jasminetay.blogspot.com: Happy Birthday Vivien!

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Happy Birthday Vivien!

I received a Facebook Event invitation last Friday from WeeFen saying she's organizing a surprise birthday party for Vivien at Costa Sands Resort (Pasir Ris) in 4 days time, which is today.

At the point in time, there were little "Confirmed" guests and I guessed the main reason is the location.. Most people are working on a Tuesday and the next day so it's really troublesome to travel all the way to the other end of the island if you are not living in the East side.

Honestly, if it were at Costa Sands, I would most probably not turn up.. Not that I don't "give face", but it's a weekday and I have to wake up early the next day to go to work.. Not to mention the crazy transport costs (Taxi) if I were to go cos I will definitely not take the train back..

So I whatsapp WeeFen and asked her for more information about the party:

Booked the chalet yet? - No
Ordered the food already? - No
Ordered birthday cake already? - No
Who's paying for the chalet & food? - Dunno
Who's confirmed going? - Not sure

And being the nosy girl I am, I asked if she needed my help to plan and organize for the party.. Since I LOVE to organize and plan parties. :) I really do! I wanted to be like David Tutera and own a Events Planning company..

So I helped her arrange for a change in party location from Costa Sands to Santi's condominium function room which is located near Toa Payoh/Balestier. It is a centralized location and I bet more people will come.. moreover, the rental cost of the function room is only $15 (with a $150 refundable deposit) and it's really spacious and pretty.

Santi guniang was really sweet to help with the booking of the function room :)

And I also asked Nat if he would like to sponsor the birthday cake cos he has really good taste (if not the best among us) for cakes and he will not disappoint us, and he very nicely agreed to!

Next, I created a picture for the Facebook event using Vivien's picture and also update everyone with the details of the party, map of the location & how to get there.

WeeFen had the tedious task of collecting money from everyone that will go towards the food and the balance of the money will be placed in a red packet that we'll give to Vivien as a birthday present..

I think cash is the most practical and welcomed gift. You can buy whatever you want! Vouchers are quite restrictive as they have validity dates and if there's nothing you need from the shop that the voucher was purchased from, there's no point!

Anyways, I only ordered the food yesterday, 1 day before the event!

I know it's really last minute, but I don't know if WeeFen can get the minimum 30 people required and my backup plan was to do a smaller scale mini buffet instead of catering. Also, I was sourcing around for the most economical choice, cos we were trying to not spend to much money on food so as to be able to have more balance money to give to Vivien as her present.

But thankfully Neogarden is really efficient and fast! I called them at 1pm after my lunchbreak and they sent me an email and SMS confirmation within the hour!

The setup was done by the delivery guy, Vincent. He's so funny! He gave me a courtesy call 20mins before he arrived, set up the food in record time and even took a picture of us with the food with our thumbs up (he requested for that pose). Service is fantastic!

I guess my only complaint is that the portion of the food were really quite little.. It's for 30pax, but some of the dishes were enough for only 10 or 15pax.. So if you are ordering from Neogarden, order more! The total cost of the food + delivery and GST is $443.

Vincent gave us a hat as souvenir.. T_T"

And yes, I posed with it.. HAHAHA!

Here's Vivien posing with the food! :)

WeeFen conspired with some other girls on how to divert Vivien's attention so she won't know that we are surprising her with a party.. After some diversions and roadblocks, she arrived around 8pm and we turned off all the lights and surprised her.. She was so shocked that she nearly cried.. Hahahaha!