selamat datang ke ROMM

Yay kita dah pergi ROMM interview! :D

Ok I know we have a few more months to go and as long as we do it 5 weeks before our solemnization date, we'll be good to go BUT (1) we wanted to get it over and done with; and (2) we already took full day leave on Monday to meet Zakaria Zainal to discuss the outdoor photoshoot anyway so we thought, why wait? Lagi muai can max out our leave!

(Initial idea was to get some rest before meeting Zakaria Zainal which was why we took full day leave but since we expected the ROMM interview to last only an hour or two, we decided to just get it over and done with instead of waiting for another day and use up another day of leave)

We arrived at ROMM at 10.00am and ended the whole process in about one and a half hour? Spent most of the time waiting, actually. Pffttttt. Several of our married friends dah warning suruh pergi bright and early i.e. once ROMM opens at 8.30am because once dah inching towards tengahari, there will more couples ahead of you which means the waiting time will be longer. TETAPI! Kerana aku ada bakal suami yang chronic latecomer argh end up we reached ROMM at 10.00am gitu.

The ROMM interview process was quite simple and straightforward, actually:

(1) Collect queue number at the reception.

(2) Wait for your queue number to be called.

(3) Once you're called to the registration counter, you'll be asked to confirm your solemnization details (information that was submitted during your online registration). The officer will tell you about the kadi fees ($100).

By the way, it's not stated on the list of documents to bring but please bring along your pre-marriage course certificate. I happened to mention our ROMM interview to Nani, who told me to bring them along and true enough, the registration officer and the Ustaz that interviewed us asked to have a look at the certificates as confirmation.

(4) You'll be asked to go back to the waiting area and wait for your queue number to be called into the Ustaz's interview room.

(5) Your wali will go in first for the interview then followed by you and your future spouse.

(6) Once you're in the interview room, the Ustaz will ask you a series of straightforward questions and will ask you to confirm your solemnization details once again before asking you to angkat sumpah and sign the confirmation document.

That's it! Takde suruh demonstrate macam mana nak angkat air wudhuk or baca mengaji or doa qunut or kena grilled with tough questions yang boleh buat you sweat your coli seluar dalam off segala. Nonsense lah all those rumours! In fact other than confirmation of our solemnization details, I think the Ustaz only asked us whether we are currently taking religious classes. Kacang cap tangan je.

Oh, we were interviewed by Ustaz Ismail Terimoh who turned out to be very friendly and funny, by the way! He joked freely with us and he put both my mat and I at ease from the get go. I was actually quite nervous when we were waiting to be called into the interview room - no idea why, though! Haha. Baru nak kena interview dah nervous wreck, nanti bila time nikah entah macam mana. Kaku beku agaknye.

And in case you're wondering (like me, before I went for the interview) - there is no requirement for you to put on the tudung (for non-hijab-wearing ladies) during the interview, although friends did advise me to wear something tertutup and sopan to look appropriate for the occasion. (Not that I would even dare to wear a cleavage-bearing top and shorts to a ROMM interview anyway lah kan, korang ni pun..........)

My daddy the wali and my husband-to-be! Tee hee!

After the ROMM interview was over, we dropped by Grand City Shirt Manufacturer at Frontier Building to collect our groomsmen punya shirts for dinner reception pulak YAY YAY. Fab service, great shirt quality and workmanship, friendly staff and tauke - needless to say, we were pleased with Grand City! :D

Here is my mamat waiting for the ~goodies~ 

..... and the finished product!

Actually kan I was pretty sceptical about the collar print when my mat showed me a sample of the chosen print (he went to the Grand City tailor with the guys only whereas I was out at another tailor with my bridesmaids few months ago) but they turned out really great and now I'm so psyched to see our groomsmen looking all nice and segak in their shirts!!! Meeting our orang orang kuat next Friday for dinner so my mat can personally hand the shirts over to our groomsmen!!! Benda gini pun aku excited eh haha

Ah, now I wish I have the bridesmaids' outfits on hand too! If it wasn't for the Raya season, we might be able to get the outfits for our bridesmaids earlier but since our tailor's pretty tied up, what with Raya season coming up and all, we'll have to wait for September before collecting the baju for the girls. Tak sabar nye~~~

For now I kena divert my excitement and look forward to this coming weekend pulak. Actually kan our plans for this weekend is to paint my bedroom and spruce it up for Raya, my andaman session time kahwing and my mat's ultimate move-in - in fact, I already took colour samples in boring shades of grey segala when my family and I went to HomeFix to buy paint for my sisters' bedroom last weekend...

