Our Official Dais (Pelamin) : By Zaifie Zainal

I've been searching all possible website and Facebook page for a dais which suit us. I want something simple, elegant, with flower, not too pink and definitely no panel. I was finally come to Zaifie Zainal page, i was immediately fall in love with her dais. I show it to Nico and surprisingly he love it too. 

So we immediately make an appointment with kak Zai and arraged everything. I don't even bother to ask her if i can see other dais design since im so in love with this one. When im in love with something, i definitely didnt want anything else lol. 

On our wedding day, kak Zai make an arrangement with Duchess Place to set up our dais. We weren't there when they put it on. After they finished and we are on our way to Duchess, kak Zai hubby call and told me everything done and we just need to turn on the light. 

My heart melt the moment we walk in, the dais was so beautiful to my opinion and compliment Duchess dining hall perfectly. 

Zaifie Zainal is highly recommended by us if you looking for Dais and dress, or better get the entire package from her. Kak Zai, if you read this, thanks for making my wedding day so beautiful. 

Our Official Venue : Duchess Place Jalan Ampang

Duchess Place has been on tv for so many times which usually featured a wedding of celebrities. Me and Nico agreed to have a small wedding which is only attended by close families and friends which make Duchess Place is the perfect location. Wedding in France usually will only have around 100 guest while malay wedding which usually done at home attended by 1000 people. 

I always wanted a small wedding, there's no point inviting people that we didn't know or didn't like to our wedding. To see all the familiar faces and people that we love during the wedding is the ultimate joy. 

Since i have big extended family, which included cousins up to 3rd degree and 8 pairs of uncles and aunties from both sides of my parents, not to mention my parents cousins, uncles and aunties, our small wedding in the end accommodate 360 guest which 300 guest come from my side and only 60 guest from Nico. 

It was a right choice when we choose Duchess Place since they not only provided venue but also catering, dais, main table decoration and cake to make our arrangement easier. However, we only take venue and catering package from them because i decided to have my own cake design and im in love with dais from zaifie zainal.

 (Our entrance to dais)

 (Guest Tables)

 

 (Main Table)

With all these beautiful set up, i couldn't ask anymore better than this. We are so satisfied and got nothing to complaint during our big day. Its really a night to remember :)

Here comes the bride, all DRESS in white

Initially, i planned to have wedding gown like Kate Middleton have on her wedding day. Its beautiful but at the same time decent. Since our guest will be from all stage of ages and religion, my mom advised me to wear something decent. She said that my dad relatives are religious. :D

(I do want something like this)

Nico doesn't want to wear traditional clothing for our reception since we going to wear one during our solemnization. I didn't have any problem with that because which women didn't want to wear white gown on her wedding day isnt it? 

We only have one month left to get our dress and suit reserved for us. So we went to Jalan Loke Yew where we can find a lot of bridal gallery there. We went to few store and i ask immediately if they have something like Kate Middleton and they all say no or show me similar design but look out dated. 

We finally went to check at Ivory Romance since they have a lot of choices compared to few shops we saw before. I read a lot of bad review regarding Ivory Romance but finally decided to give it a try.

We so happy to found out that they have varies suits for Nico to try. Most of the shops only have normal black suits which even Nico have it. We want something different for him to wear on our wedding day.

My idea for wedding dress is just something simple. I prefer a lot of details on my dress so i dont' have to put so much accessories on me. So, i go try one gown after another and i think i tried around 20 different gown before i finally met the one.

It was a wedding gown which they put on a display on a mannequin which attract me. Before i try it on, the sales person already told me that it will cost me RM1800 for renting. I told myself there's nothing wrong to give it a try since i don't even know if i like it or not.

When i put it on, i knew that it is the one. The only problem is, its not as decent as i initially plan to get. So i called my mom and she said, "You only marry once, if you cant find something decent then just choose what you like. Who cares about what people say as long you are happy". I was so happy to hear that from my mom and we immediately search something for Nico. Thank god there's  a white suit that we both like and the color matched my gown perfectly.

I never felt like a princess before but i definitely did on my wedding day. Never feel so beautiful, what do you think? :D

Our Official Henna Night

I was so excited to have my henna night. I grew up in a village where wedding was a big celebration and enjoyed by everybody for 3 days and night. It was long-long time ago of course but i still want to carry few of it tradition for my own wedding. Since i also married to foreigner, i think it will be a nice experienced for both of us and for him to learn about our culture.

So on 19th September 2013, i scheduled to have my henna night or malam berinai around 9pm. My mom was so excited inviting her friends and family since this is the only time where we will have party at home since our wedding reception will be held some where else.

 (supposed to be our wedding cake but we have it for henna night)

(Briyani, sticky rice, pulut kuning and lot more good food)

(with my uncle, aunt and cousins)

I booked my henna from Norish Keberg,  https://www.facebook.com/noor.collection?fref=ts. She arrived around 9pm with 2 assistant and was shocked to see that my small home full with people. I was then been seated and she told me, that everything will be done from putting the henna and washing it in an hour. I was so relieves to hear that since i was thinking that i have to go through traditional way which took the whole night.  

(Excited crowd...and me:) 

  

(Final look)

I do think i make the right choice in choosing this design. I tried to avoid looking too crowded but at the same time want to look as mush as a bride. I just hope that these henna can last a bit longer but since it fast to put it on so its only last for a week. Traditional way will last for a month and i really love having henna on my hands and feet. 

