Dilemma Solved: Colour Theme

I'm a bit neurotic when it comes to colours because I just love 'em! And guess what? I think I've finally found my color palette!

(I made this!)

Found this really cool website: Colour Lovers , where you can create your own colour palette and patterns without the use of dinasour-aged programmes. It's so easy and there are also a bunch of other colour palettes there for inspiration.

And I made the colour palette based on this inspiration board made by Erin Walsh @ Style Circle.

I just love her style and ideas because she likes to use bright contrasting colours and incorporate fun little details into her wedding. You can check out her wedding pictures in My Muse sidebar.


Other inspiration that I used for my colour palette:

pictures from: Style Circle

I'm hoping to make my inspiration board based on these pictures soon!!

1st Time a Bride's Maid

So last Wednesday night, I got a phone call from one of my good friend asking me to be her pengapit (aka maid's of honor) for her 'Majlis Bertandang' on Saturday.  And since I got nothing better to do that weekend, I signed myself up for it. It'd be great to spend some time with her, and I also took it as a learning experience for my own coming wedding.

On Thursday night, I met up with her husband bringing along ALL of my baju kurung for him to decide which one would be suitable for me to wear for the reception.

On Friday night, met up with the bride and we went around doing some last minute chores up till 3am.

On Saturday morning, the bride woke me up bright and early at 7am, and we went another round doing some more chores before heading to the hall in Putrajaya around 9am. Even then, we just had SOO many things to do!! I was running around outside the hall like a headless chicken doing stuff for the bride, while she runs around like a headless chicken inside the hall. Patience were severely tested, tempers almost came to blows, a lot of breathing exercise required and it was almost 12pm when I had to physically dragged both the bride and groom to the VIP room to get ready.

Thankfully at this juncture, the Mak Andam finally came to man-handle the bride long enough to get her dressed, maked-up and ready for the general public. Me and the Best Man had to wait to make sure that the bride and groom were ready before we changed into our attires. Even then, I was doing some last minute slide show for the bride and had to run around to coordinate the songs and the timing with the technician.

1.30pm came around and we finally settled ourselves into line-ups for the grand entrance. We had originally planned to let the bride's 3meters long veil to trail behind her in it's full length. But it was too long and too heavy for it to flow evenly, and it kept snagging along the fabrics of the red carpet. So I had to resort to carrying the veil. And thankfully I was only the pengapit! Why? Because I have horrible fear of public attention, and even just standing behind the bride makes me nervous! But once we were on stage, I kept most of my attention to the bride so that I wouldn't be conscious of the crowd. I have yet to decide how I am going to handle all of the attention once when I'll be the bride!

Despite all of the 'running-round-like-headless-chickens' and last minute hiccups in the preparations, the ceremony itself went by very smoothly - of which I am soo happy for the bride and groom and their families. The Best Man (BM) and I accompanied the Bride and Groom up till the cake-cutting ceremony. Beyond this, we let the B&G enjoy the spotlight and pretty much fade into the crowd. But both of us were so knackered! After meeting up with some mutual friends that came to the reception, both of us basically collapsed and fell to sleep in the VIP room.

And as for the rest of the day... well... let's just say it was a very very long day. Somehow, at the end of the day, there wasn't many people left to help out and clean-up the place. So in the end, it was a party of 5 - me, the best man, the bride, the groom and his brother - we all cleaned up the place, haul most of the stuff to the front entrance and into the van. I felt bad that both B&G had to carry around their own stuff while still in their wedding attires! But have to give salute to both of them for being such a sport about it. It definitely made-up for some excellent 'Trash the Dress' photoshoot!

We ended the day with tons of photoshoots and video-making. Well... okay... more like B&G did those. Me and BM had to resort to become merely props. But it was still fun nonetheless! At one point, while B&G went outdoor photoshooting, me and BM went and crash the wedding held in the ballroom upstairs! Why? Because it was late and we were hungry! And you know what? We never got caught! And it was a formal sit-down dinner! And we even 'mingled'.

