The baju nikah

The Baju Nikah

For the baju nikah, I have already decided from long ago that I only want a simple totally white baju kurung modern. I know the trend nowadays is to have colored kain for nikah and white for reception but I’ve never been a trend follower anyway. I scout for the kain at Jakel in Shah Alam with my mom and aunt. I found this kain lace which I totally fall in love at first sight with but it was out of my budget. We spent few hours there because I just cannot decide whether to get a kain lace or chiffon. They have package for kain lace together with few meters of satin for kain baju melayu or kain chiffon with few meters of satin for kain baju melayu. All the kain chiffon beaded look so nice, pretty and flowy but in the end I decided against it because:

1.       I want my outfit to be totally white but I can’t possibly get kain chiffon with white beading, the beading won’t be seen in pictures.

2.       Although the kain chiffon’s package is cheaper but if I get one, I will need to spend more money for the beading work or if not it will look too plain. The kain lace on the other hand is already full of beadings.

3.       I haven’t found my tailor yet and I know that many tailors don’t accept chiffon beaded because it’s harder to sew and even if they do, they charged higher.

4.       Okla fine, I’m already in love with the kain lace.

I bought a few meters of plain chiffon for the skirt part of the baju kurung and the veil because I want the skirt and veil to be flowy. My mom and aunties bought few meters of chiffon for their outfits for the reception. We were given more discounts because Jakel’s owner’s daughter in law was there so since we bought so much she gave us quite a lot of discounts so some tips here, buy your kain when one of the Jakel’s family member is there, you will get more savings.

There are some leftovers of border lace from the kain lace I bought so my tailor sulam the border lace to my veil and it look so so gorgeous. I thought the tailor did a good job with the outfit and I’m truly happy with how it turned out. I wish I can show some pictures here but I haven’t got the photos from my photographer yet so maybe next time.End.

Preparation- The Nikah Doorgift

The Preparations

After the engagement, I have 8 months to prepare for my wedding. I started reading blogs and magazines to get inspiration. Ok..not so much on reading magazines because they usually feature grand, lavish malay weddings which was not my style. Ok fine, I can’t afford to have a lavish wedding anyway so maybe my style is budget wedding?

I will break this down into parts too because one of the reason I chose to write back is because I got so much help earlier on during preparation by reading blog posts from other bride to be so who knows I can help a bride-to-be who happen to google related keyword in this blog.

The Nikah Doorgifts

Now, when you have a mom and an aunt who’s over enthusiastic for your wedding please expect to change plan numerous times leading up to the big day. From the start of the preparation, I already know that I want to give Surah Yasin as doorgift. I start browsing through the net to find the cheapest deal. I found a vendor’s link http://facebook.com/tempahyasin  which offered Rm2.00 for 100-199 pieces of Yasin which was the cheapest deal that I can find. There are a lot of vendors which you can order Surah Yasin from so there might be cheaper deals out there but at that moment, that’s the only one which I can afford so I decided to just place an order. The procedure is simple; I chose the design I want, emailed Encik Zahir, paid deposit and let him edit the color, font and wordings to one that’s really my choice. You can even send in your own design but I’m lazy so I just pick the one that is in the website.  After that I just confirmed the design and within a few weeks, 120 pieces Surah Yasin arrived at my doorstep. One month before the wedding, my mom decided it’s not proper to just only give surah Yasin so my aunt in Johor decided to sponsor telur pindang as part of the doorgift. My aunt, her husband and her daughter took bus to come to Penang from Johor so imagine how hard it was for them to bring the 200 eggs in an 8 hour bus ride. They even have to change buses along the way so I felt so grateful and sorry to them. Another aunt baked some cupcakes for doorgifts to kids. We bought the sarung for the Surah Yasin, telur pindang and cupcakes throughout the 8 months at wherever we found discount. End.

The return and The engagement

Ok, it’s been a while since I last wrote in this blog. Fine, a while is an understatement..a dinosaur year maybe? I don’t think anyone even bother to visit this blog again. Err.. I’m sorry? 

The last entry I wrote was on my opah being very sick. Well, she pass away one day after that and I missed her every single day but I know she’s in a much better place right now.

 The reason why I chose to write again is because I just got married recently hohoho  and I think with my deleting memory it’s wiser to write the event in this blog than risk forgetting all of it because although my wedding is far from perfect,  I want to remember every detail of it because to me it’s perfect enough and exactly how I want it to be.

I guess I should write this in sequence so that it’s easier to refer on after this.

