My Wedding: The Dower and Dowry

I know it's been months, I just haven't had the energy, but now, we'll continue with my instalments about my wedding! Ha ha! More cultural lessons...

In an Islamic marriage, one of the requirement is the dower, groom giving to the bride. In the Malay culture, we have the mas kahwin and the belanja angus or belanja dapur as the dower, the mas kahwin goes straight to the bride herself where as belanja angus is to help pay for the wedding expenses on the bride side. There is no fixed amount, but there is a minimum, it's negotiable and depending on current market situation. This sum is normally asked during the engagement proceedings.

The dower consisting of mas kahwin and belanja dapur

This was the dower I received, my mum-in-law and her sister decorated it. The mas kahwin is the brown notes rolled up on the lower right of the arrangement and the belanja dapur is the greenish notes cradling the crystal flowers MIL made. The red box tucked around back is the jewellery, necklace with pendant and bracelet.

Male members of the bride family inspecting the hantaran received from the groom side

The dower is part of the hantar berian or hantaran, loosely translated as gifts given. Traditionally these gifts consists of items that are to help the bride prepare for her wedding and new life as a wife. In the olden days one of the items were material to make her wedding outfit as well as a complete sewing basket set. This wasn't that far back, maybe about two generations ago.

Nowadays, the hantaran can consists from anything from the latest Ipod to a brand new car, depending on the wants of the family. Usually the bride and groom prior to the wedding would get their own stuff for the hantaran, and families can contribute to add on.

Part of the hantaran I received, my beaded wedding shoes

The hantaran is normally arranged and decorated on an elaborate tray which has a stand (click here for picture) or baskets. Depending on the number of items will depend on the number of trays required. The fun part, or headache, is decorating.

Normal practice is the family members will do the decorating, it is a time for family bonding. For his hantaran to me, it was my mother-in-law, the sister, and several female cousins who did the decorating. I wasn't allowed to enter the room where they did it.

People can get real creative with decorating the hantaran, some of the length of cloth given to me got turned into flowers using paper and wires as backbones. Others can be a disaster, like my aunt's white goldfish when her son got married (it looked like a white ghost to us cousins) Then there are those who use hantaran decorating and the hantaran themselves to really show off, sort of like keeping up with the Joneses.

Some soon-to-be-married-couples would send their stuff for the hantaran to the shops to have them 'professionally' decorated, you get charged an arm and a leg per tray or basket!

The balasan hantaran for him from me

Traditional practice was receiving the hantaran from the groom, nowadays the bride would give which is known as balasan hantaran, exchange of gifts. The amount can be the same or less as the hantaran from the groom side and most of the items would consists of food. I'm speculating on various reasons why this practice is becoming more common, maybe because the guys didn't want to be left out, or the girls just like to get stuff for the guys, or the girls just want to have fun decorating the gifts too. So it's a dowry, only it's optional *hehehe*

I remembered helping my cousins who got married with their hantaran and it was always a family affair, each person would decorate at least one item and I have done quite a few.

When it was my turn, I was quite surprised that nobody helped me with arranging and decorating my trays. Turned out all my aunts and cousins figured I could handle it while they were busy decorating the rest of the house.

I spent a week doing the balasan hantaran, one or two tray per night with very minimal tools and items. The trays and tray covers were rented, and I was determind to spend as little as possible on the decoration yet pretty happy with the outcome. I realised several lessons about decorating and arranging hantaran, cellotape, double sided tape and pins are your best friends because I don't believe in using a glue gun and I wanted for the ribbons and roses to be reused again without damaging them when they get taken apart.

Us after our solemnization looking at my handywork

I stuck with the wedding colour theme of red, black and white. Since the tray covers were already white all I used were red, black and silver ribbons in various sizes (which I already have), styrofoam circles (which I had to get, they're costly! about $20 in total), and four bunches of fake red roses (less than $10). Other tools I needed were scissors and wire cutter, double sided tape, cellotape (which I already own) and two containers of darning pins (which were only 20 cents per container). I like clean lines and non fussy, simple and elegant.