(To the bride and groom of said wedding, sorry for crashing and thanks for the dinner! We were the couple in brown.)

All in all, it was a very long, tiring yet eventful day. Thanks FirAsh for letting me be a part of your big day. It's over now and enjoy your married life together! (Finally!!)

The Bride & Groom: Fira & Asyraf

(Was too busy to take any pictures, so I borrowed this from WLT)

Dilemma: Colour Theme

Have I mentioned that I've a wedding planner in the lovely Kak Wanie of Kerja Kahwin? Well... now I have! (Wave to Kak Wanie and family everyone!) If you've been following my dooms and glooms and drama since this whole blog started, then you'd be aware that I was desperate to find a wedding planner to help me out in organizing the wedding. In fact, I'm sure some of you with the Wee-Logs would have received my email politely asking for some tips and help and recommendations on potential wedding planners. I have to say a bunch of thanks to those who replied. You know who you are. *wink*wink*

Well... anyway... I must say that I was more than relieved in finding KK and the lovely team behind the website, and despite being very busy during this hectic wedding season, Kak Wanie has been more than helpful and gracious to meet-up. And it was great having someone to talk too about this, and in our last meeting, Kak Wanie has posed me a question:

What sort of concept am I looking for the wedding?

And you know what? I was stumped. I mean... I have some words... ideas... ambiance all stuck in my head... but it was very difficult for me to translate them into pretty pictures. I couldn't even decide the colour theme! So I spent many a nights staying up... researching... looking for pictures... and it was very difficult for me to find anything resembling the sort of wedding I had envisioned. So I went back and start with the basic:

COLOUR THEME

I like BLUE and anything that goes with it. But the thing is, I also like RED for the sheer warmth and brightness that it evokes. And yeah... sure... you can get quite a nice wedding with both colours:

But.... I think I want something more... Colourful. Bright. Cheery.

So you want to know what I did? I stayed up all night and played around with some ancient programmes and came up with my very own colour palletes!!

The colours are not so great, but I still had fun playing around with it. So which one do you like? I personally am torn between #1 and #4. And the thing is, I went back to look up other wedding inspiration pictures and I found some other colour schemes that I like! Camne ni?!

And do you wanna know what I did next? Making my own wedding story board!

.... which I will share in my next post. Dah penat dah tulis entry ni.

Taking a Break

I'm contributing to the nation's current standing statistic that a Malaysian reads an average 2 books per year. So, last Sunday, in the hopes of escaping textbooks and mock exam papers, I went to Kinokuniya and splurged on a few books:

I'm not a romantic but I'm such a huge fan of Jane Austen. Besides Pride & Prejudice, Persuasion is my next favourite and I just found out that there's a re-telling of the story from the male protagonist's point-of-view written by Amanda Grange. So I googled and found Captain Wentworth's Diary, and my luck... Kinokuniya has stock! At this point in time, I've already finished reading the book and it's such a refreshing time spent reading it from the hero's POV. Of course, nothing can beat Jane Austen... so I'm planning to re-read Persuasion again after this.

Oh... no worries. I've still got a lot of wedding talks after this. Just need a bit of a break from all those researching and planning...

Ideas for Guesbook

I'm taking a small break from my books for awhile to share this idea for my guest book area. I suppose having a guest book section is a new 'in' thing for malay weddings nowadays - something that we have yet again incorporated from western themed weddings. I think it's a great idea. At least the guests don't have to buy wedding cards anymore. ;)

A few things that I like:

Photobooth

A DIY Wedding Photobooth courtesy of GWS

IKEA has tons of cute and quirky fabrics to use as backdrop to match your wedding theme.

Or... any textile stores can do. All you need is a frame, a mesh wire, a long fabric to hand and ta-daa!

Polaroid

I've always love the old-skool theme of a polaroid photo, and I think it's just so much fun to have around at an event because it brings out the spontaneity and fun from other people.

Plus, polaroid cameras are so much more affordable nowadays... you can get one for less than RM500.

