the engagement

I'm now back in good ol' coventry after just last week being at home. how one week whizzed by..

alhamdulillah the engagement ceremony went perfectly. i was so happy at how things turned out :)

we chose Khareyan Events to do the canopy, hantaran and tempat sarung cincin. I stumbled across their site whilst browsing on the net. Then saw their feature in ratu sehari. we both loved their fresh flowers concept which are simple yet elegant. We figured it would be easier to use the same people to do most of the stuff especially when we're not there to organise it all. 

Giant gave a few instructions on what kind of tempat sarung cincin he wanted and they said they could do it. It was a simple one with chiffon backdrop and three candle stands with fresh purple roses. Initially we wanted to use a small bantal to sit on the floor but my aunt had the perfect white chair so we used tht instead. Good thing we used the chair coz i struggled to get up and down in my outfit! what with my 'miraclesuit' (aka girdle hehe). The tempat sarung cincin was so nice that i didn't want to leave. it was also a bit mahal so might as well utilise it as much as possible right? i ended up there for the next couple of hours where people came up and took pictures. haha i loved being the centre of attention. 

The khemah were also so nice and it matched my daddy's garden! shame that the ceremony was during the day coz it would have looked superb with night lighting. daddy was so proud when ppl commented that the garden was so nice. the tables for giant's family had candle stands and flowers as the centre piece as well.

Hantaran for giant was simpler as it was for the guys. They used spices and pinang as decorations. Whilst for me they used orchids and roses and were so beautiful. The hantarans were suppose to be 11 from me and 9 from giant. But Kimi's side of the family had extra hantaran and they ended up giving me 18 gifts! i kept telling him we only had the 11 and no extras and takde apa nak balas, cam segan gak la. but he was like ' no it's fine coz ni sedara mara yg kasi' etc. his side of the family gave us a few kuih muih. i love the cupcakes and also the agar2. last time masa merisik cam terliur je tgk. so this time puas hati la dapat mkn the agar2. 

my outfit that wasn't to my original desire looked really nice when paired with the veil supplied by the make up artist. i reckon i looked pretty nice that day :) i was really happy with the make up artist that i chose. he was slightly cheaper than other quotes i got. on the thursday he came over to the house for a trial make up. i really didn't want to just risk it on the day itself. i found him through Ratu Sehari. He started off doing my make up with really heavy dark smoky eyes and very dark and garang eyebrows. mummy came in and absolutely freaked out. so Freda (nyah make up artist - nama sebenar faris) pon toned everything down. so in the end we finally dpt cop sirim from mummy. he did similar make up on the day but with less blusher and i absolutely loved it. according to mum a few ppl asked her who did the make up and now she's booked freda for the wedding already! hehe

As for the catering, we used mummy's friend. The food was really yummy but i think dad's only complain was that they didn't provide us with small spoons to eat the creme caramel desserts. the sambal udang was so sedap! i had like 10 ekor udang (i only ate at 4pm though). 

I was so excited the whole day, waking up after subuh and started to get my make up done at 9am. then when i was ready i had to stand by upstairs so i was joined by friends who came up to say hi etc. after the discussions were done, my sister, best friends, cousins and aunties went downstairs with all the hantaran to be presented to the male's side. then i was called upon to go downstairs for the sarung cincin. only at this point that i got really nervous! but i think i was more nervous abt faling down the stairs kot hehe..

All in all everything went smoothly but none of this would not be possible without the help of my family (parents and siblings especially). mummy organised everything so well that when we got back there wasn't much to organise anymore. she liased with khareyan, the photographer and sorted out the catering. daddy cleaned the garden, mowed the lawn and even put extra sand on the grass in case it rained to prevent the becak. icky was the official videographer and picked up the cupcakes. jat and ya went out to alamanda the night before to get mineral water supplies, put pourri, air fresher etc. they all also cleaned the house afterwards when me and kimi were already on our flight back here. a few of the aunties helped a bit but my own nucleus family were the backbone that made my engagement so successfull. Thanks shamsudin clan! i laa u :)

many thanks also for everyone who attended the ceremony. your presence were greatly appreciated!

some random stories

~ a few days before the event, around petang2/magrib time we could suddenly smell something unpleasant. almost bangkai like. after searching the rooms we couldn't find anything. at one point i started to think..eh bau2 ni bukan tak elok ke tegur...cuak gak la...it was really weird coz a few hours later the smell was gone completely. the smell turned out to be...

