus from purchasing a home to getting hitched.

The date is set: it’ll be mid of next year. We don’t wish for something fancy, just a small solemnisation ceremony and buffet food from catering.

For the venue, we have found one! We’ve been to this place for a potluck event hosted by a vegan group before and I love the vintage-ish decor. I’ll share more when we successfully booked that venue – can’t put too much hope when Covid-19 is still hanging around.

This is one of the few photos that event space owner shared to me. I think if you reverse image search on this you’ll find the exact location 🙂

Wedding photos, we’re still thinking whether to do it before the ROM date or years later since we’re trying to control our budgets. Most studios quote their prices at around $3000-$5000, no way am I willing to part that much money for photos. Anyway, few days ago while scrolling through Reddit Singapore’s daily discussion thread, somebody wrote about getting a solo photoshoot from a bridal studio called Yikeshu for a just $800+. I was like “say what?!” I did a quick Google search and found the photoshoot packages they offer.

One of the packages. For 3x Gowns and 2x Suits, plus makeup and hairstyling, $1188! What a steal.

Looking at the portfolio on their Facebook page, not bad. Not a fan of some of their studio background but we’ll see. I sent an enquiry about the earliest dates they can do the shoot and they responded through WhatsApp that they can schedule a slot for us in August. Too early! Haven’t got the time to lose the weight I gained during Circuit Breaker. I did schedule to have a meeting with them in August to look at what sort of gowns and suit they offer. One close acquaintance told me that usually bridal studios have a poor selection of suits, not sure what’s the situation like with Yikeshu. They also do overseas pre-wedding shoots and the best thing is that you don’t have to pay for their hotel stay and flight tickets.

Wedding rings. I think I might as well write a separate blog post on this. Been researching for rings since forever. The budget I set is $500-600 per ring, since my fiancé find anything more than that is ridiculous. Local jewellers like SK Jewellery, Leehwa and others do have a good selection of rose gold rings but they’re so expensive! They probably have 1-2 designs that’s lesser than $800 but argh. We need variety.

IIRC, this ring cost $700 each. We love the design and we’re using this design as reference.

We did went window-shopping for rings before in Johor Bahru last year. Not much difference in terms of price — we went to SK, Love & Co. and a local Chinese jewellery shop (can’t remember the name). Expensive and beautiful rings or within budget yet so not-good looking.

Complained about how difficult it is to find the perfect pair of rings to my bridesmaids and one of them recommended a website called Glamira. They’re based outside of Singapore but has excellent service and quality and does free resizing!

A wide range of prices and designs. Even the $1200 a pair kind looks amazing!

Customisable in terms of thinness of rings, engraving, types of metal (white + rose gold, white only, rose gold only etc) and even the type of diamonds which I think I’ll go for simple zirconia. Ordered their free ring sizer. I’ll update more on this in the next post.

11 months to go!

My BTO Journey – Part 2

Posted on June 17, 2020 by Cheryl T

Received our Signing for the Agreement for Lease appointment!

This post might be too long to read, skip to the middle for the actual day of the appointment! If you wanna read what happened before, you can go here for My BTO Journey – Part 1.

Received both SMS and email at the same time.

It’s the first appointment after our flat selection. Most of our neighbours who even though have selected their flats a week or a month before us still did not receive their appointment dates yet. I figured HDB must be giving out appointment dates to those who are deferring their income assessment (income to be assessed closer to key collection date for the Enhanced Housing Grant) and to those not taking the EHG.

One of my neighbours received their appointment date about 4 days before we did and it falls on a Sunday! The easing of Circuit Breaker measures meant HDB has to rush through 2 months of appointment dates, going through as many applications as possible, even allowing people to do selection of flats, key collections and signing of the agreement for lease on weekends

I was praying for our appointment to fall on a Sunday as I don’t want to take unpaid leave again (still not a confirmed staff and I already took unpaid leave once for my flat selection appointment). My workplace happened to be listed as ‘essential services’, so no Working-from-Home arrangements. I was so happy when I received the text message about our appointment will be on a Sunday and in the afternoon!!!

The website included in their email is broken, so I went to the HDB website to login to MyHDBPage to read the Appointment Letter. Fiancé didn’t receive any SMS or email since I used my own SingPass to login to HDB portal to submit the flat application during the sales launch.