The Engagement

I got engaged on 15^th January 2012. It was just an impulsive decision really. I mean we talked about having a 2012 wedding from time to time but it wasn’t a solid decision yet. There was a Habib Warehouse sale or something like that in Ampang on the end of December and I decided to check it out just in case I can find a proper merisik ring. Then, when we look at the rows of display, I found out that they sold loose diamond with proper qualities (the 5Cs) at a much cheaper price so hubster decided to just buy that for my merisik ring. Yes, I chose my own engagement ring. I guess it will be much more proper if the hubster’s mom chose it for me but she don’t really mind since I’m the one wearing it in the end. Then, we went for lunch, discussed and decided to have the merisik event on January itself. I went back to tell my parents and hubster went back and told his mom. So, the date that was decided was 3 weeks after we brought the ring. So kids, that’s how I ended up married..a visit to a Habib warehouse sale, no proposal nor firework or anything like that.

I’ve already decided since earlier on that I don’t want an engagement ceremony and  just want it to be a chill merisik event. The parents meet up, her mom give the ring and the end. Obviously, it didn’t turn out the way I wanted. Hubster’s mom felt it’s not proper to just come to my house with just a ring. She decided to make hantarans so obviously my family have to balas the hantarans too so both famlies said might as well make it an engagement. I was panic and a bit mad to be honest. I don’t mind an engagement ceremony but I felt that if I need to have one it have to be a proper one.

We just decided to hold it in putrajaya so that it’s easier for hubster’s family to come. Now, I live with my aunty in a small apartment in putrajaya so no matter how, the amount of guests that my parents invite and hubster’s family rombongan will not fit in that house. To solve that, we rented a homestay near my aunt’s place for a night which hubster paid for. Then, I have to find caterer, a proper dress and things for hantarans so panic button ON. Thankfully, my family solved all that for me. The hantaran deco was done by one of my aunt. There were only 7 trays and we just decided to put sweets on the trays. My mom found chocolates and cookies while I ordered a brownies and cute cupcakes. There was the usual tepak sireh and some buah pala. What I received from the other side is mostly similar. The only non-food item on the tray is a telekung which I wore to my umrah trip 2 months after that. The catering was settled by my aunt and sponsored by my dad which makes me felt guilty because he have to fork out money for this. There were near to 100 guests on that day, all consist of my relatives. So not the simple merisik ceremony I wanted. I don’t want to get a proper makeup artist and photographer for this event because I don’t feel like forking out money for an event that I don’t even want to have in the first place. I thought that I could just hentam view youtube videos and make myself up with my minimal skill and equipments. Puteri saved me in the end. She offered to don the makeup for me. I am ever so thankful to her for spending time viewing youtube video tutorials, buying makeup equipment for me in the midst of her moving house period and being forced to work under pressure hehehe. I asked fatin to take photos of the event for me. Huda came all the way from Penang to help out with everything. Now, she’s one of my friends who don’t actually have that much time even for herself with the crazy doctor’s schedule so I felt touched honestly.  She brought the veil she wore in her engagement, helped adding up deco for the hantaran and even cleaned up the house after the event. So, all my best friends ended up forced to have a role in the event hahaha. I brought 2 readymade outfits for the wedding. Bought two because my mom was not satisfied with the first one.

The day came and the event scheduled to start at 11am. I woke up early to help to set up the house. Puteri came at 10am which actually still give me enough time to get ready if not because of hubster’s family who came at 10.15am. If there’s one thing I don’t understand, it’s the time management issue of hubster’s family. Yes, not being late is good but being too early really upset one’s program too. I remembered puteri  pressured by my aunties to don the makeup faster and I felt sorry to her for that. Then the discussion  last for only 5 minutes I think because there’s no intro or anything from the other side so I have to jump into my baju tunang after makeup and I remembered at one time, I have 5 pair of hands on each part of me to help me put on my baju and tudung. Total chaos seriously but somehow that’s one of the moments that I remembered clearly until now. Then the normal sarung cincin by hubster’s mom and I was engaged. End.

