After the big bang on the 6th of Jan, I was left in pleasant shock and way up on cloud 9 for an entire rest of the week. (Who wouldn’t be?) Told my parents the night I came back home from Sentosa, and of course, they were delighted to learn of the news.

Then, about 2 weeks later, it was down to some serious business.

1. When to Hold the Wedding

   Obvious timeframe – within the next 2 years

   • Leaves time for planning and preparations
   • Minimal disruption to our PhD project (3rd-5th years is a definite no-no!)
   • Not way too late after our PhD when we’ll be nearing/at our 30s!

   After some consideration, we decided that next summer (’09) was a much better time. We would be able to do our planning this year before we flew off to start our grad studies, leaving only a little bit of stuff to settle over the year until we fly back prior to the actual day to tie up the loose ends.

2. Finding a Date
   FM’s parents started asking about our 8 characters (生辰八字 a.k.a. four pillars of destiny). FM’s dad knows the “feng shui” stuff and thus started looking at the auspicious dates to hold our wedding.It din take too long to decide on a date: 08 August 2009 (08.08.09). Pretty date on a Saturday, not falling in the 7th month of the Chinese calendar (Hungry Ghost festival) and FM’s dad gave the OK to both our 8 characters! Perfecto!