The ‘Application Status’ page on HDB website.

By clicking the reference no. (shown as ‘Ref/Reg No.’) in this page that I cropped out of the image above, led us to another page that is a more detail view of the ‘Application Status’.

A constant reminder that the appointment to sign the Agreement for Lease and make the downpayment has been scheduled for 21 June 2020 at 2:45PM at HDB Hub.

Down the page is where I found the PDF of the appointment letter

Alright I know my appointment is on 21 June 2020 2:45pm. *Geez.*

First page of the letter tells us the appointment details (the address of our selected flat and appointment date and time) and what to do when we’re unable to attend the appointment. There’s also one paragraph in this page that indicates how serious this signing of lease appointment is:

If we fail to sign the Agreement for Lease by a certain date, our Option to Purchase will lapse, the flat application cancelled and my $2,000 gone. And there’s more!

The following page includes a line which translates to applicants who do not sign the Agreement for Lease will be banned from selecting another flat for a year, including BTO sales.

If you’re still studying or in NS or recently graduated, please make sure you can afford to pay for the 5% downpayment. A lot of couples thought ‘Deferred Income Assessment’ means they won’t have to pay anything until key collection, which it NOT TRUE!

You still need to fork out money to pay the 5% downpayment (staggered downpayment 5% instead of 10%, for when the youngest applicant hasn’t pass their 30 years old during application).

Some of my future neighbours who are currently studying or in NS managed to come up with enough cash money to pay for the downpayment! They mentioned that the part time jobs they took didn’t pay them CPF so they’re going to just empty their bank accounts to afford the downpayment. Talk about commitment!

Anyway, continuing on what’s inside the letter, there’s also info on who should attend the appointment and what to bring – SingPass device (I.e. handphone) and NRIC of the main applicants. Also bank account information for HDB to refund the $2,000 option fee taken during flat selection.

There’s also one page that tells us how much we have to pay in cash if we do not have enough money in our CPF OA, i.e. Balance Payable. In our case, $0.

The rest of the information in the appointment letter are just general information about flat ownership. I logged out of my MyHDBPage without downloading the PDF. Then something happened. While discussing with my future neighbours on Telegram about the 1st appointment, I logged in to the HDB portal again. Evidence of my signing of lease appointment are GONE!

I was panicking a little. My little announcement inside the BTO telegram chat group caused a wave of people trying to login to their HDB portal to check if they also received the appointment date, which possibly led to a bug like this. It went back to normal the next day and I downloaded the PDF to save it for reference.

One other thing I‘ve noticed is that they’ve sneakily changed the Probable Completion Date (PCD) from Q3 to Q4. Seems like it only happened to my block; my neighbours from other block didn’t notice any changes to their PCD.

Actual Signing of Agreement for Lease Appointment.

Fiancé’s bike was sent for repair so we travelled by public transport, ended up reaching Toa Payoh 2 hours early.

Had zichar for lunch at D’Life vegetarian restaurant. Y’all should get the sambal petai fried rice and kung pao ‘chicken’.

After having lunch we head over to HDB Hub. The My Nice Home Gallery is closed due to Covid-19 so we didn’t get to tour the showroom, its usually not opened on Sundays anyway. The model of Punggol Point BTO projects was still there.

My fiancé didn’t get to view the model in detail the last time we were here to select the flat.

After comparing this with Tengah, Canberra and Toa Payoh models that were also on display, my fiancé said Punggol is still the best since its located on the outskirts of the island, which gives the sense of openness, which I kinda agree? We’re literally next to the sea.

Anything to make us feel comfortable of our decision to stay in Punggol, haha.

In the midst of waiting for the right time to go into the waiting area (only allowed to go in 15 minutes before appointment time, ‘cause COVID-19), I told him some HDB facts I learned from the researches I did before our flat selection. He was shocked to hear that SERS 4-room flats are only 88sqm and smaller.

I’m not kidding. Attached here are the MacPherson Blossom SERS project 4-room flat floor plan, they offer both 93sqm and 88sqm flats. I personally been to a friend’s 93sqm BTO and it already feels ‘small’, can’t imagine what an 88sqm one feels like. Squeezy?