So... combine both elements together and what do you get?

Picture courtesy from StyleMePretty

... A DIY Polaroid Guestbook!

Doesn't this looks so much fun?

Venue Secured!

Ta-da! Finally! After tons of coaxing, brainwashing, bickering, blackmailing, and a box of Panadol later... the Parents and I (well.. okay, more like just the Parents)... finally decided on the venue! Yay! Towards the end there, we were considering the following places:

• Royale Chulan Hotel  > Daddy's preference
• Kelab Golf Perkhidmatan Awam (KGPA) > Mum and my preference
• Felda Villa > Mummy's preference

And to be honest, after considering costs and venue and location (etc) it was preferable that we make Felda Villa as our venue of choice. But Mummy called them yesterday and apparently they're fully-booked for every weekend from now to 6 months - 1 year ahead (!!).

Ok. I know Felda Perdana and Felda Merak Kayangan are popular choices (rumour has it that the waiting list is more than 1 year) and I know some brides would even postponed their wedding dates just to secure these venues... but never expected the same to apply for Felda Villa though. But I can't be surprise. Looking at their wedding package, it's affordable, provide good services and central location right in the heartland of KL. Am I dissappointed? Mmm... not really. I'm dissappointed that I won't get to eat D'Saji's food (cuz it's good!)... but I've been trying to brainwash Daddy on my choice of venue for weeks now! But he still insisted on Royale Chulan! (Something about VIP... )

But at least now I can sit down and smirk happy that we'll be doing our wedding at....

KGPA!!

Wehehehe... syiok nye... feel like rubbing my hands in glee and laugh my evil Disney-laugh just for effects. (^___^)v

Inspiration for my KGPA Wedding?

Black, white & red by NSJ Event

Tiffany By Shaja

December Checklist

I feel bad for not blogging for awhile. Wedding plans was put on the back burner so that I could concentrate on my studies for now as exams are around the corner. But last Monday, my parents and I went to check a few hotels in KL for wedding venues. My dad was keen on The Royale Chulan when he found out that they have a nice covered courtyard (which I bet would be really really beautiful if it's fully decorated), but the price is a bit beyond our budget so we have to reconsider our other options.

Other than snippets of wedding research here and there, I've made up a list of things that needs to be done this month:

1. Secure a venue ... FAST!!
2. Meet-up with WP
3. Send 'kain' for tailoring.
   (I heard you actually need 5 months for this. Yikes!)
4. Do HIV test (while I'm still free)
5. Pick up Sijil Kursus Kahwin (dah berabu duduk dlm laci LPPKN)
6. Get a head-start on the paperworks (future hubby have already done his. haih...)
7. Start ordering wedding invitation cards
8. To finalise decorations & theme for wedding (nikah & reception) with WP
9. To decide on make-up artist, photographer & bridal boutique for reception dress.

Huh. That was short. I'm sure my WP had sent me a full list for me to consider, but I think I'll have a better idea of things that I need to do once I meet-up with her (can't wait!).

Oh! And I think I've decided on the theme for my solemnization! Haven't really shared this with anyone else, but it's no secret that I'm in love with the colour blue. So while I want my reception to be colourful  and cheerful, I've decided on simple understated elegance and romanticism for the 'nikah' ceremony.

(Plus, happens to be that my french lace for baju nikah is a shade of baby blue.)

It was this particular storyboard that had inspired me:

Theme: Romantic Blue

And I was thinking of incorporating 'A Thousand Origami Crane' into the ceremony as well, but I'm not sure how well received the idea of integrating a Japanese legend into Malay custom would be like. Also, the task of actually folding 1-0-0-0 paper cranes would just be time-consuming! (I tried folding one for a trial test and it took me almost 30 minutes! so... 30min x 1000 =30,000 min = 500hrs = 20.8days) But I still think it'd be a nice 'touch' to the ceremony, and by using recycled paper, I'd be subtly stamping my stand on 'Going Green!'. Well... it's just an idea though...