I'm back! It's been slightly more than a month now and since things have finally began to settle down, just thought I'd pen down a few thoughts about the wedding.
Before: Had an amazing one week with F when he came. Although it was chop-chop do this and that since we had last minute things to do for the wedding, we were pretty efficient with things. The biggest hurdle was the marriage registration statutory declaration and thank God everything went smoothly there. Next came our wedding course which was really a good thing because we not only learned about the roles of husband/wife in Islam, but also got our personality typed by the psychologist who then gave us an insight to each other's characters and where we had strengths being together and where we have to be mindful/compromise when the need arises. Expensive course since it was intensive and private, but definitely worth it. We went off beaming after that :). We had a very well-deserved break in JB and I'm glad we did that cos the week of running errands had been very hectic.
The wedding:F & PIL came over to our house the night before the wedding for Henna Nite and thankfully again everything went smoothly (almost). I must say I wasn't planning for a big occasion but mum invited my uncle and auntie's families so in the end dad even catered food for 30 people. The wedding morning I was really excited, started doing my room up as I'd planned. Point to note, won't do everything myself next time..tiring! Not that there'll be a next time...maybe next time there's another party..haha. Haha. Even Uncle Aziz who came early to help us with odds and ends was saying I should've called my bridesmaids over earlier to help out. But I didn't wanna trouble u girls since you were helping me out so much already. Things started getting livelier around 2 when Yatee (make-up) artist started doing her stuff, people started coming, etc. They asked me if I was nervous, I was like nah...just excited heh.
About the actual thing, everything happened pretty fast (except my driver's 10km/h drive to the mosque (gasp!)...and 30km/h subsequent drives to the CC etc...he was worried about ruining prof's car lol). The moment we went into the mosque, someone was like..come up come up, kadi (solemniser) is ready. Within minutes the process started. He didn't even ask me if I consented to the wedding before asking me to sign...maybe he knew how eager we were lol (did I mention he conducted our marriage prep course...and was of course impressed by us..hahaha...that was a nice coincidence and a great honour bcos he is such a sweet and knowledgable guy...very likeable). Then it was Farooq's turn to say his statement that he accepts the nikah (marriage)... At that moment i was like..wow, finally, and not surprisingly I got a lil emo. Jam noticed and Yatee came to my rescue with a tissue lol.
The reception was the fun part of course. I felt like a princess when Uncle Aziz came to open the car door for me. When I stepped out, Uncle Latiff was like saying to F, wow now u really have a Hyderabadi wife cos of the outfit I was wearing lol. Walking in the 4kg sharara was bloody tough, and I was clinging on to F really tightly. I might've stepped on the skirt a few times, but luckily I didn't trip (very noticably at least :P). My fave part of weddings is usually the kompang (drums) so when they were ushering me up the stairs, I was like wow, this is my turn heh. Felt really good seeing familiar faces, and faces whom I hadn't seen in awhile. It's a great feeling to know that such friends and family bothered to come to grace the occasion. I was honoured really. Ah and I should mention too that I was very happy and excited when ppl started throwing petals at us...exactly how I imagined it to be...if not more fun heh.
There were of course lots and lots of photos to take, our own and with guests who were like soooo reluctant about coming on stage to take them (initially at least...DJ had to prompt some ppl to come up). F was complaining about the funny positions Bro Ismail made us do, but I think we look good in the final product heh.
The highlight to me (then again everything was a highlight to me lol) was the 2nd march in, where I was finally wearing my gorgeous purple princess gown. Tho it didn't turn out exactly how I wanted it to be, it was brilliantly dazzling nevertheless. Seeing the smiling faces and hearing the praises about how good we looked really made my day (or evening), and seeing the bubbles plus petals effect completed my perfect idea of a march in. Again, both of us were grinning big time as we marched down the isle. I should add my ex-colleague's description of my outfits here, which sounds really sweet (I love the last line...nice way of describing things):
"...
So of course it brought me great happiness to see her wedding pulled off so successfully without a glitch. And she was so gorgeous, her gowns each bringing out a different feel to her grand entrances. From sweet and demure, to breath-takingly stunning, to majestically princessy."
Everyone was so excited about the purple dress that I had to postpone the cake-cutting a little till we finished taking photos with them. The cake was as gorgeous as I imagined it to be too, and the swarovski-studded toppers added the perfect touch of glamour to it (unfortunately my mum didn't save them after cutting the cake for the guests...gah).
My overall feelings: Alhamdulillah it was a pretty successful event. There was a minor glitch which I didn't even know about till after the wedding, which I'm grateful to those concerned for holding it back from me as I'd requested so that I could enjoy the moment. Though some plans were changed or didn't turn out as I had planned (like my darling parents didn't wear the outfits I had made for them..bleah; my bridesmaids didn't turn up in baby blue/lilac..small matter since they were such dolls heh; F didn't get to sit on the pretty mat for the nikah cos they were so chop chop about starting it; the unexpected silat performance which my uncle thought I wanted...hope the guy wasn't too unprepared for that impromptu request; the dais which was more elaborate than I wanted it to be...stubborn decor person lol but anyway the deco received lots of compliments; the favours were given out by hand even tho I didn't wanna trouble anyone with that tedious job; our post-march in song (Heaven) had a glitch...later found out there were some problems with the sound system at first) - it didn't really matter cos I'm not a bridezilla and at the end of the day, like F said, what was important was that we got married. What was also important was that I was blessed that so many of my dear friends, especially all my bridesmaids [
Hello Panda girls: you rawk!, Is & GH: I know I can really count on u!, CY & Ruth: loved the bubbles and petals!!, and of course my darling sister who altho was hardly present pre-wedding, really stood by me on that day] and everyone else who helped us one way or another. Thanks so much to Auntie for your help wayyyyyy before the wedding...I couldn't have done it without u! Some pleasant surprises came such as when Prof Chia lent me his Volvo AND paid for the driver...making my ideal bridal car dream come true at a fraction of the price albeit at the last minute when I was about to settle for something else after my hopes were dashed so many times (of course I have "thick-skinned" GH to thank for that heh), Uncle Aziz (whom I don't think I've had much interaction with before this) offered us lots of help (especially with his vehicles) just one week before the wedding, which turned out to be a great great help. And of course, most importantly, thank you Allah for blessing the day, and blessing me with such a loving, understanding and responsible husband.
As if all that weren't great enough, another bonus came when we checked into Amara Sanctuary @ Sentosa at the end of the day. We had booked a basic room but were pleasantly surprised when they upgraded us to a Courtyard Suite (only realised it when they gave us a form to sign about "conditions on staying in a suite/villa lol). The room had my favourite poster bed with the mosquito net thingy, and after some exploration, F found a semi-open air private jacuzzi in a little garden at the back of our room. Ahhhh, talk about the perfect setting to our perfect start ;). Worth every penny. Even our transport to the room was a bridal buggie, complete with floral decorations heh.
I shall relish in these moments before I think about what to write about our next great moments - our honeymoon. =)