But it make sense for SERS to have such small flats because most of the residents who selected the flats are elderly people who probably are content about having lesser space to worry about.

Now back to our appointment. We scanned the SafeEntry QR code at the side entrance to the waiting area, got in and scanned his IC at the Q-number kiosk and out comes the familiar waiting slip.

It states that our waiting area is at level 3 instead, I guess it’s the safe-distancing measures for the working HDB officers and visitors. Instead of noticing our waiting area is at level 3, we loitered around the first floor to look at Canberra Vista BTO model, the project that almost made us abandon our Punggol BTO queue number. We make our move to the 3rd floor only after our queue number is called.

The wait for our turn is short, exactly on time at 2:45pm.

We head into the Sales Office and towards the direction of counter 806

Our friendly HDB officer waiting for us, I think deep down she’s thinking “why these two walk damn slow, tsk” oops

What happened: Officer asked for our NRICs for identification, then asked if we’re going for Joint Tenancy (of course), told us what fees will be charged along with the 5% downpayment, asked how much percentage of each of our CPF OA are we going to use, I presented my bank account number for refund of the $2,000 option fee, she told us to use our phones to login to SingPass to go to our MyHDB portal to allow CPF to do it’s thing, and last but not least she printed out a stack of documents for us to sign which basically is a stack of ‘do’s and don’ts’ of owning an HDB flat like what you can’t do at the common corridor, and also informed us the month conservancy fees we are expected to pay when we got the flat. Freakin’ $62.

To summarise:

1) The appointment is really quick. It took 10 minutes max from taking queue number to meeting the HDB officer then leaving the HDB hub

2) They’ll ask you to login through Singpass app, so make sure you have the app installed on your devices

3) They’ll ask if you’re going for joint tenancy and also the percentage of CPF to take out from both applicants (either 50-50, or 40-60 or 100-0, anything) for the downpayment, stamp fees etc.

4) They’ll go through some numbers with you, including the conservancy fees to pay monthly when you’re staying in Punggol. (It’s $62), and the balance in CPF Ordinary Account after deducting the downpayment.

5) Finally, let the HDB officer know your bank and bank account details so they can do the refund of $2k. You can choose to leave it. No need to photocopy your bank book; they just want account number only.

6) You’ll receive the agreement of lease document, so best is to bring that orange file to keep.

The steps required to accept the usage of CPF for payment

And minutes later, we’re done!

We wanted to go for our dinner date after this but carrying a fragile envelope around is not fun. So we head home straightaway after laughing at a leaning Tengah block model.

That’s all for our 1st appointment after flat selection. The next time we come back here will be in 3Q/4Q of 2023 to collect our keys! SO EXCITING! Really can’t wait.

Circuit Breaker / Lockdown

Posted on May 24, 2020 by Cheryl T

Majority of us are staying at home or practicing social distancing because of COVID-19, no matter where we are in the world,

Quarantine, Lockdown or Circuit Breaker, has definitely changed how we live our lives. Here’s my experience:

Online Shopping

The internet has brought us so much joy and convenience – a statement most of us would agree. The ability to get anything from anywhere just from our handheld devices makes it safe for us to shop during this epidemic.

And for the past two months I have spent about $400 per month on online shopping (oops). The stuff I ordered are mostly groceries, beauty products and shoes.

For groceries, I go for Greenies. They were known as VegetarianOnline and they are operated by the people behind Greendot (one of the largest chain of vegetarian restaurants in Singapore).

(Mushrooms are an essential ingredient in vegan cooking.)

You can get fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, rice & noodles, frozen food products (Beyond Burger, Omnimeat etc) and other cooking essentials from their website, and it only takes a minimum spending of $39 for free delivery to your home, unlike some major supermarkets that require $75 + service fees and other hidden fees for their ‘free’ delivery service.

I’ve tried Fairprice Online once and it was super stressful because it takes monitoring a Telegram bot, quick notifications and fast fingers to make sure I could get a delivery slot.

A legit Telegram bot is created to update on available delivery slots, there’s even a website that you could key in your postal code and it’ll tell you whether Redmart, Fairprice, Giant, Cold Storage and other stores have delivery slots for you.

