three weekends down, three more to go

Last three weekends have been nothing but madness!

Now that we're down to the final month before the wedding hits (gasps!), my mat and I have been scrambling to meet vendors, shooting out confirmation emails to vendors, tying up loose ends, making bulk payments and travelling all around the island to run our errands.

 Collection of Bridesmaids' Outfits 

 We started out last two Saturdays with a trip to Manja to collect our bridesmaids' outfits!

So excited to see my bridesmaids excited, and I am happy to report that both their outfits for afternoon and evening receptions are very pretty and flattering! :D

Something simple and tertib - we're not into fancy schmancy drastically over the top designs.

Oh, and guess what - what we've heard about Manja and their workmanship? 

It's true. Their workmanship is superb. Just very sayang my experience dealing with the Manja tailor who attended to us was freaking horrible lor. Pfft.

So now that I've seen their workmanship for myself, do I think Manja is worth paying more for, since they're slightly pricier than other tailors? Yep. Would I go back to Manja to tailor baju in the future? Well, that would be a... maaaybe. Maybe, because if I do opt to go back, I'll probably avoid that grumpy auntie who first attended to us lor. She wasn't around during collection, and the other auntie who attended to us seemed nice and normal, thank God.

Had our hearty lunch at Hajjah Maimunah before running through the itinerary!

No picture of the itinerary, so I put picture of my lunch lah okay:

YUM YUMZZZZZ IN MY TUM TUMZZZZZ.

I would totes take up their catering package if I'm having an intimate 150pax to 250 pax wedding! Heh. (Dulu time engagement tak tau nak take up eh. Chet.)

Discussion on Bridal Room with Bonito By Bob

My mat and I made our way to my place after that because we had an appointment with Bob of Bonito By Bob! We were pretty early so we decided to make a pitstop at the petrol station but turns out Bob and his assistant Zura lagi cepat dari kita lah seh. Appointment 4pm but they came half an hour earlier! Dorang datang naik kilat and petir, aku rasa.

Bob and Zura took some pictures and measurements of my bedroom and went through the timeline and some ideas with us - discussion was very rancak and I love how they were really warm and sincere and friendly! Totally felt at ease even though baru first time jumpa :D

And oh oh oh, whaddya know - kita happen to mention that we're looking for white cushions for solemnization (alas nikah) since our decorators takde white ones and Bob said that he rents them out!!! Sui or what!!!!! So one more task struck off the list, baik ah.

To siapa siapa yang tengah cari alas nikah rental, you know who to look for lah eh heh heh. In case you're wondering how the alas nikah looks like, it's yang macam dalam gambar ni:

Now that we've sorted out our alas nikah issue, I'd just like to say this to my mamat: Sekarang lu gi tanam lu punya cita cita nak nikah atas beanbag lah ye. HAHA.

OH. BY THE WAY. Since we're talking about Bonito By Bob...

Have you guys seen one of his latest gubahan designs?!?!?!?!?!

AKU SUKAAAAA!!! AKU SUKA. GILA. OKAY.

I was telling him ini very the kena with my pop art engagement theme lah eh.

Delivery of Barang Barang Dulang to Ola Lola

The next day (which was a Sunday), we went to send our barang barang dulang to Ola Lola kat Hougang! Seriously tak guna okay kita, we lost our way and had to tawaf the area three times before we finally located the exact address. Dah macam nak naik haji pulak bertawaf tawaf. Nasib baik we went out early and reached in time for our appointment. 

(Saliheen and I - and our friends pfft - have unanimously agreed that if we ever masuk Amazing Race, kita sure banyak gaduh especially on the road but that also means we'll definitely be milked for TV entertainment purposes to death haha)

No pictures from our Ola Lola meeting because I very shy to ~take picture ~take picture together (hahaha) so I letak gambar makanan from the wedding we attended before we made our trip to meet Ola Lola lah okay. Walaupun takde link ah sebenarnye hahahahaha

Makanan from this wedding was superb, by the way. The sambal goreng, the udang black pepper and wadeh was power gila and the nasi berderai very nicely one okay!!!!! 

