This is way long overdue, so let's jump into the time machine and go back to August/ September.
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Cik P finally decided to on what she wanted to do for her birthday like 2-3 weeks prior to her birthday. She wanted a full blown party, solely because she wanted a chalked-out backdrop.
This was actually quite funny also, because initially Emilia (Cik P's friend) and I were planning on throwing her a surprise (I still remember going over the list of "If I was Zayana, who would I invite to my birthday dinner?" with Emilia) and we even got her Cik P's sister (Dada) onboard to help us spy on Cik P.
One day, while I was out I got a text from Dada: "Aisya, I thought this was supposed to be a surprise? Why is Zayana going over a list of party planner with Kak Ya?"
I immediately made my way to Cik P's and from just looking at party planners, we ended up confirming a date and even went to recce a few potential venues for the dinner. By the end of the day Cik P not only had a (self-appointed) party manager (me!), she also had a confirmed venue (as suggested by her awesome party manager of course)!
This was of course done after sorting it out with Emilia where we decided to let Zayana be as involved as possible with the planning (we don't want her to not like her own party), and we would throw our own surprise elements in there.
So as her PM, I was the middle person dealing with the party planner/ decorator and her and this ladies and gentlemen is when my pesting skills is very useful!
Exhibit A:
The event was <14 days, and we still haven't book the decorator because we're still waiting for the price quote and payment details.. So,
And this is after I messaged her in the morning (previous day): "Hi <insert name>, I think you forgot about me :("
Obviously status reporting is essential in project party management.. She's thankful but Kak Ya thinks Im nuts cause I Bitmoji-ed her, lol. But see that time stamp! It worked!!
Lesson learnt: Always use Bitmoji guys - it'll get their attention and you'll get a reply :p
I've never been more appreciate for pesting skills before this whole entire party management thing, I swear. This is why God placed me in Zayana's life, lol.
Anyways besides managing her party planning, I always was planning on getting her birthday cake - that was something that I told her to leave it up to me. Emilia, Zayana's other friends, and Raema also decided to chip in to the cake and we entrusted KekandCo (love them!) with the cake - and it turned out so beautiful!!
And we also decided to add one "centrepiece" balloon with the cutest name on it (courtesy of Aizat): Pocayana.
I was supposed to pick up the cake during the event day itself, straight from work - which btw I might add wearing all white full day and keeping it clean is a damn challenge (which I barely passed). About 5.30PM sharp I left office and made my way to TTDI to pick up the cake and then drove like a turtle to BSC - which was easy to do anyways cause it's peak hour. However getting to BSC on time during peak hour while driving like a turtle (Milo must've been very shocked at the speed I was driving it) was a challenge!
I needed to get to BSC by 6.15PM as the balloons we ordered were scheduled to arrive during that time. Thankfully I'm quite familiar with shortcuts around Bangsar so I managed to reach BSC by 6.17PM and parked my car, delivered the cake safely to the restaurant all before the balloons arrived!
The balloons arrived with a bang (because one of the balloons popped) and Zayana was in proximity when I collected it (one person you can't expect to come late -.-).. But somehow she didn't really realise what was on the balloons til much later, phew!
All in all the birthday dinner was so perfect - the deco, the kek and more importantly Zayana looked amazing that night. She looked like what Pocahontas should've looked like when Pocahontas went to the ball.
Isn't it gorgeous?!?!
The decorator was so worth the money she's paid for because look at the happy face:
What I didn't manage properly for the night was however the servers/ waiters -.- Which quite honestly I thought this wouldn't be something I'm supposed to handle cause well we've been in communication with the restaurant manager, he should've known better..
But I had fun making sure everyone got the food they ordered correctly - I swear I forgot how much I love the rush of event management..
After that chaos was settled, we all enjoyed our food - I enjoyed my lychee watermelon cooler, "cooler" was aptly included in its name - cut the cake, and took lots and lots of pictures!
Some of the pictures from the night:
Clearly not one used to having all the love on her..
In case it wasn't obvious, the theme of the dinner was "Pocahontas" because that's Cik P's favourite Disney princess, so all the guests came as characters from Pocahontas.
Zayana's sister's-boyfriend's-sister made the little playcards/ props of all the characters that people were coming as.
Once a year we do the "Zayana pose" - other times we go back to me always showing the love and she pushing me away.. *rolls eyes*