I remember compiling my purchase on the app at 10am only to remove and change the quantity of my items multiple times because the stuff I want kept going out of stock while the delivery slots were snatched by others, I only managed to place an order at 4pm. Never again will I order groceries from Fairprice Online.

For beauty products, I go for Shopee and Watsons. For Shopee I bought items from the Innisfree Jeju Volcanic Pore collection, which took about 2-3 weeks before they sent out the items and arrived at my address 2 days later.

Accidentally selected 2 cleansing foam instead of 1. It’s a really good product for anyone with blackheads and oily skin. It only took a week for my skin to appear bright and clear and lesser blemishes than before.

For Watsons, I bulk purchase loads of sanitary pads, more than enough for 12 cycles because who knows when this epidemic will be over. I tried non-disposables like washable pads and period undies but they’re so difficult to wash, not durable at all and I’d always stain my bedsheets even with just a little flow (if you know a better alternative to Thinx, tell me in the comments).

I also purchased a box of My Beauty Diary masks which I did a price comparison with Shopee before hitting the order button. Shopee was selling MBD Squalene masks for $13.70 per box.

I used to be a beauty mask fanatic, literally a sheet a day and sometimes 3 a day. Understanding the value of money is the reason why I stopped the habit. Ha.

For shoes, I made my first ASOS order.

ASOS does free shipping with minimum $100 spent and the shoes I ordered easily hit that amount. Delivery was fast but the processing part took awhile

(ordered on the 3rd of May, shipped out on the 11th of May, arrived on the 17th of May)

which is understandable since the COVID-19 shit is raging hard in the UK. I don’t buy shoes frequently because I made sure the ones I intend to buy can easily last for 2 years before they become unwearable.

The shoes I bought were Teva chunky sandals and Nike Vista Lite in Green.

They both fit perfectly and are comfortable to walk in them, I was afraid they might be too small or too big for my feet because I had trouble determining my UK shoe size.

The reason I got Teva sandals is because they’re slip-proof and their iconic straps are made using recycled plastic derived from plastic bottles.

Why I like shopping on ASOS is that they’ll indicate the type of material used to manufacture the product in their product description, making it easy to find out if the item I want is free of animal products like wool, silk and leather. The other thing I like is their Fit Assistant feature

which you can select the shoe brand, shoe type and model of the shoes you have on hand to find out what size you should get. They even have this feature for clothing as well. Super useful.

Going Out

I still go out. I work in an industry the government deems essential, so for the past two months I was still commuting to my workplace with my handy little bike.

It’s a foldie by Pacific Cycle called ‘CarryMe’

There was WFH (work-from-home) arranged in the beginning where I have to stay at home to work on alternate days of the week but this arrangement was cancelled in mid-May so now I have go to work every day on weekdays, a thing I dread about because its raining heavily almost every single day this month.

This is the colour of the sky for almost the entire month!

Besides commuting to and from my workplace, I also make detours to the nearby food court to buy dinner on days I don’t want to make food.

The first time I took the MRT in two months was when I had to get my eyes checked for some contact lenses.

Probably one of the only times where you can put your stuff next to you without getting judgy looks.

The place I went is called Two of a Kind and I only know them when their ad appeared on my Facebook timeline as I was looking for good contact lenses, emphasis on ‘Good’ because the last time I wore contact lenses was 4 years ago and it so dry that I threw away the remaining half a year’s worth of contact lenses because it was hurting my eyeballs so much.

Two of a Kind (TwoOAK) is Singapore’s first direct-to-consumer contact lenses.

They offer first 10 pairs for $10 with paid subscription after 21 days or 4 trial pairs for free without purchase or subscription when you book a free eye test appointment with them. I went with the latter as I forgot what my prescriptions are.

The office of TwoOAK is located along North Canal Road in Chinatown

I didn’t expect to climb up so many stairs before reaching their office but a bit of exercise is good especially when we’re all not doing enough this Circuit Breaker.

As I arrive at their door, I had to scan the SafeEntry QR code to ‘check-in’ before entering. (The SafeEntry digital check-in system is deployed to more than 16,000 venues in Singapore, which logs visitors’ entry into businesses to facilitate contact tracing. I have to scan my company’s SafeEntry QR code to check-in every time I enter the office and check-out when I leave. Just yesterday two locations in Jurong Point was highlighted as places a confirmed cases has lingered for more than 30 minutes.)