I 'm proud of the dastar I made (on tray behind shoes), I learnt it during the adat istiadat, royal protocol, workshop I attended. My DH was well impressed, he didn't want to take it apart *big grin*

By the end of it, I quite enjoyed decorating my balasan hantaran. But I'm not sure if it's something I want to do again. It's a lot of pressure especially when people know you're capable of such things, it has to come out looking really good.

All the decoration pieces I used, his aunt from out of state took them all! The ones they used for mine, my MIL loves her glue gun, I salvaged what I could :-p

My Wedding: The Cake

Ta-Da! The wedding cake! It has three tiers, the top was lemon buttercream, middle was orange sponge, and the bottom layer was chocolate fudge. The cake was designed more with him in mind, hence the Superman topper and teddy bears all around. There were 99 red roses representing everlasting love and if you want to know who made it and more pictures go here... no surprises really who made it ;-D

My Wedding: Five Ceremonies

This is for my international friends, blog readers and followers, a brief description to what each ceremony was about... and the reason why I was having such a wedding outfit dilemma since I have five occasions to dress up for...

The Nikah... the solemnization, taking the marriage vow. For the muslims, this involved the groom to utter the vow with the condition it is said in one breath with no breaks or pauses, if he does, he has to repeat until he could. The microphone is there for everyone else to hear it. It was held at my home, in the living room and it was packed with families from both sides and a few friends. This is the most important ceremony out of all as this is the one that says you are married in the eyes of God. You can skip out the rest of the ceremonies as long as this one happens.

The Berbedak... Powdering. This was more for culture than religion. Typically the bride gets all dressed up in the traditional outfit that was the descendent of the Chinese Princess that came to Brunei and married one of the first few Kings at that time, which king I can't remember, and the local people saw and decided to adopt the get up. Along the decades the head gear was updated and made lighter, before it was made from bronze, and other stuff added on. The yellow and white that was wrapped around my head was made out of paper is the present day substitute to flowers that were used originally. In the olden days, the gold woven wrap around the waist was to show the wealth of the country and family as well as to hide the tell tale signs of pregnancy. The powdering purpose is for families and invited guests to wish the bride on the marriage. The powder is made into a thin paste which is coloured, the rule of thumb is for it to be of seven colours. I have yet to get an explanation as to why seven, my guess is it's to do with the seven colours of the rainbow that represent the future. At the end of the ceremony the leftover paste is scrubbed onto the bride (I had mine done the next morning) for smooth skin. The groom have this ceremony as well, only his outfit is different, for one thing he didn't have to wear that thing on the head.

The Berpacar... Henna ceremony. This came from the Indians as they are part of our heritage too, similar to berbedak only instead of powder it's the henna that people put onto your hands. Needless to say the palms of my hands were stained orange for a while. My sister called in a professional henna lady who did flower patterns on my hands and I treated whoever was over at that time to have henna designs too.

The outfit I was wearing is the traditional songket, or woven cloth with gold thread. Usually people getting married would wear outfits made out of this material as only royalties are able to afford them, as you are king and queen for the day it is fitting that you should dress up like one. I for one dislike it as it was hot and stiff. This one was rented, the tiara was my sister's when she got married twelve years ago (something borrowed!)...

The Bersanding... King and Queen for a day! It was held at a hotel ballroom, with a sit down lunch for all invited guests. This was the grandest out of all the ceremonies as you invite all your friends, it is not uncommon to have guest lists that goes beyond hundreds as they are made up of your friends, parents friends, your siblings friends, your aunts and uncles friends... 

We both decided to wear a western style of outfits as a homage to our parents when they got married in gowns and suits. Threw in a couple of page boys and flower girls, made up of nephews and nieces in their dresses and bow ties. The older two on either side of us are known as pengiring, I was told it's an honour to be selected as one, that's his nephew and my oldest niece. The wedding dias is bigger and grander to the one at home, it filled up the whole stage and almost reached the ceiling.

