Finally the wait is over. At the age 27 years and 10 months, I ended my bachelorhood.

I woke way early in the morning, at least earlier than I should (didn’t really get a good night sleep though). The start of the day didn’t go as plan. Mom was panicking, she was running up and the down the stairs changing cloth after cloth. Probably trying to match the theme or something.

The day before, we kinda fought about what ‘sampin’ to wear. I wanted to wear my MCKK one, but she insisted I wear the white colored one. I didn’t want to prolong the argument, so I just took her advice and gave her the ‘sampin’ to sew. Minutes later, I overheard dad telling mum not to force things on me. I seriously felt bad, even for something so tedious could turn into a fight.

In the end I wore my MCKK sampin. The thing about nikah is, you get nervous for various reasons. That’s why it’s important for you to wear what you like and how you like it. At least something not out of the ordinary and you are comfortable with it.

We reached the house pretty late, about 10 minutes or so. I hate being late. I hate having people waiting for me. I am also ashamed of being late but some people don’t really care. I mean it’s ok for the bride and groom to be late because they have to look pretty and all. But it’s really bad if the accompanying party was late. To me, better don’t come if you’re late. You’ll just be wasting others time.

Anyho, I did flinched at everyone in front of the house. It was stupid, but they totally deserved it. And that’s for being late.

On the way to the entrance, a sudden rush raves from within. For the very last time, I asked myself, is this it? Are you sure you want to get married to this girl and family? Because if you’re aren’t you still have the keys to the car. (Yes, I drove on my own to the house). I remained collected and walked steadily into the house.

The kadi asked me to sit on the platform and all eyes on me. I was nervous but not enough to tremble or feel like going to pee. It wasn’t like giving a presentation to the senior management. So to calm myself down, I made stupid remarks which doesn’t even make sense. It doesn’t matter as long as I don’t tremble.

While the kadi was doing his run of introduction, I played in my mind what I needed to say numerous times. Eventually, he finished his speech and it was the spotlight of the morning.

The dad (now I call him Ayah) was the wali which made the ceremony more uptight but preferable than some stranger shaking my hand.

Ayah: Muhammad Edwin Masripan
NH: Saya.
Ayah: Aku nikah akan dikau dengan anak ku, Nur Aisyah Binti Mohd Rozi dengan mas kahwin sebanyak  xx ringgit, tunai.

Her dad was very fluent, but I didn’t want to lose. Or so I thought it was that easy.

The second I said “Aku terima..” it felt like a sudden force or energy was transferred from Ayah to me through our hand shake. My heart stopped so was my breath, shoulder felt heavy and there was an implosion within. It was an indescribable feeling. All happened within a split second.

“.. nikah Nur Aisyah Binti Mohd Rozi dengan mas kahwin xx ringgit, tunai.”

Though it sounds like a simple one liner, but it’s actually more than that.

“Aku tanggung dosa-dosa si dia dari ibu bapanya, apa saja dosa yang dia buat,dari dedah aurat hingga ke tinggalnya solat, aku tanggung dan bukan lagi ibu bapanya tanggung, dan aku tanggung semua dosa bakal anak-anak aku. Kalau gagal, maka aku fasik, dayus & aku rela masuk neraka dan malaikat Zabaniyah melibas aku hingga pecah badan aku”

I don’t know the truth behind this nor did I find any evidence of it being echoed by the great scholars but I guess, it’s quite close. You know lah, Malay like to tambah tolak dalam soal agama.

And that concludes my “akad nikah“ our ceremony for the morning ended with plenty of activities in the evening. I’ll write about the rest later.

My piece of advice to future groom, try to sleep in as early as possible and there’ll be tonnes of people trolling (usik) you, you either smile politely or fuck them up. I usually do the latter. I guess somethings don’t change. Haha.

For existing Celcom Exec, Biz, Blue and Broadband customers, now you can talk and win shopping vouchers up to RM5,000 daily for 5 very lucky customer. Raya celebration a little longer than just one month

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The campaign was launched from 15th August and runs all the way to 30th Nov. So, fret not, you can still win the vouchers. (That’s 75 days x RM5,000 x 5 customer = RM 1.875 million voucher giveaways!). Certainly a big way to appreciate loyal customers.

