Wedding jitters - Guo Da Li

In Chinese culture, an auspicious date is selected to 'Ti Qin' (literally meaning 'propose marriage'), where both families will meet to discuss the amount of the bride price demanded, among other things.

A couple of weeks before the actual wedding, the ritual of 'Guo Da Li' (literally meaning 'performing the rites') takes place (on an auspicious date of course). The groom and a matchmaker will visit the bride's family bearing gifts like wedding cakes, sweetmeats and jewelry as well as the bride price.

On the actual wedding day, the bride's family will return a portion of the bride price (sometimes in the form of dowry) as a goodwill gesture.

My GDL was on Mothers' Day, 14 May 06.

mr FAT and his 5th Aunt (aka the matchmaker) came to my house at 9.30am.

With the help of his brother and my brother, they brought 2 bottles of XO Martell, 40 boxes of cakes, 40 cans of pigs' trotters , a bag of huge oranges (the oranges are huge! not the bag! my mum says it's the '$1.50 each' type) , a bag of dried products, 2 pair of huge dragon and phoenix candles, hongbaos (bride price and hongbao for my grandmum) and two gold bangles.

My mum returned some oranges, some dried products, two bottles of concentrated orange juice, 90% of the bride price and the pair of phoenix candles. We wanted to return some of the cakes and pigs' trotters' cans but the matchmaker says its ok...

I love my wedding cakes!!! or wedding pastries coz its actually combi of fruit tarts and mini swiss rolls! I was surprised when i saw the cake boxes...they were so small...but when I opened the box....

So cute, so sweet and tantalizing they looked~!

They are from the Pine Garden's Cakes. This neighbourhood cake shop is pretty well-known for its 'value for money' cakes...A non-cake lover like me, was bowled over by their service and their delicious cakes.....esp. their lychee martini cake....yummy!

My parents and I then set off at about 10.30am to distribute all the cakes and pigs' trotters' cans to our relatives.....

We went from Aljunied, Bedok, Bedok Reservoir, Tampines, Sengkang, Punggol, Yishun, Ang Mo Kio to Toa Payoh and back to Bedok.

We reached home at about 5.30pm....bonked out from the travelling, I slept for an hour and woke up to jostle my whole family including mr FAT out for mothers' day dinner at 5 star chicken rice shop. We had wanted to go to HK street restaurant but it was packed and we do not want to wait.

Got my mum a diamond pendant and the dinner treat was on my bro....

Buzy, tired but happy weekend for me.... ;P