18.6.2011 The Bride's Reception - Part I

I need to write about the wedding before I forget everything...so 2 months after, this is what I could recall about the day after I became a Mrs.

Woke up not as early as I have been waking up for the past few weeks, less anxiety as the biggest event ie; getting married all settled...I walked out of my room and everyone was busy cleaning up and packing for Putrajaya tonight. The plan was for everyone to leave around 10am and start the rehearsal somewhere around 11am. I stayed back with Han and waited for my beloved husband to pick me up. Aliff came at about 11.30am, but we had to wait for Han to bathe and get ready...its ok, no rush, we were Raja Sehari kan? People wait for us! Haha.

So, at this point of time I still have not received my wedding dress from you know who. At about 1200 noon he mms-ed me my dress and asked me whether it was ok...from the very-very-very beginning, 5 months ago and repeatedly for the past 2 weeks I told him, FULL. I think he was trying his luck sending me that picture...Cut the story short, when I received the picture, I ruined my contact lenses (which I proudly wore my self) that Syida had run to Empire and get me a new one and I reached Putrajaya at 4pm, with THREE back up dresses (thanx to some lovely angels).

Anyway, imagine, I reached there 3 and a half hours before the guests started to arrive. Rehearsal ofcourse terbantut because the main people, ie; the Bride and Groom was not there. And because I planned everything myself and being the control freak I was, everyone was panicking as everything needed my final say.

Ok, so anyway, once I reached the hall, I immediately lighted up...from the frown I wore since morning, I finally cracked a smile, albeit a small one. I LOVE the walkway that Que had decorated...Lamp posts with white ostrich plumes on top. It was lovely...although I was a lil bit dissapointed that the plumes on the pelamin was not as much as I would hoped it to be, but oh well, tak kisahlah, it looks fine. We started rehearsal right away. There was a little bit of a commotion between me and Father-of-the-Bride-Zilla on the flow of the pengantin's entrance, but it was sorted out to my favor, yeay.

So, me and Aliff stood below the arch and the bridesmaids started walking down the aisle. Then the intro of "At Last" started and Maria started singing...OMG...that was the first time I heard her sang that song, and I completely fell in LOVE and knew that I picked the right person to sing it! I know Maria has a beautiful voice, I've heard her sing before, but I've not heard her sing At Last and she had told me that she has never sang that song before. I had goosebumps as I was practicing walking down the aisle as she sang because it was just angelic. So, my smile grew bigger, and I remembered feeling, ok, this night won't be a disaster.

We had to do a few trial runs to get everyone's timing right, my dad ofcourse had to tweak every SINGLE thing, as he looked over the hall in the AV room upstairs yelling this and that with his cap on. Thinking back about it, he looked so cute and I know that he was a perfectionist and he wanted that night to run as smoothly as possible, although at that time I was ready to bite his little cap of off his head! I love you Bapak!

Bapak with his little cap :)

So, we finished at about 5.30pm and my MUA (Kak Liza - the bestest EVER!! HIGHLY recommended!) arrived, on the dot as promised. Then I realised (although I have been pursuing for this since last week), my guests who I invited (friends, colleagues) did not have designated tables. I ran to my mum and asked for "Nadiah's Friends" tags. Then I had to run around and place the tags at tables which had no tags. Could not remove those already with tags because they're already assigned according to Bapak's list! Arghhhhh so I had to split my guests into 3 groups I think, front, middle and back. If I had arrived sooner I could have sorted the seatings out, but because of the dress-drama-thank-you-so-much-to-you-know-who, I had to run around the hall finding empty tables to place the tags when i'm supposed to be getting all dolled up. While I was running around, I saw the cake that I ordered arrived. Didn't get to see how it looked like because I was too busy. Oh, and my dress has not even arrived yet, and it was close to 6pm. At that point of time, I was thinking that there is a high chance I might have to wear either one of the back up dresses! So went up to the Bilik Pengantin, and I found out that it is bloody locked! Screamed from the top to get somebody to open it up. Syida also helped scream, you can count on her to do that! Thanx Syida! (She was doing her best to assist me all day because of the dress drama - I have the bestest sister ever! [minus the PMS and OCD])

At about 6pm I was seated infront of the mirror, shutting my ears from everything and focussed on looking pretty. Thank goodness I made, I think one of my best decision to book Kak Liza as my MUA. She did her magic so gracefully and I'm not one to brag, but I received a handful of compliments on how I looked that night. I know I've said this before, but Kak Liza is HIGHLY HIGHLY recommended. Her work is fabulous, she has the best personality and the best heart.

 

So, I asked Aliff, Syida and Han to get ready in the same room with me. The room was huge, and I like to be surrounded by people to help ease the nerves. So they got ready there. Altho it was quite chaotic, with all of us and the photographers and videographer in one room and Syida and Aliff "trying" to iron their clothes (both failed, had to call reinforcements; ie KakHuriah to the rescue)...the chaos somehow made me so calm. At about close to 7pm, THE dress finally arrived. So, I had 4 dresses to choose from........................................and I chose to wear the original dress. At the end of the day, that's the dress I have been envisioning to wear, and although it wasn't as perfect as I had hoped and imagined it to be, it did look nice and waaaaay better than the picture he sent me earlier in the day. So, while getting ready I was doing last minute changes to the seating arrangements. Aliff and Han also got in the Kak Liza magic - to touch up on their face...Han later washed it all off because he said he felt like he was wearing make up! haha