To qualify for this, you just need to make additional 3 calls on Celcom Exec, Celcom Biz & Celcom Blue (applies to Xpax members too). For example, you make an average 2 calls per day, then you need to make 5. To know your average call per day, type *119# on your phone.

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Parkson, Giant, Farley Hypermarket, H&L Supermarket

For more information, you can go to: www.celcom.com.my/talkathon

I guess this fits as one of the How-To’s in my wedding preparation.

In every wedding surely we need sign boards, especially those hosted at home. Even with GPS, elderly would prefer to go by hard copy map. I call this gut instinct, because they’re usually wrong.

Anyway, I did my own sign board using A4 paper. An A4 Paper is rather too small to make sign boards. It’s hardly seen. Even harder when driving. Therefor, I plan on printing 4 x A4 papers and stick em together.

The software that I’ll be using is Microsoft Powerpoint and PosteRazor. The latter was used to split the image.

1. Download PosteRazor first. This will save you waiting time.
2. Open up Powerpoint and go to File > Page Setup.
3. Change the setting of the page to A4.
4. Do your own design. Remember, it has to be seen and not pretty.
5. When you’re done, go to File > Save as Picture. Choose PNG or JPEG
6. Open PosteRazor and locate the design you just made.
7. PosteRazor will take you through the wizard.
8. Once you’re done, PosteRazor will print PDF format of the pages. Example.
9. Printing time!

For the printing papers, I chose the color blue. By choosing a specific color, I could differentiate my sign boards. This will also help drivers to identify the signs quicker rather than reading everything.

Here’s my example.

Rule of Thumb: Sign boards are to be seen. So make em huge! Not as big as RM’s hair-do ok?

There was once someone wise quoted this

Wedding preparation is no joke!

At first I was pretty skeptical myself until I get the preparation done or at least started. Gile gua cakap lu! Things that I needed to do or have already done.

• Clear my room, this includes clearing up the closet for the bride, which also means throwing away things I want to keep, but don’t use it anymore, i.e. Junks
• Paint my room, the room paint has already faded, eaten by time and some dirty paws. Takes two days, but done too.
• Make a Baju Melayu for the ceremony. Choosing the fabric already takes half day. Done, needs ironing.
• Go for fitting. This is tedious. Trying one and getting my size right. Done.
• Find an altar. I haven’t done this yet. My God I’m dead.
• Hantaran preparation. I’ve got all the things, but have yet to start.
• Wedding invites. Cards, Facebook, Twitter etc. I already finished all the cards I ordered.
• Go for facial? I don’t think I have time for this. LOL
• Catering. Thank God mum manages this.
• Goodie bags. My mum too. Thank you mama!
• Prepare sign board for location, usually the day before the wedding.
• and.. some other things that didn’t cross my mind now.

To make matters worst, my house is only on one power phase, the rest went kaput. That means there’s only electricity at certain sockets in the house. My parents left for umrah, so now it’s up to me and my brother to get this done. But where the hell can I find an electrician nearing Eid Fitr? Damn I’m screwed.

A little addition, got some part-time project that consumes a damn lot of my time.

This is tough, but I’ll live. Insya Allah.

ps: Wedding preparation is NO JOKE OK!

My office blocks Facebook and only allows YouTube browsing during lunch hours (which is awkward, lunch hour go out to eat la, why open YouTube?). On top of super slow network, I think working at a cafe with wifi is much faster than this. That defeats the purpose of going to office.

Anyway, Celcom recently repacked its broadband. The revamped plan comes with larger quota and faster downloading speed. Now it comes with Unlimited Music Download via Celcom Musicube.

To get your music fix, go to Celcom Musicube and download the software (no Mac version )

Celcom is also throwing it limited edition MTV World Stage (I wanted to go when All American Reject was in town, unfortunately, it was my brother’s wedding). Bundle that with additional 1Gb of download quota, the No 1. Mobile Broadband provider is way ahead of competition in terms of pricing and availability.

ps: Macs can’t use the USB dongle (as far as I know), but MiFi works best as alternative