Whose next?
7:49 am
Lovers
A wedding is a beautiful ceremony where people are united in marriage. Wedding traditions very between cultures,ethnic groups,religions, countries and also social classes. We exchange gifts and special wedding garments are worn. A malay wedding is one of the most lavish occasions in a Malay society. Rich in local tradition melded with the tenets of Islam , the wedding celebrates the couples in a ceremony fit for a queen and king. The wedding consists of several parts and covers more than a day.The engagement. Before the wedding proper itself, there is the engagement. When the man announces his intention to marry the woman, the adat bertunang (or engagement custom) is set, in which the couple’s families discuss the plan for wedding in the home of the bride’s family. And then there’s the henna-staining rite to signify the imminent marriage ceremony. In this rite, the couples loved ones stain the couples fingertips with henna oil.
The first formal part of a Malay wedding proper is called the akad nikah (or the marriage contract), as required by Islamic and civil laws .It gives the marriage its sacred and legal characteristics. In this ceremony, the couple sign the marriage contract, and the marriage is solemnized before religious officials.The groom pledges to the bride a mas kahwin, which symbolizes his promise to take care of the bride and have a family. In some ways, this is similar to a dowry except that it is the groom who is paying the mas kahwin.The next part of a Malay wedding, the bersanding (or bethronement or the sitting together) is more intricate. It is actually the wedding day It may happen a day after the nikah ceremony. But it may take several days after, as it is more elaborate and requires careful planning.During the bersanding, the couple sits on a sofa called the pelamin. Before the ceremony itself which usually happens in the afternoon, guests are entertained in the grooms house in the morning.The ceremony proper starts off when the groom and his guests, accompanied by male musicians (hadrah or kompang band), make a procession to meet the bride in the brides home. Attempts to stop the meeting of the groom and bride may be comically staged.
On arrival, he pays tax to the bride’s family. In the main part of the bersanding, the couple sits together on the pelamin situated on a platform. As a mark of approval and blessing, loved ones and guests sprinkle the couple with scented water and yellow rice. As a symbol of fertility, the guests are given a bunga telur, a ornamented egg festooned with a flower, as a sign of fertility.During this part of the Malay wedding, the couple are treated like royals. Hence, traditions in a royal court are observed. For example, court attendants in royal court costumes serve the newly wed; people acting as royal guards perform a demonstration of the traditional martial art called silat. Musicians also play Malay court music.Note that bethronement may be done again in the house of the groom. After the bethronement, the couple lead their guests to a formal dinner or makan beradab. The Malay wedding is concluded when the couple pay respect to their respective families and photographs are snapped.
Why am I suddenly blogging about weddings you wonder? Well, my uncle just got married. Let me rephrase that. My "HIPSTER" uncle just got married and his wedding was way hipster. We had his reception wedding party at Janda Baik. The weather was completely lovely because it had rained really heavily in the evening. So by the time we got there, it was really cool and lovely. My uncle married a Swiss girl from Zurich, so all her family members flew down to Malaysia for this wedding. My uncle is an architect ( a really hipster one if I may add) and my new aunt is a designer ( also hipster but slightly less hehe )
The theme was " Polka Dots and vintage" Everyone actually followed the theme. I was pretty surprised. Usually people would just ignore the themes. But not this wedding. Everyone was either looking all "vintage" or in polka dots. It was a smart casual thing. So I wore my short yellow polka dot dress with a sling beige Chanel bag and sandals. My dad didn't have anything with polka dots on it so he kinda did a diy thing. He cut out circles from his "medicine patch" and used my highlighters to colour them in and stuck them to his black shirts collar. So cute and very creative.
After maghrib we then had our fancy malay dinner. The brides family loves malay kampung food so there was whie rice, ayam berempah, ulam, sambal belacan, udang masak petai, two different types of rendang, ikan keli bakar and a few other malay cuisines that I forgot. It was prefecto. Really enjoyed my dinner. Since this was a "Chilled" wedding party, we had games and a live band. The live band was made up of the grooms 2 brothers and 2 cousins that played 5 amazing songs. They sang a variety of malay and english songs including a song from the late P. Ramlee. The crowd went wild. Although there were some off pitches from the vocalist ( my uncle) Below are some pictures from the akad nikah ( Saturday 16/11 and the wedding party 17/11) Enjoy
Wonder who is next.....
SJY
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