Pengantin (who is my primary schoolmate and also my first boyfriend ha. ha. ha. ha. ha.) told me it's by Zaiton & Family Catering, which is a longstanding family business that has no online presence whatsoever so they're usually highly recommended via the old school word-of-mouth style instead of through social media sharing (they have no website and no Facebook, guys!)

Apparently the pengantin's relatives have used this particular caterer for 5 of his cousins' weddings and semua memang consistently sedap and sempurna! For $12 per head and up, I say this is sungguh the worth it, man. 

If anyone wants the caterer's number, feel free to email me please! But I warning you all dulu eh - one of the pengantin's cousins told me her aunt spoke to the caterer and apparently they're fully booked even until the end of 2015 wtf?! But no surprise lah kan, since their food sedap sedap belaka.  So at most kalau nak, boleh try luck je lor.

Discussion on Menu with Puteri Wedding Services

And since kita dah rancak berbual pasal makanan, let's talk about our meeting with our caterers next! Coincidentally they're the next vendor in line that we met, anyway. Heh.

Just like Bonito By Bob, our caterer was early for our appointment by half an hour! Sampai terlintang pukang aku sekejap nak siap (because I just came back from work, and belum sempat wash up) but of course, we still had to wait until my mat and his parents sampai. Ours is a combined reception so must have combined discussion and combined decisions ma.

Very happy with the menus for both our sanding and dinner receptions!!! I'm still a bit skeptical about having black pepper chicken instead of ayam masak merah for the dinner reception though - do people look for ayam masak merah when they go for wedding receptions??? Because I do ah. Hmmm.

(Explanation: Since the dinner reception will be for our friends only, they will not get to eat the ayam masak merah, which will be served during the lunch reception instead.)

Oh, my mat and I also decided to give up our cita cita to have square tables instead of round tables after consulting Kasai Sayang as well as Puteri - will be susah for them to arrange due to the layout and size of our venue as well as measurements of the square tables themselves. We didn't mind giving this up because we trust the professionals' judgment and didn't want to trouble them with this! Asalkan sempurna, tak kisah lah kan square ke, round ke, octagon ke.

Final Appointment with CST Singapore

Woke up bright and early for our appointment with our videographers, whose office is located in Woodlands! Grabbed a quick snack because tak sempat nak duduk and have a proper breakfast since dah buat temu janji dengan orang, and we must respect people's time lah kan.

Turns out we could have afforded a nice and long breakfast because the staff who attended to us was very late and made us wait for more than an hour without an acceptable reason. Guess tagging yourself as #bestintheindustry in Instagram gives you the right to get cocky, bersikap sambil lewa and regard your clients as unimportant? Didn't know being "the #bestintheindustry" means having sloppy administration and shabby customer service, really.

Wish I can explain in detail what happened that day (and more) but I guess it's best I leave this for another day, in a few months' time, because I want to be fair and see the quality of work, service during event and the after service first. For now, let's just say we left in a bit of a huff... well, actually more like stomping out with balls of fire blazing behind us lah kan. Haha.

Anyway, the unnecessary delay caused by someone else's tardiness screwed up our schedule for the day so we had to rush through our next errand - zoomed to Arab Street to grab a quick bite at Working Title (15 minutes) and quickly raced through our material selection at Princess Fabrics (10 minutes) when we were supposed to have slightly more than two hours to do both.

Which meant we didn't get to have the nice leisurely brunch we were planning for and we couldn't slowly and carefully pore over the different materials to ensure we got our colours right - we wanted to buy kain in our theme colours to pass to our decorators and dessert tier vendor so they can use the colour of the kains as reference,  you see.

I guess if I want to look at it positively... this can help us prepare mentally for unexpectant delays which might happen during the actual wedding day????? Although we're already expecting delays anyway, didn't really need a vendor to tolong demonstratekan lah kan.

Called Naz from Bliss Photocinema to tell him we might be late (since our appointment with him was next) but turns out Arab Street was nearer than expected and kita sampai just on time. Phew.