~ due to the extra kipas, air cond blasting and chandelier lights switched on, we nearly lost power during the ceremony. this was because the fuse box already started to melt due to power overload. the melted fuse box was the smell that we've been smelling. luckily jat saw the melted fused box and frantically turned off air conds and outside fans. which meant that the guests had to eat in the scorching hot canopies outside.

~ it was only during the same morning that mummy commented that the veil we had was to dark to go with the outfit. i was like.."laa skarng baru nak ckp.." but luckily freda brought his veil which turned out to be perfect.

~ well i managed to get pictures from 4 cameras (sister's, 2 aunts' and best friend's) and saved them to my external HD. when i got back here for some reason i can't open the HD. so i got no pictures!! luckily thanks to facebook a few pictures have been posted so i tagged myself. i shall post more when i get the pics on friday when my family (minus ya) arrives!

i think this is my favourite pic so far (taken by Dy) damn how i wish those long lashes were actually mine!

so now i am finally kimi's fiance :) i am so happy alhamdulillah...

we've only been together just under a year and we've reached our first milestone. i know kimi will do everything in his power to take care of me and make me happy. no doubt that i am very content at the moment. ppl kept saying that when you're engaged, time ni yg byk dugaan. i got quite scared hearing this but after thinking about it, kimi and i both know that we want to be together and whatever challenges that is put in front of us we will face it and insyaAllah triumph over it and will be together in the end. aminn

Selamat Hari Raya Aidiladha

my very last hari raya at home was 2002 me thinks, so u can imagine how excited i was to be back for raya haji. hearing the takbir early in the morning whilst getting ready for sembahyang raya just brought back so many memories and i was definately feeling nostalgic. i was beyond happy that i got to spend it with the family this morning. surely beats having to go to work and not having a tiny ounce of raya! tadi masuk surau pon cam jakun sebentar...hehe


we had ketupat palas, lemang and some rendang at home after the prayers. raya haji isn't that BIG here in bangi. but mum made sup tulang lembut and her yummy rendang ayam for lunch. i did start making my engagement invitations (handmade tau..tapi takdela cantik sgt pon!- tht's another story..) but after lunch i had a headache and was really sleepy so had a nap. best gila tido time hujan so ended up waking up at 6pm!

card story - well mum wanted to have some card for us to give to the neighbours. neighbours and friends will be invited personally. so daddy and i went to pertama complex yesterday to see if they sell any or could make any. but the problem was the minimum order that they take is 100 and we don't need that many. after going around a few shops i decided to just make them myself. so we went to sogo to buy the materials and i started making them today. the first batch with purple organza ribbon turned out really nice. but i ran out of the ribbon so had to buy some from billion and they only had normal maroon ones. so the maroon ones looked a bit kg.com (read: kampung hehe) but nvm la tunang only right. but all in all it didn't look half bad!

oh yeah when i arrived on saturday, we went to see the tailor. mum has been using the same tailor for years now and she makes all of mummy's baju. the last time i made baju with her was 5 or 6 years ago. so she remembered me as being the sekeping me which is obviously no longer the case la kan. so mum gave her a sample of one of my old baju (from the chubby era) and when i went to the shop at night it was pretty much ready. she made it smaller and she was really shocked to see my current size. tapi cam i didn't really like the fact that she kept goin on and on abt it. come on la jgn la dok ckp ur customer to gemuk! so i was slightly put off by that. also mum said to make the baju a corset and the beaded chiffon kurung on top. but she made it full lining kurung modern. i was very disappointed coz i really wanted the corset stlye coz that would look so much nicer and elegant but i think coz she didn't have my exact measurement it would like risky yada2..but alhamdulillah it still looked nice. i didn't and couldn't kick up a fuss coz mum went into so much effort finding the kain and i really didn't want to seem ungrateful. so it's ok la..giant thinks it looked really nice and sweet and dad prefers full lining coz he tought the corset one would look sexy hehe...