 

 

Then few of my friends who arrived early came up and met with me. The reactions I got from people who came up and met me made my little smile grew larger and larger and I started letting go of the Bridezilla in me. I think I suddenly realised that it was about time to say goodbye to the "Zilla" part of me and enjoyed being the "Bride". At that moment, I suddenly felt soooooooo much lighter and I didn't have a care in the world of what was going on, whether guests have arrived, whether they got their seats right, whether everything is in the right place....I was enjoying the moment so so much, wearing a white dress, meeting my family and friends, taking pictures...I was having tooooo much fun! And the best part of it all, Kakmyra, Adri, Lulu and Baby Ahmadi surprised us by showing up (actually I already knew, tapi buat2 surprise la as usual). If you read my previous entry, Ahmadi was admitted for a slight fever and there was a high possibility Kakmyra and family will not be able to make it that night. They already missed the Nikah. So, having everyone I loved with me, I just enjoyed EVERY moment and did not have a Bridezilla moment from then on.

Kakmyra and family!

with the fabulous Que

By 8.00pm I was ready, veil, shoes, flower bouquet (which was also from Que - he is also VERY highly recommended!) and all. My lovely bridesmaids, each in beautiful royal purple/maroon dresses joined me in the Bilik Pengantin. The guys, including Que, were there too, all handsome in their suits. Everything was perfect. 

The Groom and The Bestman

The MOH and the Bridesmaids

My 4 Lovely Bridesmaids

Then we were called to come down to meet the guests of honor in the holding room. Took pictures with them and made our way back to the main entrance, waiting for the que for us to make our big entrance as man and wife.

Dam dam da dam .... Dam dam da dam ....

To be continued...

Preparations for the Engagement: The day before

The last few things that needed to be done was the pelamin, the centrepieces and cleaning.

Cleaning. My room was a mess, with all the magazines, and the un-hanged clothes, the dust. I've repainted some furnitures of the room to white and needed a white-framed-mirror for the dressing table. One day I came home and saw this lovely mirror that my parents bought for me as a gift :) Saved  my $$. yeay. My mum also bought new white sheets for the bed. Kak Huriah helped me with the vacuuming and dusting off the dusts.

Centrepieces. I bought the flowers from Floristika, Bangsar on Thursday evening (29.7.2010). I went after work and met Kakmira and Syida at Jalan Telawi, Bangsar. The arrangement was for me to park at Bangsar Village and Kakmira and Syida would pick me up. I asked them to meet me there because I wanted to get some threading done heee. Well, my phone battery died that day, so I had to walk, in heels, around Jalan Telawi to find a public phone to call them. Which was really difficult, because who uses public phones nowadays? Anyway, I managed to find a working public phone and told them the actual place where we would meet. So they picked me up and we went to Floristika. I chose a range of different types of flowers and colors - roses, carnations, hydrangeas, lavenders, sweet williams, sundal malam, chrysantemums, baby breaths and some others I dont know the name of. It was sooooooo much fun to shop for flowers.

When we got home, I put the flowers in buckets of water and started on the centrepieces. I didnt know that it would take a long time to finish. Ahhhh... Thursday night I slept at 2am. The next day I started early and finished at about 10pm. Phewwww.

Here are some of the centrepieces that I did. I also did the flowers for the room and other parts of the house.

                                           

Pelamin. I planned to have a simple pelamin for the sarung cincin. Since for the Merisik, it was done with me on the chair, I thought this time I would do it with me sitting down bersimpuh all lovely. Ahahah. So, we asked the canopy people to provide us a mini platform. They sent it the same day they put up the canopies, which was on Friday, the day before the Engagement. The platform turned out to be bigger than expected, but its ok. I covered the platform with light brown material that I bought from Nagoya. We put the wooden - i don't know what it is called - penghadang? divider? - whatever lah, as the backdrop for the pelamin. Then we laid down Kakmira's fluffy brown carpet and put a thin mattress in the middle and arranged throw pillows over it. Initially, I planned to arrange lavenders, purple chrysanthemums and sundal malam along the top of the wooden-penghadang/divider once I finished with the centrepieces. But that got off tracked, and I was toooo tired once I was done with the centrepieces. So Kakmira placed the leftover blue hydrangeas there instead. I bought a pair of blue-cotton-embroidered umbrella and Kakmira placed it at the 2 ends of the wooden-penghadang/divider.
                      

                                                                                         

That Friday night, some of my aunts and uncles and cousins came by to help out with anything else that needed to be done. The only thing that was left was to fill in the gift bags that my mum bought at Nilai 3 with yassins and hand-fans that my parents bought at the last minute at a reststop somewhere in Johor or Melaka when they were on their way back from picking up my paternal grandparents from my kampung in Johor :) I was happy with only the yassins, but the gift bags were sponsored by the parents, so I'm ok with whatever they want to put inside it, as long as it is not my $$. :) :). The fans were ultra cute and the aunts had fun reserving the fans that they want for themselves.



 

 

                 

Special thanx to my lovely and wonderful family, aunts and uncles, cousins, especially my strongest workforce, Kakmira, Syida, Ibu, KakHuriah, Adri and Han and Lulu and Bapak (The last four ni cheating sikit kadang-kadang - as you can see from the last 2 pictures ahaha) for putting up with my orders and pettiness. Love u guys to bitssssss!!