Final Appointment with Bliss Photocinema

How surreal is it to be standing in front of a door we last saw almost two years ago? I hadn't even started blogging when we booked Bliss! (I started blogging about wedding preparations only after booking videographers, photographers and ex-andaman)

Discussed our itinerary with him and this was yet another appointment that I genuinely enjoyed because Naz is so nice and friendly and professional. I remember being wary when we first met him because he seemed really reserved but all it took was my mamat to crack a few jokes + them finding out that one of Naz's buddies is my mat's cousin to warm things up (Tak nak cakap heat things up lah, heat things up dah macam lain macam pulak bunyinye haha)

(Side note: My mat has this habit / itch as well as the ability to make people laugh whenever we meet people for the first time and he feels that the other person is reserved or shy or uncomfortable or awkward, and this is one of the great qualities that I really love about him.

Just before we were officially together, I was concurrently seeing another guy who I could converse with in private but when thrown in social settings with my friends and strangers, he clammed up and became very reserved... whereas for my mamat ni, he flourishes under social settings and makes great company when we meet new people and make new friends. Guess that was one of the things that pushed the other guy down to friendzone and Saliheen up to marriageable zone for me personally! Hehe.)

Anyway, I was telling my mat the other day that kalau ada orang tanya bila kita punya wedding, we can say "bulan depan" and truly mean it already!!!!! Ambik kau, dulu suka sangat kan, main main jawab "bulan depan" bila relatives tanya bila nak kahwin... now happening for real already.

Our countdown as at today:

So many things to do, with so little time, to the point that even on our 4th year and 11th month anniversary recently, we were too busy running wedding-related errands.

But that's okay lah. Because by the time our 5th anniversary comes around, we'll get to go big and celebrate it with a kompang procession, photobooths, rows and rows of delish food and desserts, and the company of our family, friends and guests we do not know personally, yes?

Sounds like a smashing 5th anniversary celebration to me :P

count to the down

About five days ago, I posted a screenshot of our wedding countdown on Instagram:

 

Which pretty much means that by now we've already crossed over to a double digit countdown, you gaize!!!!! 95 days left, to be exact. Our friends weren't kidding sak when they warned us that time will zzzooooommm by like nobody punya business.

Naik motokar ape ni sampai laju macam gini!

But I think the countdown paling dekat and paling scary for now is this countdown:

(Yes. I have a countdown for our photoshoot, countdown for our engagement, countdown for our wedding and countdown for receipt of keys to our future home. Kalau boleh buat countdown to my next toilet break memang aku dah buat dah.)

Less than a month to the outdoor photoshoot already okay!!! Badan masih macam tong, macam mana ni?!?!?! Pakai stunt double yang muka sama but lagi kurus boleh tak????? Hahahahaha. (No progress on the #kilokhronicles journey so far - I keep losing and gaining a few kgs every other day haiz. Tengoklah macam mana nanti lepas bulan puasa. Mungkin pindah Africa untuk sementara waktu or what.)

Ooh talking about the photoshoot, coincidentally I received postcards from our photoshoot photographer Zakaria Zainal slightly after the countdown went down to less than a month -  ahhhhh I've always love receiving mail from vendors by the way, baik mails in my email inbox or mails in my physical mailbox :D

Love the postcards and note! The note started off with a "half a year has passed, with another to go" and it reminded me all the more about the next big change that both my mat and I are going to go through this fateful year.

Boleh bikin I sentimental, you know.

But before I ter-start I punya sentimental sakit mental, some updates on the preparations we've done so far for the photoshoot itself:

Photoshoot Location

Dropped by Bidadari during one of our free weekends since everyone keeps telling us about how good and spacious and quiet it is (including those who commented on my photoshoot location recce entry here) so we went to check it out... and fell in love!!! 

Exactly what we really want - spacious, ada patches of grassy fields, interesting pokok pieces without having too many trees... love it love it love it. 

It is pretty quiet - which is a good thing - but there was the occasional jogger and cyclist passing through the area while we were there so gotta keep that in mind. But okay lah boleh lah, that pretty much wraps up our chronicles in looking for a photoshoot location woop woop!

Photoshoot Dress

 

Remember I asked my mum to sew my photoshoot dress for me????? Turns out she's now too busy with Ramadhan and Syawal and ada time constraints segala so she won't be sewing one for me. BAH. 

Can't sew it myself because I am pretty much orang paling hopeless dalam dunia when it comes to DIY so tak penting eh ada hati nak sew a whole freaking dress. I knew I had to just purchase it off the rack or online... spent a few days trawling through malls but nothing caught my eye. Another BAH.

