Monday, March 14, 2011

HVV Tea Party '10

Wow I haven't been in here for .. another good 2 months. This place is practically antique haha. Okay I know, that's what I always say each time I start a blog post. Shame on me :( I surprise myself sometimes at how easily I manage to tune out or slip off the grid. It's a pretty shite habit that everyone who knows me can well relate to. And knowing that I have to blog about and photo-edit an increasing pile of backdated pictures is a a bit of a dampener especially when I barely have time to keep up with HVV's work. When I do find the time, I just want to mooch around and bask in the glory of .. being a bum. Quite uninspiring.

Anyway, let's not go into that. I've found the time to finish editing my pictures so here goess to an awesome end of year tea party >:) I forgot to take pictures of our office when it was completely bare and I'm kicking myself for it because we didn't get to document a step by step transformation. All I have are half done pictures of the office with everything but the furniture already up :(





We're regretting our gross underestimation of stock and space. We were so mighty relieved to find an office that could store our stocks without us having to shuttle to and fro home and dad's office, we didn't consider much of his advice about the possible lack of space and the added nonsense of renovating an office in a newly built building. Was also pretty silly of me to be so sold on the idea of a brand new office considering the obscenely unfair amount we had to fork out for permits and renovations, but now that we've gotten over that, I'm genuinely glad we moved in.

Soo.. after a lot of.. might I add, sensible budgeting haha, for furniture and deco, here's what we managed to come up with!

Minus the lack of storage space, we love the place to death because it has become our second home, a workplace that's informal, fun and cosy yet testament to how far we've come and serving as a constant reminder to us to work hard so that we can do better.






And here's to the awesome first half of the HVV team who helped out :)
The twins who were in charge of manning the front counter and confirming invitations,



Two of our best verifiers :)
JD the resident funnyman/alcoholic and Mark the solemn.



Demi who's our superfast&fab packer and Shireena who clears the lengthy, testy and difficult emails with such grace and speed Mag is put to shame (not me) haha



And here's to Alex, the only person we know who'd work just for food hahaha.
He's gone off to army but we're going to miss his antics!



It was really hard to capture the real lighting that day which was a bit of a bummer. This is the only picture that was able to! Ohh and no one could understand when I first insisted to install spotlights but after this... it was a unanimous agreement, me is so farsighted manx hahaha.
I kid.



When the guests started streaming in :)

At one point we were pretty worried that we had over-invited but thank goodness, we were able to keep the place slightly bustle'y without compromising comfort and space.







There were a couple of silly slips here and there (luckily no one was looking) but everything turned out brilliantly :) Most of the time, we were kept busy popping in and out looking for stocks, hearing out feedback, checking to make sure the canapes were replenished, forcefully offering food to our shyer customers (I'm pretty sure I saw terror in some of their eyes) and savoring little snippets of personal time and private chats with our customers who were awesome people that were funny, generous, spontaneous and a joy to meet.

And that wrapped up the end of the first day :)
After everyone left .. the boys requested to whip it!



Me and Lee :)
Considering how she looks like she h8s for a living heehee, looks mind you, me and Mag were dare I say it, fascinated at how gracious she was to everyone.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5137/5461967388_ddcc6ff125_b.jpg

A group shot of all of us, and a brilliant example of the type of pictures Lee takes of me.



JD doing his thing.



And a group shot of the entire HVV team sans the newbies and the HVV night team who unfortunately couldn't make it!




And here's to mummy and the customers who made it all possible :)



--

Second day!





Me helping out :) and Mag looking like the creepy shopkeeper.
With her buy or die glint.











And the happy sisters :)
Haha me and Mag call them that between us because they're always so happy, it's infectious! Thank you for driving the mannequins all the way down for us, for the gift and for helping us take heaps of pictures because we know how picky we are!




And a super cute picture of Mag to end off the pictures ...



Three hips and hurrah to my little rugrat of a sister for working overnight to make sure that the inventory was correct, the clothes were properly placed and that everything would be ready for the tea party :)

We've come a long way from when we first started in Livejournal and we've still got a long way to go but I'm glad we've come this far and although there are times where I want to box your teeth in, I can't think of a better partner to be in on this than with you. Cue mooshy hug :)

And since I'm already insofar and filled with gratitude, here comes the thank you clump :)
Be warned, it's going to be lengthy (and mushy)!

To everyone who has been supporting us this far, thank you, thank you, thank you!

To our customers, I promise we'll try to hold more of such small scale events so that we can get to know all of you better and hear out your feedback. HVV is embarking on a new journey and I hope that with it, we'll be able to work on our designs, quality, quantity and frequency :)

To the current HVV team, thank you for always having our backs :) We call you guys in at unearthly hours, come up with the weirdest of requests, cheat and bribe you with food, leave you to the vices of all sorts of emails and thoroughly abuse you (lovingly of course) but you've shown nothing but loyalty to us bringing in the craps, fun and laughter to our office. You've stuck by us and we couldn't have been happier to get to know all of you :)

Even though its been a tumultuous ride, we've learnt heaps along the way and we're happy to say that the HVV team is well prepped and ready to take what comes along readily into our stride! Yeehaww!

<3 Leave me a comment on my Formspring!

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