I know, I know, it’s already almost 3 months and I’m still blogging about my wedding? No life ah?

Haha yes, kinda but I can’t not write a Part II review of my wedding vendors after Part I, can I? In any case, if you missed the first part, you may click HERE to read!

Okay, on with the review!

Bridal & Makeup: Nawwarah

I engaged Natasha, owner of Nawwarah, back in May last year for my engagement. Though I wasn’t a fan of her makeup back then (to be fair, my face a bit hard to suit thick makeup lah), I was sold by her warmth and sincerity and knew that I just had to have a ~chill~ Mak Andam whom I can click with for my wedding.

Plus, she was just starting out her business and had this promotion that let brides who booked her in 2016 to have all their dresses customised. I also loved how Nawwarah is based on the concept of modesty, so booked her, I did!

My Nawwarah OOTD (Instagram)

Unfortunately though, out of the 3 outfits customised, only the red songket turned out fine. I kinda knew that would happen because I’ve always had bad luck with tailor-made outfits but thank goodness she had other beautiful dresses off-the-rack! So I chose the white for Nikah and dark blue for Evening wear. My favourite was my Nikah outfit – it made me feel so pretttyyy~

And I don’t know how I actually lost weight in the week leading to my wedding after my last fitting so my outfits were quite loose! I wasn’t watching my diet and ate lots of chocolates and 4fingers – and trust me, I’m not one to have a high metabolic rate. But it could be because I wore a corset/body shaper. You know what they say about how wearing a corset constantly helps shape your body if you wear it often enough? I think it’s true.

As I was saying, there’s something about my face that doesn’t suit the usual makeup style, even Natasha thinks so. I have small sepet eyes with hooded lids so no matter how much eyeshadow you put, you won’t be able to see because it gets folded in. Tasha realised this and tweaked her technique to suit my face and she did a great job on the day! 🙂

I had my ehem, Lady M on that day so I couldn’t solat but if I remember correctly, there was no mention of any extra charges to reapply makeup after prayers, which is great (you might want to check with her again tho)! I recently got to know that there are MUAs who charge as much as $250 for makeup reapplication, which I personally feel is understandable but not very nice la.

Bouquet & Rampai: Fleursbyspoleczny

It was just my luck that Nawwarah had a collaboration with Fleursbyspoleczny (I still don’t know how to pronounce spoleczny) because if not, I wouldn’t have gotten my beautiful, beautiful hand bouquet at an affordable price!

I also got my bunga rampai from her as well and they’re so adorable!!!  Pink and white baby’s breath in cute tiny white pails ❤️❤️❤️

I remember the night before the wedding, when the flowers were delivered in a nicely packaged box, I was squealing with joy because everything was so pretty! K excuse my lack of vocab but I’m just a sucker for these kinda things lah and I wish my bouquet didn’t have to wilt 🙁

Henna: HennaBella

It was back in 2012 when I got to know that Nasreen, my dearest uni coursemate, was setting up HennaBella. It was also on that same day that I made up my mind that “Ok, I’m going to get her to do my henna when I marry!” So 4 years later, I stuck to that decision and got really pretty, intricate henna on my hands and feet done by her!

Note to BTBs: Please empty your bladder before henna application. This is especially so if you’re choosing an intricate design like mine. Mine took more than 5 hours to do and I didn’t dare drink a single sip so that I didn’t have the urge to pee. Plus you have to sleep with the henna paste on overnight!

I think I was one of the more kiasu brides who actually went a step further to preserve my henna as much as possible. Apart from leaving the henna paste on as long as possible to get a richer stain, I was also told that one should try not to get the henna wet for at least 6-12 hours after paste removal.

So, I did what every opportunistic person would do and took that as a free pass from washing my own dishes. Hehehe.

I also painstakingly rubbed the paste off with coconut oil. And when I showered, I actually wrapped my hands and feet with cling film and then, wore gloves.

Hahaaa, can somebody say Psy-Cho?