So in the end I had to turn to trusty old Etsy and found someone who can sew a dress for a slightly higher budget than I intended... but at least it will be close enough to what I've envisioned, insya Allah. Will make some minor tweaks once it arrives and I am very excitez!!! I'm actually 50/50 dengan ini budak Kim but tawakkal je lah eh?

My dress won't exactly be like the one posted in the gambar above because I requested for some tweaks - cannot be too terdedah dedah because that was one of the terms and conditions imposed by his parents before they gave us permission for a pre-wedding photoshoot ye (1. No intimate pictures 2. No revealing outfits. Yang No.2 tu nampak sah for aku lah kan, yang mamat aku nak pakai revealing revealing dah buang tebiat ke ape. Although he does have cleavage.....)

Photoshoot Props

These are DIY pompoms from my awesome tahap maksima future mother-in-law! She did the pompoms "suka suka" she says, and we're free to use them any way we want. So we thought it'd be the perfect opportunity to use them for our photoshoot! Yay yay!

So now all we have to do is figure out what exactly we want to do with them. Heh. Have one or two ideas in mind so we'll see how that pans out. We've also bought / ordered three props that we have in mind for our photoshoot so save for a few minor DIY touches, we're actually pretty ready when it comes to props :D

Oh! Also draaagged my mat to Plaza Singapura to get materials for a patricular DIY projek after visiting Bidadari and I can't wait to get cracking! Cuma between now and end of August, entah boleh dapat the free time to do it ke tidak :/

A few other stuff happening this weekend for me as well but the two wedding-related tasks would be... *drum roll perut roll lapis roll*

- Meeting my photoshoot MUA for my make-up trial. Yay!

- Collecting my lunch reception punya cards from From Fran With Love! Yay!

Hur hur. Baru benda kecik tapi excited semacam eh aku. Yay sana yay sini.

And ni baru photoshoot seh, belum lagi wedding, perasaan rollercoaster dah membuak membuak rabak macam gini. How to handle the bundles of nerves and excitement once the wedding comes ni?! 

Must remind my bridesmaids to sediakan 10 gallons of oxygen, epidural, sedatives segala during my akad nikah and sanding lah like this.

oh hai, tok kadi!

WE CAN HAZ A TOK KADI, Y'ALLZ.

Dah tengok wedding videos berlongok longok and dah list down nama tok tok kadi segala in this entry, and now we've already gotten ourselves a tok kadi!!! Alhamdullilah!

Actually kan dulu dulu masa time baru berjinak jinak dengan wedding preparations, my mat always cakap dia nak consider Ustaz Firdaus Yahya because his parents kenal his mother whereas I was kind of hoping to realize the dream of having Kadi Hassan because he was the tok kadi who solemnized my parents. But as fate would have it, we met Ustaz Mohd Khair at our kursus rumahtangga, my mat identified him as the person who made him cry with his powerful khutbah at Masjid Al-Falah once upon a time and both of us fell in love with his voice after looking through wedding videos with him in them.

Which was why Ustaz Mohd Khair ended up as our #1 choice for tok kadi.

So my mat called Ustaz Mohd Khair yesterday afternoon to give him a heads up about wanting to book him during our online registration later that night but ALAS! He informed us that he can only do solemnizations after 2pm on Saturdays because he needs to be at work at Masjid Sultan on Saturday mornings!!! The only way we can go around it is to have our solemnization at Masjid Sultan itself so he can get back to work right after our nikah but we agreed that option is not possible because of logistics issues :(

We're reaaaaally bummed because both of us really really really like Ustaz Mohd Khair + his voice and delivery is freaking awesome but this is one of those things that we just have to write off as not our rezeki.

Cuma rasa macam very cruel lah kan, kalau while waiting for midnight to submit our online application on ROMM website, I gatal pergi tertengok video ni:

Hanafee + Liza_The Actual Day (Highlights) from rizal amir khan on Vimeo.

USTAZ KHAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRR VAI U DO THIZ TO UZ VAIIIII

Tak tau nak nangis sebab tengok wedding orang yang sungguh cantik atau nak nangis tengok Ustaz Khair dalam wedding video ni lah kan sebenarnye hahahahahahaha

Aaanyway~~~ There is a good reason why kita ada list kan kan kan??? Untuk tackle situasi situasi macam gini lah ye, my friends. So my mat and I pun move along and went down our list - our choice #2 is Ustaz Mohd Suhaimi!

