FM & Jas are now happily settled in San Francisco, readying up for classes to begin next week. As such, this site will be on hiatus until Spring 2009 when the RSVP section opens up in preparation for the wedding in August 2009. We’ll return to Singapore sometime over the summer break for our final wedding preps and for the actual wedding ceremony. Until then, you can continue checking up on us through our other blog.

In the meantime, a whole lot more pictures are now available in the Photo Gallery. We selected our photoshoot pictures for the wedding album not long before we left Singapore, to be printed just before the wedding next year. It was certainly a painful decision O_o *bleahz* to have to throw out more than 3/4 of the pictures. Every picture looks great! But (thankfully) all that is behind us now. We’ve uploaded the photoshoot pictures – BUT only the pictures which did NOT make it into our actual album! the final cut is top secret property that will be held confidential until closer to the wedding next year! Muahahaha…

Also, pictures of our post-undergraduate times are up in an album too, featuring our trips to Taiwan, Japan and Sweden, as well as our gatherings with family and friends back in Singapore! Do check them out!

See you in Spring!

Guest post by FM.

Love. Passionately. originated as a pretty bookmark from Borders that FM gave to Jas for three simple reasons:

1. the bookmark was pretty
2. FM wanted to encourage Jas to read more widely, more often
3. the bookmark encapsulated FM’s ideal of love most succinctly

Admittedly, the phrase was not pasted above our mirrors to be read ten times over every morning and night. Nonetheless, on hindsight, I believed that we have lived out our unspoken maxim to the maximum we can.

When planning for the perfect proposal, my cousin Kris suggested including a personalized EZ-Link card from Singapore Mint. As each of my 12 planned gifts carried a specific, unique message of love, the EZ-Link card was themed as a follow-up to the bookmark. The picture chosen was taken in a public park in Philadelphia, and best epitomizes the spirit of the message to Love. Passionately.

(Unfortunately, the ordering process takes two weeks and more due to the holiday season, and was not to be ready in time to be one of the 12 perfect proposal gifts. Too bad. )

Friends often express awe that our relationship survived the long distance, even without any basis or background to begin with. (Three weeks from First Sight to Steady, another three weeks till our long distance separation.) I guess the best answer I can give in reply is the same old maxim: we simply loved. passionately. we can add a lot more adjectives to describe the love: unselfishly, truthfully, expressively, patiently, supportive(ly), unreserved(ly), blah, blah, blah… But sometimes, in the end, too many adjectives add too much pressure to perform up to an artificial standard that no party is comfortable with, for I believe the quality of love is different between every couple.

So, to all the couples in love out there, I leave you my two cents worth. Make light of all the specifics which you’ll likely forget after a few months of dating. Stick to loving your partner with all your heart, and the specifics will all come naturally. Just

Love. Passionately.

From: Jas
Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2004 3:11 PM
To: FM
Subject: i cannot believe this………

Hey dear…

sobz…. today is a bad day… this whole mad rush at duke, all the work, all the tests and thus all the lack of sleep is getting to me… arghz… guess wat… the bookmark? i really really like it so much, i told u i immediately used it for my seminar book? this morning i was carrying the book in my hand on the way to french class, somehow it slipped out of the book, fell dunno where… i retraced my steps like 3, 4 times liao, cant find it… it either got picked up by someone, or it’s lying buried somewhere in the grass or something… ARGHZ! i’m so so sorry… i really dunno what happened… it just slipped out… and i like it so much… arghz…. i want it back… =..(

and worse still, i gotta lead a discussion next tues, on the first half of the book, in other words, read the book, summarise and post reading notes for the class before the class… arghz… and organic chem test is on mon!!! howhow? i need to read the chapters, do my org chem qns and practise/ revise for the test! BY MON! and the reading notes for discussion… and not to mention i need to do my maths NOW, it’s due 2mr…. arghz…. what’s wrong? y am i struggling so much??? soooooooo tired… so sleep deprived…. oh well………..

anyway, abt the bookmark, i want to get it… really, since i lost it… we’ll talk abt it when i see u online… =( sorry, i really din want that to happen… so devastated when i discovered it was missing from my book… sobz….

gotta drag myself to work…. somehow….

Stressed, tired, and sad little girl…….

i need to pull thru this!!!

From: Jas
Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2004 4:04 PM
To: FM
Subject: twist of fate…. =)

Hey darling…

the bookmark was ALWAYS meant to be mine… my roommate was so nice, she offered to walk out with me along the path to help me look for it… =)=) and this time somehow i spotted it!!!!! yay!!! haha… now this gives me just the badly needed motivation to get my work done!

-love passionately, my work???-

heh… i can finish everything! gringrin… yup…. love ya!

ur little girl, Jas…

In this modern era of technology, and with our friends spread all over the world in various countries, the best way to spread the word of our upcoming wedding is of course, via the web. Perfect too that FM is quite into the programming and site stuff (he’s long been toying with the designs of randomtots.com, which progressed from his personal site to our joint site after we got together. Check it out!)

A good collaboration and partnership of the darlings never turns out wrong. After about 3 months of on-and-off work, the site is almost done! FM being the technical specialist, and Jas the writer. While reminiscing about our past cherished memories , Jas churned out one post after another: first was the love story – how we met and got together, our 3 years of long-distance relationship, graduation from college (to mark the end of the LDR!), the proposal. At the same time, it was time for Jas to dig out the archived photos and select the good ones for the photo gallery. Dearest FM was always the editor of Jas’s posts, and he was given the painful job of cutting down the number of selected picture collection! Heh.

Meanwhile, FM was hard at work getting the site framework up, working with all his frames, boxes, alignment, colors and pixels etc. while Jas chipped in a teeny bit with some ideas of the site design. He definitely learnt a lot of CSS during this process! Good job and a big thank you deardear for getting this pretty site up! *muack*

So here’s presenting to you, our dear friends, in celebration of our upcoming wedding, the almost-completed Love.Passionately. We hope that you’ll find our story heart-warming, our pictures interesting, and our wedding preparation guides helpful for your very own big day in the future.

With Love,
Jas & FM