My henna took about 2 days to darken, so it was nice and dark on the day of my wedding. I remember 1 day after the Henna night, I was kinda worried (lol what’s new?) because the stain was so light. But it got darker, eventually 😀

Kompang: Durbar Dua

It’s hard to pick which aspect of the wedding was my favourite because everything was great to me. But if I die-die was forced to choose (wah so dramatic ah), I think Durbar Dua Kompang Services would definitely be one of the top contenders. I initially wanted Panjy Kompang because I was a huge fan since I heard them at my brother’s wedding but since they weren’t available on the day, Han had to find for another group.

Durbar Dua was everything I wanted for my kompang and more! The lead singer’s voice was soooo merdu and omg, when the whole group harmonised, especially during my favourite Hasbi Rabbi, I was like…

Hahahaha did I just photoshop my sanding hijab over a meme? Yes, they were that good.

They also performed dikir barat at Han’s side and it was so entertaining! I don’t have a video of them performing during my wedding but I did find a video of them on Youtube. Go check them out!

Photographer: GlowingIris

I had never heard of GlowingIris until I found out about their collaboration with OnceUponImages (my videographer) at some wedding expo. GI is actually a one-man team made up of Nasz himself but he’s super fast and we got our photos ready in less than a month!! I think it was 2.5 weeks to be exact because I remember him texting us to say that the photos were ready while we were still honeymooning in Iceland.

I’m not sure how he does it but we’re convinced he’s superhuman who doesn’t need rest because apart from being a super efficient wedding photographer, Nasz also holds a full-time job.

Say, whaaaat.

Anyway, it’s apparent that he has a deep passion for photography and I love how he manages to capture emotions in his photos! His photog skills are amazing and he’s really great at taking creative shots. I can’t say the same for group shots at the dais, though because a lot were kinda off-centre but eh, that’s nothing a little cropping can’t fix. But overall, we definitely didn’t regret engaging Nasz as our photographer! Very nice, laidback guy with an impressive beard haha. Check out our photos and his other works on his website!

We took the cheapest package which included 7-10 hours photography with only the edited digital copies of the pictures. We didn’t want to fork out extra for the pics to be printed out on canvas because we didn’t fancy the idea of hanging our pic up the wall. Plus, I also wanted to do up our own picture book because I’m too free I saw there were cheap deals going around on GroupOn where you could print your own.

And that’s what we did! We found a promo by PhotoGenie that offered printing of a 32-page book for 9 bucks and a 16-page book for 5 bucks. Of course it’s not those super classy, leather bound kind, more like a normal hardcover book but it suited us fine!

 

Videographer: OnceUponImages

Part of the reason why this second part of the review took a while was because I was waiting for my wedding highlights from OUI. It was pretty unfortunate that they had an overwhelming amount of backlog which totally screwed up their timeline hence it took us longer than expected to get our video. Don’t let that turn you off though, because I’m really sure this was a one-off incident and they’re pretty reputable and aren’t tardy.

Ryan (owner and our videographer for the day) was a nice, friendly guy and he really made us feel at ease on our wedding day! Han and I opted for the cheapest package (again, coz we cheapo were on a budget) which included only Wedding Highlights and Raw Footage, and not a full edited video of our whole wedding as we’re quite confident that we can edit ourselves (hahahaha ya maybe 5 years later?). Plus, where got time to watch the full wedding video? 1 hour plus seh.

So before I present you our cinematic wedding highlights, THIS IS IT for my wedding review! I hope this review has helped any BTBs out there in their decision-making some way or another.

Planning for the wedding was great fun but I remember texting Han the night before while crying nervous-induced tears that “B, I don’t ever want to get married again“.  Too much uncertainty for this fragile, worrywart heart of mine lol. Alhamdulillah, Allah made everything go smoothly for us in the end.

But ultimately, don’t forget that a wedding is really just a one-day event (or 2 or 3 or even a week, for some) but marriage is a lifetime! So, spend within your means and don’t start off your marriage in debts – totally not worth it.

Oklah, before I start giving out marriage advice like as if I’ve been married for 20 years, instead of just 2 months, here’s our video! Enjoy watching Han awkwardly singing my favourite lullaby for a hadang hahahaha. I love you, BB, you’re such a sport. <3

Our wedding as told by the storytellers at OnceUponImages (Website)