opah

This whole week have been a whirlwind of things for me. My grandma was admitted in hospital few days ago and I've been going back and forth hospital and home since.My grandma is already in her late 80s and in the past 10 years she had stroke so her senses was declining bit by bit.To be honest,anything that had and will happen from now is something that I'd have been prepared for cause her health had been quite the worst this year.But how are you supposed to be prepared for the event in case of death of someone that's been living with you your whole life?My grandma had took care and live with me from penang to putrajaya since i was a baby up till now.She stayed up at nights when i was sick even at the time she had stroke. I remembered that there's one time I told her while feeding her that I felt like eating lepat pisang and next thing I know she's crawling to the kitchen (cause she can't walk after her stroke attack) to make me some. Honestly i had nightmares that she's gone a few times since start of this year and i would wake up to check that she's still breathing.Only Allah knows how happy i felt seeing her breathing.When she got admitted to hospital last Monday doctor already told us that it'll get worse from now and to inform all family members.In short that's what doctors told you when there's no hope. I want to cry so much at that time and even now i felt like crying but the thing about woman in my family is they are calm,strong and do not cry or at least they don't cry in front of others so i felt like I would appear really weak if i cry now when everyone else is calm. I prayed so hard to God that there'll be some miracle and my opah will be back to her old state. Yes,she's bedridden and cause she slur so i don't understand her when i speak to her but at least she's breathing in front of me. But i do realize how selfish i am. My grandma is in so much pain and she told us that it's about time she meet her creator. Today the doctor told us that her liver is failing and her blood pressure is and will slowly drop so i know that however heartbreaking it is,it's time to be prepared. I just pray that Allah give me whatever strength to be calm in case of anything. End.

Dream high

It seems like the only things that I can update on this blog are summaries of my favorite shows but honestly sometimes watching some shows made me learn a lot more .
So this time I'm gonna write about this Korean musical drama I just finish watching "Dream High".

***********************Long rant on drama below**********************************

At first when I watch this drama I felt like it's a copy of "Glee" but it's not really similar.Some said this drama is inspired by movie "Fame" but as I've never watch "Fame" before so I can't comment on that.This drama starts of with a scene from Grammy award in 2018 where this singer named 'K' is the first Korean singer to receive the Grammy award but we never get to see the face of 'K' only that this person is wearing a 'K' pendant, so throughout this drama, we will have to guess who 'K' is.

Then we were took back to present day which is the audition day for Kirin Art High School enrollment.This school is actually a high school that trained students in singing and dancing with goal to debut as idol singers.This story centers around 6 kids but out of this 6 kids, only 3 made it through the audition while other 3 were recommended by the school's president who then leave the school.Because of the bad blood between the school's president and the school's director, these 3 kids were assigned to the "loser class" by a teacher who was about to be fired by the director.This story basically revolve around how these 6 kids develop their characters, facing so many obstacles throughout the drama to reach their goal in the end.What I like about this drama is that each of these 6 kids and the teacher has so many flaws and sad past but each of them graduated from their flaws.Throughout each episodes, we will have no idea who 'K' is because the 'K' pendant was passed around to each of the kids when they were facing something hard. I must say even though at first I found myself hating some characters at the start but as each episode goes by, I found myself rooting for all 6 kids to be 'K'.
This drama has so many different elements.It is really heartwarming and touching especially seeing the teacher's sacrifices in helping each of them to discover their potentials. It is really funny too with all the metaphors on k-pop though I'm not sure if people who don't really follow k-pop will really get the jokes. I am quite a follower of k-pop in the sense that I watch most variety shows, dramas and know most bands,singers and actors in korea, even the rookie ones so that's part of the reason that I found this drama so entertaining.The actors in this drama are from popular idol groups in real life and the songs they cover in this drama are familiar to me so that's a bonus cause it's relatable.The love stories are really sweet and cute too but most of all the freshness and excitement of starting something new make it a great premise and it even made me feel like going back to high school, when all dreams were possible.

Honestly, the reason I abandoned this blog for so long is not because I don't have time but because I realized that through time I've become a really dark person inside.I stop believing that I can do anything and I felt so lost.I don't seem to be moving forward or even know what to do.People kept on asking me to change something if I don't like it but how?I don't know how to or even what to change.Even if I know how, I don't have enough confidence to do it.When I saw my family and friends achieving something, I was genuinely happy for them but as human I can't help being jealous.I kept on asking why was it that I work as hard or even 2 times harder than these people but these people get to achieve something that I want while I'm still here with nothing.Why was it that I always have to be the person that have to go through things the hard way.It's like if we were to go on a journey from A to Z ,I have to crawl and be lost along the way while everybody else found a shortcut and even have a car to take them Z.All these thoughts made me hate myself even more.There was a line in the drama "not being able to congratulate a friend on her success is living in a hell of your own making" which is so true.I'm in a hell of my own making.

I think this is too long of a rant already but anyhow this is a good drama to watch.I'll finish off with this quote from the drama which somehow gave me some hope

“Your drama has a long way to go before it’s over. So don’t worry about taking things slowly. Compared to those who walk fast,the ones that walk slow, are able to see more things much clearer. If you ask who has the greater potential,I believe the person that walks slower will be the more enriched person.”