The procedure was that we hold our respective sit down lunch, his was at another place and mine was at the hotel, then he would come over to the hotel with his entourage where I shall be waiting for him to come and we enter the hall together with the kids heading towards the dias. Then it's photo op time!

Malam Ambil-Ambilan... night reception for the groom's side of the family. During the day, not all of his family would have come and therefore didn't see us together. This function is mainly to give an opportunity for his side to see and take pictures with us. This white wedding dias was in the living room for over a week as the nikah ceremony and this ceremony was a week apart. I took the opportunity to wear a different outfit and had a different bouquet, heheh...

So, just a quick rundown of what the past few months and weeks led up to as well as an insight to the wedding culture here.

More photos here:

My make up artist, nikah, berbedak, berpacar, bersanding and berambilan

My aiki friend nikah, berpacar and bersanding

His lunch reception 

Got more pictures coming...!

My Wedding: Only In Brunei...

Occasion no.2, the 'Berbedak' outfit, fooling around for the camera

Once upon a time, before this whole getting married bit happened, I was adamant not to have so many functions because I was single, was not in the frame of mind of getting married, didn't see the point of the functions and was skint. At that time.

Then I had my wedding. With five separate functions. With five different attire. For five different things. Mom had her hands in it. That's Malay weddings for you... more specifically that's Brunei Malay weddings for you. Nikah (solemnization), berbedak (powdering ceremony, the get up is picture above, only in Brunei nowhere else), berpacar (henna ceremony), bersanding (royalties for the day) and berambil-ambilan (that's for the groom side of the family to come see a repeat of what happened during the bersanding for those who were not able to come).

Official pictures are still in the works. Can't wait to see them. Pictures floating around on the net were taken by family and friends. If you're on my FB contacts just click on 'view pictures of me' of people posting up wedding pictures and tagging me. You can tell they're the wedding ones because of the full makeup and fancy shmancy outfits which you'd rarely see me use and wear.

Right now we're trying to get our house sorted, the sooner we get that done the sooner I can set up class! Oooh, aren't we looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to a working studio again, I feel kind of lost not having it. Strange isn't it...

I like to thank all friends and families who helped out and came to the wedding and the gifts and those who were not able and sent their wishes. You are very much appreciated for showing up and did your best and I'm so proud to be your daughter / sister / cousin / niece / aunt / friend. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

That sounded like an award ceremony speech, hehehe. Stay tuned for more weddingy stuff, I want to post up stuff I did for my wedding. And then the drama about the dress... crying was involved.

Honeymoon? I'm on post wedding recovery, advance apologies if I haven't answered your email yet. I'll get around to it. I have a 'buku permintaan' order to get ready before the weekend...

My Wedding: Prologue

Officially I'm now a Mrs! But it still hadn't sank it...

Right now it's running around, getting stuff done. Still working too, my leave hadn't started yet, managed to move a huge chunk of workload. Got lots of pictures wedding preps and first wedding function last Sunday, can't wait to show them especially to my readers in the States and Europe, Brunei Malay wedding is just going to blow your mind. It's full of tradition and culture and my personal twist to where I could... the invitations, corsages for family members, decoration of the dowry, beading my veil...

More stories later but right now, THE dress is not yet done. As of this moment it's in pieces, they had to redo it. Am I panicking? I can't say. THE outfit for THE major function in a few days time is not done. My tailor is working miracles to get that dress done. Wicked bead work that's for sure. I was only able to have my first fitting yesterday, it made me wonder if this is how this normally happens (was asking people I know who went to the same tailor) I wish I could redo this part, but that was past. Concentration on what we can do now and hope for the best.

This weekend is packed with my wedding, I can't wait for next week to start! I love how Monday is going to start. Honeymoon? Heheheh... Gotta remember to charge up the camera and a waterproof casing...

Have a great weekend everyone!!