Other than TwoOAK’s SafeEntry QR code, I also had to scan their own QR code also for contact tracing purposes.

The rest of the office looked clean and quiet. I was attended by Casey (the guy in the photo). The service provided by Casey was really good (attentive, professional and detailed explanations) and the whole appointment took less than 20 minutes, from eye test to wearing my first TwoOAK dailies.

One thing I learned from my visit is that some people can experience dry eyes and redness as an allergic response to silicone hydrogel lenses; the brand I wore 4 years ago was this material.

Walking back down while wearing contact lenses for the first time in 4 years was a little scary.

I’m at my 3rd pair of TwoOAK Basis now and my eyes are a little bit dry. Guess I need to purchase a bottle of artificial tears to make the wear more comfortable.

How’s your quarantine so far?

New Vegan Burgers

Posted on May 23, 2020 by Cheryl T

Burgers are my weakness. Even before turning vegan almost 10 years ago, burgers are my go-to. Options were simple; you either get a QQ Cheezy Burger from Nomvnom or Creamy Shrooms Burger from VeganBurg, those were the only two major vegan burger names around. Fast forward to today, you have Greendot, Prive, The GoodBurger, Hans Im Gluek, and so on, thanks to the good marketing efforts of Omni, Beyond, Impossible and other plant-based meat brands, letting the masses know that vegan food is not just salads and cardboard. The number of restaurants serving amazing and delicious vegan burgers in Singapore are endless and they’re still popping up everywhere, including this newcomer called Love Handle.

They’re a new vegan fast food restaurant serving American style comfort food and boy they’re really good at their stuff. On their menu you’ll find 5 amazing burgers to choose: Cheeseburger, Double Cheeseburger, Mushroom Cheese, Vegan ‘Ramli’ and Breakfast Vegan. They also have a sides menu with items like Cream Spinach Loaded Fries and Tempura Broccolini, which both sounds healthy even though they’re covered in batter and oil.

I got two burgers from them and it was messy (in a good way).

Breakfast Vegan Burger

One bite was all it takes for it to officially become my favourite burger. Forget about the current reigning vegan burger champions in Singapore, they now got a competitor to the throne.

From their website: It’s all your favourite breakfast things – eggless frittata, hashbrown, burger sauce, and vegan cheese – all piled onto our signature smashed patty packed into one incredible sandwich. Available all-day.

The cheese, the ‘sausage’, the hashbrown and the ‘egg’, a standard western breakfast platter made into a form of burger, doesn’t it sound amazing to begin with? The meat, which is an Impossible burger, is absolutely delicious and juicy and I bet if you give this burger to a non-vegetarian/vegan, they won’t tell the difference between this and an actual beef burger! The way the cheese melts and covers on top of other ingredients…argh, heavenly. Science – making vegan food taste so good.

Vegan Ramli

The classic Pasar Malam must-have has now been veganised! The last time I had a legit Ramli Burger was probably 10 years ago so I can’t really do a comparison. That was also the last time I had beef.

From their website: The cheese-topped signature smashed patty and eggless frittata drenched in two sauces: one creamy garlic aoili, the other a sweet-sour and tangy bbq sauce. Held together with our custom-made brioche buns. That’s taking that familiar hard-to-beat pasar malam flavour to the next level.

Taste wise, its a bit spicy but not too spicy, just like the actual Ramli (I think?). Favourite part of this burger would be the eggless frittata. If they ever made an English Muffin type of breakfast item, they should do it with the creamy garlic aioli and the eggless frittata.

While I’m not personally a big fan of sweet & sour flavours, if you love the combo, you should go for this.

Golden Fries

I suck at describing fries. These are battered and fried, making it extra crispy compared to other shoestring fries I’ve tried. Goes well with yellow mustard. What am I writing?! ALL savoury fried foods goes well with yellow mustard.

If you’re drooling at this point and craving for these yummy things, you can order them through GrabFood or Oddle, or check out their menu here. Enjoy 15% off your order when you use the code WITHLOVE15 (expires in 31st May 2020)

And I hope you will enjoy the burger like I have.