Very simple reasons why he is choice #2, really:

(1) He was the tok kadi for Sham and Aisyah's wedding and my mat finds himself comfortable with Ustaz Mohd Suhaimi (plus Sham is very chummy with him because they went for a course together before);

(2) He stays in Tampines (3 streets away from me! If kita nikah at my place, dia boleh jalan kaki je seh hehehe) sooooo he should be familiar with our venue which is located in the East. It's been recommended to choose a tok kadi who stays near to your solemnization venue so lesser chance of the tok kadi getting lost along the way and being late for your solemization; and

(3) We like how he sounds when he does the akad and the khubah as well - you can refresh by watching Fiza O and KC's wedding video here.

(It was either Ustaz Mohd Suhaimi or Ustaz Nor Razak Bakar actually, the latter did Azmin and Nat's solemnization and comes highly recommended by Miza, my long-time online friend who was the same person who recommended us Maldives resorts for our honeymoon.)

Sham, our ever so helpful and resourceful wak kahwing kahwing, texted Ustaz Mohd Suhaimi during lunchtime yesterday to give him a heads up before my mat called him lepas kerja (after establishing that there is no way we can get Ustaz Mohd Khair to be our tok kadi.) Ustaz Suhaimi immediately gave us his word that he will block the slot for us so that called for a yippie yay! Takde hek takde hok, settle the kettle, ok get set go.

Waited until midnight to do the online registration -  here are some screenshots from the registration page! I've always wondered how it looks like because you cannot reach this page until you dah confirm and masukkan all the details ma hahaha so this is for those kaypoh people like me who pernah wonder how it looks like:

Remember to click on images to enlarge images for better viewing!

 There's a drop down list of tok kadi names for us to choose from...

OH HAI our tok kadi who lives 3 streets away from me! :D

Raya nanti saya datang passing lauk pauk and kuih muih ok Ustaz hehehehehe

Click on your solemnization date and then choose the time block that you want - available slots start from 10.00am until 10.00pm. (Dah macam operating hours untuk shopping malls lah pulak.)

Siape perangai kurang ajar, sila lah pilih slot untuk nikah at 10 malam ok.

Made payment for registration fees of S$39.00 and we're done and good to go!

It was easy, quick and painless to use the online registration portal - the next thing for us to do is to report to the Registry with my wali pulak!

(Click to enlarge image)

My mat, my wali (hey daddy!) and I have already taken leave and blocked the date where we can all go to ROMM so definitely looking forward to that!!!!! At first I thought we can only go to the Registry strictly 5 weeks before our solemnization date aje seh BUT thanks to the awesome kakak-kakak kahwing network and this entry from Raudah of Seven Twelve Thirteen, I got confirmation that we can go anytime after we've registered online as long as it is at least 5 weeks before solemnization date.

And with that.......... 150 DAYS TO GO, PEOPLE.

P.S. We realized 5 minutes before our online registration that our wedding is on a public holiday (thanks to his supermother who reminded us!), which means there is a chance Ustaz Mohd Khair might not have to go to work on that day after all. But we weren't sure whether mosques and Islamic organizations follow secular public holidays and didn't want to risk waiting until the next day to call him again to ask, which was why we went ahead with Ustaz Mohd Suhaimi instead.

P.P.S Sorry to our friends and families who were hoping we'd take good-looking Ustaz Syakir Pasuni! I was open to having him but my mat refused and bantah keras keras because he says "I tak nak our tok kadi to be more handsome than me, I AM THE GROOM, OUR TOK KADI CANNOT BE MORE HANDSOME THAN ME!"

WHATEVZ, PLEASE. Kadang kadang aku memang sayang ah dengan ini mamat but kadang kadang MACAM MINTAK KENA BANTAI SAK.

[Editted as at 7 June 2013, 2:15pm - the story on tok kadi continues here.]

happy 2013 from kahwin khronicles!

Happy 2013, you guys!

And with that.....

Won't be long till the countdown goes down to a one-digit countdown, y'all!