My Wedding - The Hit and Miss - Part 3

THE SOLEMNIZATION

1. The Nikah dress
TOTAL MISS
My solemnization dress is another story that I'm trying to forget but at the end it turned up looking less terrible in photos.
I just want a simple long dress with decoration on the waist and wrist. Like the silhouette of this Alia B piece.

So for the material, I bought a white Italian crepe or something(can't remember the exact name) in Jakel that cost around RM58 per meter and the color match the dutchess satin that my husband bought for his baju melayu, then because the material is thin, I need to buy another material for the inner layer, so the salesman give me another piece that cost RM8 per meter. This one is a yellowish white soft material to be use as the inside part. Since it will be so simple of a dress, I didn't expect any problem at all for this one.

Long story short, my first tailor made it the other way around, the inside one as the outside and the Italian crepe as the inside. I literally cried.

But then we go to another tailor, there's nothing she can do about the inside out material but she did some decorations to make the dress look a bit better.
On the dais, enhanced by the photographer spot light, the color of my dress doesn't look that much different from my husband.

 But outside, during the outdoor session, the difference in color/material is quite obvious and you can see the yellowish white material in contrast to my husband shiny white baju melayu.

Notice the difference

 

You can see the contrast from my husband here, and you can even see the hem lining of the sewing.T_T..

But at least I have this photo that I love.

2. The White Henna
HIT
So moving on from the Miss, another HIT was my white henna that made by Fiza Henna Art Ipoh.

Again I chose a simple decoration.

Some little part have peeled off because dah salam-salam my husband's relatives before the nikah.
This pic was taken after nikah.

I never was a fan of the traditional red henna, so this white one really was a hit for me. Have to answer few curious question from Opah and Mak Yang who were not used to see this white henna but thats something you have to do if you break the tradition a little.

THE DAIS/PHOTOBOOTH

HIT
1. The Dais for Nikah
Is our DIY project. I did asked the help from a friend who did a Pelamin Budget jobs in Penang, but he did not take jobs outside Penang due to transportation issue. And I believe they have another job in Penang so we decided to just rent some of the stuffs and make the dais ourself.

We rented the mirror box, shiny vase, the white carpets, the white ottoman pillows, the spotlights and some of the flowers at Something Borrowed by Nawal in Cyberjaya.
The rest - the sofa, the backdrop, the platform and the rest of the flowers are from Rafa Bridal, Taiping.
And my husband and my brothers did the rest.

Oh another thing that we rent is our hantaran boxes. I was looking for a glass box, but since it was last minute I only found mirror box at Supercun Wedding in Setia Alam.

So for the dais, my initial idea is very simple,we plan to do something like this,

but we got carried away as usual.

But the end result is so pretty, still simple though, and I'm really glad we did it ourselves.

 Husband's family

My family

Love this photo of both our parents cause their clothe's color complements the dais perfectly.

2. The Photobooth During Reception
Since we don't want another dais during reception, we plan to DIY a photobooth instead and it is 100% done by my husband with the help of our photographer. I just managed to help untangle the curtain lights before I have to go to hair and make up. I'm really nervous of how it will turned up  but when I first saw it I squeaked in excitement. It was exactly like what I've imagined and more.

We also rent the props from various places. Marquee letters from Bulbventure, the LED cable(the one on the floor) and the photo frame stand from Something Borrowed By Nawal and the chandelier light and bench from D'ratu Bridal Taiping.

The light curtain behind we bought from Lazada. We have other orders from Lazada but it didn't arrive before the event so we only use that one curtain lights. But thank God it turned out okay.
I love the simplicity of it and the feel it gave me.
*Notice the left chandelier is not lighted cos we've run out of plugs.

Some might ask if DIY dais and photobooth is cheaper than hiring a wedding planner?
Honestly I cant really say it is because we rent the items for both nikah dais and photobooth reception together. But in total we might have spent around RM1100-RM1300 for rental items from SBBN,Rafa Bridal,Bulbventure and D'ratu.
From what I see on social media the normal price for my nikah dais type is around RM600-800, and I've no idea about our photobooth. So I don't think its cheaper. At the very least its comparable.

The venue.

One with the family.

I've requested my family to wear maroon as to complement my dusty pink. And they did their best to follow that. Even the one my younger brother wears (on the right most) which was actually dark purple, (we even argue on this after he bought it), but it turned out to be maroon in the picture.

One with mommy

And one with the siblings.

All in all, I'm happy of how everything turned out. However thorough we plan the event, it will definitely not turned out 100% as we expected. 

I wish for a simple ceremony but it doesn't turned up as simple as I wish it had been. 1000 guest is not a simple wedding but like I said, wedding is not only for the bride/groom but it's also for the parents. And like I said in my previous post on 'Kahwin simple', I lost to my parents desire and also for mine (particularly on the dress).

I really believed we could spend RM10K for one ceremony for only relatives and close friends.

But for this one, my husband spent close to RM15K, another RM10K from my part more or less (the one that I wish I could use for my 30th birthday trip T_T..) and I believed dad threw in some RM5K on top of it. Mom some few hundreds for wedding gifts.

Surprisingly not cheap considering we DIY few things on our own. 

Imagine what we could've done with RM30K. We could buy ourselves a second house.T_T..

But that's our culture, and I didn't managed to break it.

Hopefully someone will and I cant wait for our society to change this culture entirely.

For the aftermath of the ceremony, there are a lot of things that me and my family cannot control, even more so being the first one to got married in the family. I believe my parents had no clue of what there is to do.

So again I'd like to apologize to any friends and relatives who came from afar and not satisfied with the food or any other thing. But your presents light up our ceremony and we are grateful that you spend your time sharing the moment with us. 

And despite everything, I'm also thankful for the makeup artist, photographers, and the caterers who also contributing to the event.

Not mentioning my families, aunts and uncles, cousins, relatives near and far, my friends, housemates, colleagues, schoolmates, uni mates, may God bless all of you.

Now that the event is done, its time to focus on more important thing, the marriage itself.

InsyaAllah.