Cheers!

My BTO Journey – Part 1

Posted on May 11, 2020 by Cheryl T

As with any other above 21-year-olds in Singapore, I started my BTO journey in July 2019 with the love of my life using the most Singaporean marriage proposal ever – “BTO ai mai?”

We’re both the “anyhow anyhow” type and if it works, it works! No rings, no fancy proposals with fairy lights disrupting the evening of sleeping creatures, nothing! I’m sure you’ve spent weeks and months of research on HDB website, 99.co, Renopedia and various other sites, the site you must have already visited before coming here to read about my BTO journey.

This post is long and I suck at TL;DR.

JULY 2019

The start is simple; we were looking at what was offered in the previous sales launch.

Tengah seems cool, the future baby town after Punggol but you gotta wait years before the first phase of the Jurong Regional Line begin operations.

Garden Vale@Tengah. I like the staggered features.

Woodlands is so close to us (the price of 5-rooms were so attractive) but the location is not ideal even for someone who has live in Woodlands all her life. Its close to Woodlands South MRT but it’s surrounded by schools. I also read somewhere that the residents over there are not too happy with the stadium lights beaming into their flats.

Champions Green – Woodlands South flats are ‘short’ due to its close proximity to a military airbase. If you ever visit the north to get to JB, you’ll notice some of the flats near Civic Centre are fitted with red indicator lights on the roof.

Kallang-Whampoa is simply out of budget.

Kempas Residences – I later found out a sibling of a close friend bid for this project and got it at first try. She is the same age as me and I’m not sure whether to be jealous or not.

If you haven’t got the message – we thought we could apply for May 2019 sales launch throughout the year. We didn’t get the concept of balloting yet and we were dumb. But thank goodness it didn’t take us very long to grasp the idea.

August 2019

Tengah seems cool. We wanted Tengah.

But when August sales launch was delayed to September, it gave us more time to do our research. I joined a few Telegram groups and even went on a Hardwarezone blackhole to read about ideal BTO locations.

Question: Why do people on HWZ like to describe all parts of Singapore as ‘slums’?

“Yishun…? More cursed than slums”

“Toa Payoh slums man!”

“Punggol, more like Slumgol”

Upon further reading, I conclude that their meaning of “slum” refers to parts of Singapore that is furthest away from the nearest transport hub such as bus interchange and MRT stations.

Fair enough, living closer to transport hub equals less stress in the future. Also some argue that the close proximity of buildings and flats made it look disorganised. Hmm.

We applied for an HDB Loan Eligibility (HLE) form and it was approved 1.5 weeks later. 1.5 weeks because we didn’t gather enough documents and the HDB officer had to call and email us a few times to get the relevant documents, or else this would have taken us less than a week to get.

September 2019

Punggol is cool too.

So when the Tuesday of the 2nd week of this month came, at around 11-12pm, I began receiving tons and tons of notifications coming from Telegram groups buzzing about the latest BTO sales launch.

Cool, cool, cool, calm down! That’s what I was telling my Fiance through Messenger as I was frantically scrolling through the HDB flat application site looking for information on the three new BTO sites launched.

It was in Tampines (a mature estate)

Tampines GreenGlen. Only 2 out of so many BTO launches in Tampines are without ‘Green’ in their project name.

and Punggol (a non-mature estate).

Punggol Point Crown. I love the idea of staggered buildings

Punggol Point Cove II. Seaview units are the hot stuff of this project

We obviously went for ‘Slumgol’ as its just 5-minutes walk away from the future Punggol Coast MRT, which is an extension to the existing North-East Line. The project is also next to the existing Punggol Settlement, known for restaurants and night life, and the project is also right behind Coney Island, the best park I’ve been to.

Best of all, its a non-mature estate, meaning it is less expensive. Money is forever a factor.

Some of the units at Point Crown even have balconies!

Tip: Always go to the actual project site and have a feel of the surrounding environment. It’s your CPF money and hard earned money you’re using, so think many times before you apply.

Took 30 minutes of my slacking time at work to get all the information up onto the application website. And wait.

The email received after applying for a BTO flat.

October 2019

The balloting results were out. My heart fell so hard.

