in a heartbeat, one year later

This time last year, I received heart-wrenching news and dealt with it by writing this.

Last week would have been your first year wedding anniversary but as takdir would have it, it was not meant to be. Today, your family and friends are left mourning on your first death anniversary instead.

Perhaps this reminder of your death anniversary has come at a timely manner - in the midst of fretting over our venue issues (which was a venue we considered after you held your wedding there), I am once again reminded that there is only so much we can plan and hope and dream for our wedding, our honeymoon, our marriage, our home and our future together... because if it is not meant for us, He can and He will take them all away in a single heartbeat. No matter the place, no matter the day, no matter the time, death does not discriminate.

May you and your wife rest in peace, Najib. Al-Fateha.

akan datang

Finally got round to adding registries and FAQs pages to our wedding website!

Whichhhhh we will only share with our dinner guests two or three months before our wedding date so they can get more information on what to expect at our reception sambil sambil RSVP their attendance. Tak sabar nya nak tengok our RSVP counter start go up, up, up! Heh heh.

Also added our registries on the left sidebar of this blog for, y'know, just in case :P

Okay okay, I know wedding registries are not common here in Singapore (especially among Malay couples) but we thought we'll have some listings just in case we do have well-meaning friends who wish to get us gifts! I'm sure our friends who have the intention of getting us gifts would rather buy us gifts that we will definitely use instead of gifts that we will campak or tolak aside because kita actually tak pakai in the end, kan???

Kita sendiri have had some tough times trying to decide on gifts that are good and practical for our couple-friends because we're always not sure whether they have any need for bath towels or bread toaster or knife sets - y'know, stuff like that - and I've always thought it'd be so much more easier if our friends have registries that we can refer to. Kalau tak buy the exact same thing pun, at least you have an idea what the couple might need and get inspiration from there ma. Betul tak!

(Sham and Aisyah, you guys might want to set one up so we know what to buy for you as a gift once you get your house keys and we can go over to your own house for the first time!!! Woohoo, anytime now!)

By the way, can I just take this opportunity to complain about IKEA not having a bloody online registry service?!?!?! IKEA!!! REGISTRY!!! They go together like isi and kuku, please! But no registry tab in sight on their website lor. Seriously tak guna eh ada halal meatballs tapi takde wedding registry (takde link haha) Ah tak peduli ah, I'll try to be semangat and create a DIY IKEA registry one of these days.

Ah well. Aaaaanyway, there's nothing much in our registries for now because I'll have to wait until the next time my mat and I ada free time so we can add in items together -  he is bloody cerewet nak mampos when it comes to household items and aku seriously tak paham ok. I'd think that a vacuum cleaner is just a vacuum cleaner, kan?! But noOOooOOoOOoOOOooooo, he couldn't stop gushing about the Sham's friend's fancy schmancy vacuum cleaner which he used when we were over at his place for a sleepover and this mamat insisted we get one for our future home! 

And he is such a makcik when we go to IKEA showrooms! He'll scrutinize and/or lust after the barang rumah and barang barang dapur segala and his favourite areas to visit are the laundry rooms and kitchens -___- 

Sajak sangatlah aku kasi kau nickname "My Little Housewife", (wo)man.

it's going to be a diy december!

I don’t think I’ve ever seen local pengantins blowing up pictures of themselves and displaying them up as part of their pelamin. Something like this:

(Source: Mohd Ming. From the wedding of Ash and Ann (ex-pengantin from Malaysia))

And another one, on a much smaller scale:

(Via Wanazwani. Original Source: Unknown)

Pretty unique concept but I don’t think my mat and I will ever consider this because we’re not… uhhhmmmmm… narcissistic enough (hahaha) to blow up pictures of ourselves and incorporate them as part of our pelamin and decor. If anything, we’ll be too paiseh to do such a thing! Macam a bit too excessive for us lah haha.

But anyway. Talking about pelamin and decor!

We met up with my primary school friends yesterday for our annual jalan raya session and one of the things that made it awesome was one of my friends and his tunang talking to me about their preparations for their December wedding – I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they’re going to freaking DIY their pelamin and decor setup segala!

They decided to DIY most of their wedding themselves after a disappointing turn of events with a lousy wedding vendor (who should kena tembak with senapang bapak gajah), and I’m glad they did because I was just thinking the other day about how wonderful it would be to see local pengantins themselves DIY their own pelamins and decor! And kaboom – my own friends are doing exactly that.

I’ve read about Malaysian pengantins who DIY for their own majlis, but never Singaporean ones – except them folks from Alchemy, of course, but that’s at a much higher budget. It was especially nice to hear my friends raving about how much cheaper things are and how much costs they’ve managed to save. After all, that is what DIY is all about, right?! Not paying an exorbitant amount for other people to DIY for you, right?!

And the best part is! This kahwin-kahwing couple friends of mine granted me permission to do some coverage of their wedding preparations! Right here on this blog! Which means I’ll be going down to their places and venues to help out whatever I can and sebok sebok to see what hard work and dedication is required for a DIY wedding!

I am very excited for them, so excited that I’m going to share some of their engagement pictures for the fun of it:

[Photography by Khairi Edris from Verve Photography

Outfit & Andaman by Lab Bridal Couture]

I am very happy for these two because they’re such a wonderful bagai pinang dibelah dua couple!!!

(By the way – I couldn’t believe my ears when they told me that Lab Bridal Couture is letting them design their own outfits at no extra costs. And at the quote that they were given, I say it’s pretty reasonable for customized outfits!)

Yay yay, something to look forward to this coming December!!!!!

And wow I am so bloody inspired by their preparation, I can probably DIY a pelamin all by myself right now... with, I don’t know, plastic bottles or something. Yes, I am that inspired ok.

saliheenandfarhana.com

I remember stumbling on this wedding website in 2009 and thinking "I also want!!!!!"

(Seems like there's some kind of coding error now but back in 2009, it worked and looked just fine).

Now that I really am going to get married and have an excuse to have one, I'm not sure how I'm going to build up such a wedding website - I know simple HTML coding after years of blogging (I started blogging at 14, muda muda dah pandai expresskan diri haha) but I have no idea how to do all these fancy schancy coding thingies.

So I'll probably bug my sister or my cousin for some help if I have the time and energy to do it nearer to the date. Just for the fun of it lah, kalau tak menjadi, I'll just rely on this humble little wedding blog. Heh heh.

But for now, here's my new favourite wedding website: Jenny and Grayden

So modern and sooooo cool. I ALSO WANT!!!!!