... BUT! After meeting the amazing Zakaria Zainal yesterday, terasa macam more excited to recce locations for our outdoor photoshoot instead pulak! GATAL KAN.

We already have a few locations in mind (and props and DIY tasks too!) but kita kena play by ear and tengok dulu whether we can indeed head out and do the recce. We'll see what the weekend brings! For now, akak ada ten thousand things to do dalam office so... CIAO.

P.S. So sorry if you sent me an email over the weekend and I belum reply - had a bachelorette party for a girlfriend from Saturday to Sunday, and between running errands and attending appointments on Monday, I haven't had the time to reply to comments and emails... will try to do so within the next few days ok!

oh hai, tok kadi! (part ll)

 After I wrote yesterday's entry about tok kadi booking, I thought that was the end of it.

Saliheen and I had accepted that our #1 choice tok kadi Ustaz Mohd Khair is not available on our wedding date so we decided on Ustaz Mohd Suhaimi instead - what else is there to it except wait for our wedding day to see our tok kadi in person, right?

So I blogged about our experience, continued doing my work, left office at the end of the day and went home. Same old, same old, right? Well, not quite. Because one hour and a half later, I received this notification in my email inbox:

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 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW RIDICULOUSLY EXCITED I WAS????? 

But obviously not as excited as my mat because when I called to tell him about the turn of events, he started shrieking and insisting that we apply for change of solemnizer on the ROMM website now now NOW -____- 

Dude refused to listen to me when I told him to call Ustaz Mohd Khair the next morning first to ask whether it really is possible SO to shut him up, I opened up the Change Solemnization Details application on ROMM website to do the necessary. Realized I couldn't do it because Ustaz Mohd Khair tak bukak any slots for November 2013 so my mat was forced to calm the eff down and wait until the next morning to ask the Ustaz.

Sooooo earlier today, my mat called Ustaz Mohd Khair to inform him that our wedding will be on a public holiday and asked whether he will be working... to which he laughed and said no, and told us to give him five minutes to open up a slot for us.

Five minutes later...

(Click image to enlarge)

 YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!

Now we not only can haz a tok kadi, we CAN HAZ OUR #1 CHOICE TOK KADI!!!!!

Sure, we had to pay $15 for making a change to our application but what is $15 as compared to having Ustaz Mohd Khair, who is our #1 choice tok kadi, preside at our nikah proceedings?!?!?! Definitely worth more than a mere $15, if you ask us. Woohoo!

Oh, but can someone tell my mamat not to be such a freak and hantar this kind of text:

Wahlau, must declare love and fangirlism segala...

But lolz aside, we really must give special thanks to Sis Haida actually - thank you so so so much because if not for your comment, we wouldn't have made the move to try asking Ustaz Mohd Khair again whether he can open up his slot on our wedding date.

And of course, all praises to the Al-Mighty for giving us this rezeki, Alhamdullilah! This is yet another incident that strengthens our faith in Qada and Qadar - you see, my mat and I were pretty bummed when Deepavali was changed from 3rd November 2013 (Sunday) to 2nd November 2013 (Saturday) because that change meant we wouldn't have a public holiday on Monday and will have to apply leave for Monday instead. 

Little did we know, that change turned out to be a momentous blessing in disguise - now that Deepavali (public holiday) is on our wedding date, Ustaz Khair can be our solemnizer when he wouldn't be able to do so if it was on any other working Saturday mornings.

Never fails to amaze us how God will give us our rezeki if it is indeed meant to be ours.

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.]