“Your application has been balloted with a queue position of 1136.” – I was hopeless at this point.

“Although your queue position is beyond the 872 units of flats on offer, you may still have a chance to book a flat on your selection appointment.” – A little bit hopeful, like 10% hopeful.

Exceeded by 264. HDB will give out queue numbers up to 300% of the flats available to account for drop-outs.

So we wait. We didn’t even look at the detailed floor plans of these two projects as we were really sure that by the time it reaches our queue number, all the good flats will already be selected by other lucky couples.

At this point, its best to mute or exit all the Telegram groups related to this project as it can be heartbreaking to see couples with below-30 queue numbers talk about their experience at the HDB Hub.

An example of a lucky couple and their lucky ass queue number

November 2019

The November Sales Launch happened.

Tengah is in this launch.

What else was launched? The Woodlands Sales of Balance Flats (SBF) – which happened to have many Chinese quota. In fact, I think 90% of the flats offered in this SBF exercise only had Chinese quota. We’re both staying in Woodlands, and I’ve been here since I was in my creator’s womb. So we decided to use the Married Child Priority Scheme with my family home address.

Marsiling Greengrove – We’re eyeing the 27th floor of one of the blocks. High level mah. Also the storage room is inside the kitchen

Note: Perks of being a mixed-race couple, we get to bid as Chinese or Malay.

We even made a Google Sheet to identify the flats we want

December 2019

Whilst holidaying in Kuala Lumpur, I was holding my phone close to me, waiting for the results of SBF to be announced.

I literally broke down in tears. I was also in my lady days, so probably why I was so emotional

Our queue number exceeded by almost 3 times the number of flats available.

Goodbye to Marsiling Grove! Sigh, all the good conversations I had with my potential neighbours in the Marsiling Grove, Woodlands Spring and Woodlands Glade chat groups, no more!

January 2020

Almost 5 months after applying for September Sales Launch. I received an email, followed by an SMS. I was surprised.

We didn’t expect to be able to select a flat since our queue number is so far out. But we prepared anyway!

As instructed, I login to My HDBPage, clicked on the Ref No., and looked at the PDFs provided.

We downloaded both project’s Sales Brochure which gives details like block plans and flat layouts and began noting down the remaining flats available for selection.

There’s photos of the 3D model on the HDB website

If only they can do a little fly through like they did for the Punggol Point development videos

Flat listing showcasing the individual prices of all the flats and the floor area. 96sqm means there an addition of a balcony (3sqm). The higher the level is, the more expensive the flat cost. Even distance to essential facilities like supermarkets, MRT stations and others will affect the price of the flat; a 2nd floor close to the MRT will be more expensive than a 2nd floor further away.

Block plans! I actually didn’t find this important until my fiancé started doodling information onto the printed copy. Guess I preferred the 3D model instead.

The layout of the Punggol Point Crown Project. Fiancé wanted the Point Cove II but a lot of factors, such as the 4-room layout, the direction of the flats etc, made us go for Point Crown instead.

Surprisingly, still so many 4-room flats available even though the queue number at this point has almost exceeded the flat supply. Another reason why we’re trying to not get too excited about the flat selection is because the Chinese quotas are taken up really quick and we bid as Chinese (we’re a mixed-race couple)! My relatives were nagging at me during Chinese New Year saying that we should’ve bid as Malay instead since Chinese quota always goes down first. For the Punggol 2019 BTO, it’s like for every 10 flats selects on a day, 7 would be selected by Chinese couples.

As advised by my ex-colleagues who has successfully gotten their BTOs before, we listed down 30 flats we want and cancel them whenever it’s selected (a painful 1 month of doing this). Of course the flats with sea view, with balconies, corner flats and also the ones next to link bridges, are all gone.

We wanted units near link bridges because of the empty space – imagine having potluck parties out there! Too bad 05-1551 was selected the day before our flat selection appointment.

We also downloaded the ‘Appointment Letter’ which will include a list of documents to prepare.

We didn’t tick ‘EHG Application form’ as we’re applying for Delayed Income Assessment as we both graduated less than 12 months.

We printed out our payslips for the 3 months leading to September 2019 and also included the payslips for October 2019 to February 2020, just in case.