Henna for Nico since its was a simple one was done by my cousins. It was also requested by them so they can bullied him and to let him feel welcome to the family. We did have fun that night even thought he have to rush to meet his friends for his bachelor party afterwards. 

 (It seems easy but its not..lol)

(He looked awkward isnt it)

 (Our henna night)

(2 days before the wedding)

Our Official Wedding Invitation Card

My idea of our wedding invitation card is just something simple, need, tidy but still look classy. I never like my card to look typical malay and since we also going into mix marriage we decide to do it mat salleh way with faint touch of malay style in it. Our first problem was when we need to choose what language for the cards. We going to have french, malaysian, singaporean, german and thai guest. We actually want to print it in english but some of my guest and nico guest which is our close relatives wont understand it. Finally we choose to print 50 pieces in french and 150 pieces in malay. For english speaking guest we might just give them a translation in order for them to understand. Most important is they understand when and where the reception going to be held. 

We then went to bridal fair at Wangsa Walk one weekend and we found our card vendor. Their display of card is quite impressive, wasn't typical and reasonable price. The staff told me that if i like any design on internet, i can just show it to them and they can do it for us. So my search for design start and finally i found this. 

(we want this design, embossed and similar font)

I showed it to Nico and he also like it and agreed that we going for this design. We then go all the way to pudu to discuss with their designer. I told them i want exactly like this with 2 cards tie together with ribbons, one for invitation and another one for reservation. She said she can do it and im so happy. When we discuss i told her that i want that embroidery design to be embossed and our name to be printed with gold color hot stamp. She said ok and spend her time texting and calling her boss because she apparently didn't know on the pricing. Design will be the same as the white card above and size and style to be as the one below. 

 (size same as this, big card for invitation and small card for reservation)

She then gave me her price which is RM2 for both card and additional charge for ribbons, which is super cheap. So Nico said since its going to be too simple why don't we do pocket for the card. What we mean by pocket is, you have some kind of envelope which look like file folder where you can put your card inside.  So she check again and finalize the price and it was RM3.80 for all. After 2 hours discussion we then come to our final summary, she repeat again and explain to us what we want in order to get better understanding and can proceed with design.

This is when we find out that our cards is actually not embossed and only normal background printing (no wonder so cheap). Pocket will be embossed and hot stamp, but invitation card will be only background print and hot stamp. I got so upset and make a noise right there and then. I really don't understand why she couldn't understand what i want when i already gave her sample of both picture. Since we already agreed to do the pocket we end up just do background printing in order not to have extra cost (Nico really want that pocket). I told her if she explain properly, we wont choose the pocket and can do embossed on the card. To rub salt to my wound she told us that they required 50% to start with design which only will be ready after one week and we have to pay extra RM30 if we want sample. So i go home with unhappy face and terrible mood. 

After one week we get our 1st view of our card to be and as expected its look like rubbish. she goes from revision 1 to 7 and we have to corrected her all the time. Its really make me angry because she didn't bother to check her spelling, didn't take initiative to make it look nice and all the mistake is minor which shouldn't happen at the first place. 

(Version 1, judge it yourself)

In all our emails, we told her that she missing back view for the reservation card which is suppose to be our address as we intend to make it like postcard. Apparently she didn't understand but didn't call us to clarify until we reach to version 7. 

Yesterday we go and collect our card and again i get very angry. Nico card are perfect but mine which is in malay are not printed in the same font size. Do i really have to go until the stage that i told them what size for the font and she can't even think to make it same? I get really disappointed and being a perfectionist i'm not fond with this kind of stupidity. But there's nothing i can do now and have to settle with other people low standard our work.  I am highly NOT recommend them to any of you.

 (Pocket Cover)

 (Malay Version)

 (RSVP)

 (Map & Address)

 (French Version)

Our Official Pre-Wedding Picture

We plan to DIY our pre-wedding picture since we going for vacation in France and Italy. Photographer in Europe are very expensive and the cheapest we can get is around RM400 or EU100 for an hour. My friend suggest that we take a look at Groupon France, in case we might find something cheap since Groupon Malaysia wasn't so bad. We also plan to print out this pre-wedding picture as a display at reception area later. I bought cheap voucher from Groupon malaysia before for 12 pieces of poster picture. 

So i have a look and alhamdulillah i found one photographer. Nico immediately check with him on a available date, price and location. The price was EU40 per pax so we paid EU80 to him to have 2 hours outdoor shoot. For studio shooting the price including costumes and make up but for outdoor he wont provide anything. Since we already in Paris, there's no point to do it in the studio since we also can do it here in KL.

We told him that we are ok to bring our own costumes and i can do my own make up since i so want to do it in Paris. We are allowed to choose 2 location and we decided to choose Eiffel Tower and Louvre. Initially, we booked him on 7th of May but then he couldn't make it so we have to change it to 30th April before our road trip to Italy.

It was one cold and windy spring afternoon. The weather wasn't so good and i was so scared that its going to be raining knowing unpredictable weather in France. We start at Eiffel Tower and we try to showed our differences in our picture by wearing clothes that really represent our country. So i dress up in my bright orange kebaya while nico in strips shirt and a hat. I should have ask him to hold baguette isnt it? :)

Our photographer is a french man who just move to Paris from south. Unfortunately he is more experienced with portrait photography and pre-wedding picture is still something new to him. Its really frustrating since we didn't know how to pose and he didn't advise neither.

I wasn't so happy with the result but there's nothing we can do. At least its still in Paris and not everybody get this opportunity. Well, better luck next time. So this is few of our pre-wedding picture and unedited.