well 5 days to go... :)

yeayyy!! :)

i finally took the plunge and updated the template. u likeee????

it's so easy to customise it all...i didn't realise!!

now how to transfer my sitemeter huh???? 

i better get some sleep but...i know i can't sleep until i get my sitemeter backkkk

3 days til i'm home bound again (albeit only for a week!)

so bloody freaking excited! i've had a stupid grin on my face at every thought of going home and the event coming up.

i've been buying stuff to bring back the past couple of days. been working in the office which made it really handy.

i finally upgraded my phone! 

as i was on 3 network, there weren't that many phones available. i started off with sony c905 which i thought was too chunky so i know i'll get pissed off at the fact of its bulkiness later on. so scrap that.

then went on to c902 which was slimmer but i also considered the iphone. aaa..who doesn't want an iphone these days huh? but i wanted a phone that i could surely use when i'm back home and after reading on the net, it doesn't sound too promising. i'm not sure how/where to unlock an iphone? plus iphone's got a crap camera and doesn't even do videos. 

at the shop i finally narrowed it down between samsung tocco and nokia e71.

tocco's got the touchscreen, pretty good camera, almost like an iphone whilst E71 is like a blackberry with wi-fi connections

i must have stood at the phone stands (i think it's awesome when stores put the actual phones that you could play around with! but i guess that's why with 3 if you don't like the phone you can't change it to a different model!) and played around with the phone for a good half an hour.

after long thoughts and considerations (trust me..i've spent a few weekends reading phone reviews on the net!) i finally settled on this

my subconcious decided for me actually. as i was playing around with the 2 phones, towards the end i went to the E71 and starting touching and pushing the screen then i realised that i was tekan2 on the plastic casing that keeps the phone!

also the screen is bigger than the e71, 5.1 mp camera, nice and sleek design (E71 is too business-ey), it's cool pretty cool widget functions and i've even unblocked it for £12 (i think nokia 3 phones are really hard to unlock and shops charge around £20 per phone!). altho it doesn't have wi-fi...well nak guna internet guna laptop je la kan? the touch screen response is really good. i had doubts abt the phone not having a qwerty keyboard for texting but texting on T9 touch screen on this phone is not too bad! the bigger screen definately is a plus coz when using 3G i don't have to squint no longer as i used to on my old phone. 

so all in all ...i'm loving my new phone. (uuu and it's got this leather casing thing as well so the front leather bit kinda flaps open and shut so when you're talking on the phone you've got the leather casing between the phone and your face so the front screen doesn't get oily and markings from your face.)

oh yeah the VAT rate has reduced by 2.5% and most retail stores are passing these reductions. so i'm like...uuu...i should buy that! i'm kinda on sale!!!! so damaged done so far -

* baby clothes and socks from GAP for baby cousin aleesya aishah :)

i really hope i get to see her when i get back but she's still too young to fly i think (in sarawak where she was born and her mummy came from)

* phone (altho this was technically free!)

* filofax diary refills (i know a filofax is spose to last you a lifetime but i'm a bit sick of mine already. i wished that there was a service that you could swap your filofax with someone, rather than having to buy a brand new one coz they like cost around £50+ a pop for a proper leather one!) i know ppl use pda/blackberry etc these days and i did have a pda/satnav at one point. tried using it but it kept crashing and losing my stuff. i prefer writing things down anyway!

* a new top to wear this friday when i go back. i tend to wear a new outfit when i go back hehe

* nine west handbag for future MIL. hope she likes it tho :S

* 2 boxes of Thornton Chocs for hantaran (10% off at the office!)

so there u go..my pre-xmas shopping spree. sigh..i've got so much to pay next week also but it'll be worth it :) till next time. ciao! xoxo