We also printed our CPF statements (both the annual one, a.k.a ‘the graphic one’, and the wordy one), be sure to print out the annual statement of the year before. What I mean is, if you’re selecting the flat at the beginning of the year like January-March 2020, you have to print out the annual statement for 2018 and 2019. We know this because fast forward to 30 days later, the HDB officers cannot access certain websites on their computers and we both struggled to sent documents to the officer’s email to have it printed and at a certain point we had to go to another office cubicle to use a desktop to retrieve the document. Also the fact that we took up many part-time jobs in the past 2 years.

Other information like a copy of your NRIC cards, graduation certificates, Tax statements and so on has to be printed out as well.

I couldn’t find my graduation certificate so I used my results slip instead as it shows the ‘Period of Study’. I was smart, emphasis on the word ‘WAS’.

February 27th 2020

Applied half day unpaid leave because I just started working at a new company. I wanted to book a Grab but I figured I might start a conversation with the Grab Driver and end up not focusing on BTO Buddy alerts and the Flat Listing.

It was really thrilling to see the number of flats being selected every hour. Queue number had already exceeded the 1000s but there were still so many flats to choose from

We arrived too early. I arrived at 1pm and ordered takeaway from Subway. My Fiance arrived about 20 minutes later and we both went in to the HDB Hub waiting area after signing the declaration form (’cause COVID-19).

He scanned his NRIC at the kiosk and out comes the queue slip.

An hour wait because the appointment timing is 2.20pm. Coming early doesn’t mean you get to go in earlier.

Not sure whether if they allow food in here but I was biting down my sandwich while trying to calm my nerves down. We made some last minute decision on the unit we want, even compared the kitchen sizes of the type of 4-room flats available to confirm that we really want Point Crown over Point Cove II.

Point Cove II gets a direct view of the sea and Pulau Ubin but comes with a stingy size of a square called the kitchen. Okay lah, bedrooms are slightly bigger….by a few mm? Fiancé and I want a decent size kitchen since we do enjoy cooking a lot. Besides, the only available flats left for Point Cove II are the ones facing the opposite blocks. We want greenery, so we’re definitely going for Point Crown.

Notice Punggol Point Crown (left) have a larger kitchen space compared to Punggol Point Cove II (right).

We waited an hour at the waiting area before our queue number was called.

We went through another 3 hours with the HDB Officer trying to sort out our documents. It was a mess in there with heaps of papers and files all from us. Imagine having to go through 2.5 hours in there and still haven’t get the chance to select a flat. Why? Because the HDB Officer has to verify your essential details first before they can proceed to log in your dream unit.

Literally the first thing I told the officer when we went in to see her was “Can we select the unit first?” She responded with “others can’t choose before you, don’t have to worry, you’re the first one.” I pity queue number 1137 or any couple after us, so sorry to make you wait very long before you get to select a unit.

Informing my future neighbours of what happened

We selected our flat!! A few more paper work before paying the $2k option fee.

We also received two copies of the floor plans. If we need a new copy we’ll have to buy from HDB for $10.

Gotta take a selfie with the ‘iconic’ orange file

Having 1 last view of the model of our future neighbourhood before leaving HDB Hub.

Someone in the Telegram chat even made a PDF combining all 4 Punggol Point BTO projects! Notice there aren’t any roads leading to the individual blocks because all these projects are using PWCS (Pneumatic Waste Collection System), the waste collection truck can just go to the collection point at Punggol Point Woods instead of driving to individual blocks.

Application status changed. Remember to inform the officer you would like to cancel your other flat applications. It only requires the signing of a form for us to withdraw our application in the November 2019 SBF exercise

If you’re like me with a balloted queue number exceeding 200-300 over the available flats, do not worry as you might still get the chance to select your flat. By the time it reached our queue number, there were still plenty of Chinese quota and high floor units (13-20th storey).

Now we’re waiting for the next appointment which is the signing of lease. This would mean another round of document signing. It was estimated to be in May or June but with the current Circuit Breaker measures, all appointments with HDB has been postponed.

Once we’ve gone through the next appointment, I will update with a Part 2 to this post.

UPDATE: Click Part 2 for the post on 2nd Appointment

Thanks for reading. I hope you have found this interesting and informative