The Budget

I started off with a simple budget (simple, not necessarily small) as I wanted to do something similar to my sister's, i.e. nikah followed by a lunch reception at the hotel. The driver was that I wanted to only have to wear one outfit for both events, a custom-made silk songket which I had been dreaming about ever since I stepped into Nor Atikah's Songket in KT and touched a silk songket bunga tabur a few months back. The thing is, during my sister's wedding we had a small lunch-do, a private affair for families and close friends. However, in Malaysia you can hardly ever keep your wedding small (everyone wants to be invited!), thus those who didn't attend my sister's wedding were already waiting for my invitation card.

I wanted to have my reception in the same hotel with another additional 200+ guests or so, I was hoping for a sit-down reception instead of the typical touch-n-go, 12-4PM lunch buffet. Unfortunately the hall couldn't accommodate that number of guests as one time, plus the number of guests kept increasing and so did the cost of it all. So the hotel was out of the question. That, and the fact that the hotel didn't really bother to keep in touch with me either (I had to remind them several times on the quotation, they messed up and quoted it to my sister who just got married!).

Then came every other person's little advise to me, "Don't have it on the same day, it's a bit of a rush don't you think?", "Do it properly, so that everyone can come,", bla bla bla. So I decided to split it to two separate days and frantically searched for a hall that could suit my number of guests and budget. I managed to get hold of Dewan Seri Siantan in Putrajaya, thanks to the help of my sister's SIL (and thanks to my other sister for giving me the moolah to pay for the deposit). By that time, I had already discussed with my fiance (chewah fiance!) and decided on our nikah date, but we had to move it since we couldn't get the hall on the next day. It had to be back to back so my third sister who's working in HK can be around for both events. My fiance on the other hand had a little bit more difficulty in booking halls in KL. He started looking in Aug for our wedding in April, but most of the halls were booked till June!

Back to my story on the budget, I also initally planned to utilise half the hall (cheaper mah!) but soonafter I had to take the whole hall to accommodate the whole world who self-invited themselves all my guests. So my budget was listed into three events, the nikah, my reception and the reception on his side.

For the nikah, I pretty much copied the previous budget I created for my sister which was on the hantaran, the surau decoration and other miscellaneous items that my dad took care of (giving the surau a new coat of paint, donations, and refreshments). Oh and how could I forget.... my outift!! And er... as well as my parents and sisters'. As I've always wanted to start a side business taking orders for hantaran, I decided I'd decorate it myself and save some cost there. I hope it turns out well, much better than my engagement hantaran. As for the deco, I did some searching around and contacted some vendors which I'll tell-all in another post. But recently, I've been going on a cost cutting mode and am inclined to decorate on my own (with the help of my banglas dear friends!). I initially wanted something a little more than my sister's and was slowly growing into an elaborate mini-pelamin (after hours and days and weeks going through #pelamin on Instagram) till one day I stumbled upon a photo also on Instagram of a small nikah ceremony conducted at a mosque, with no mini pelamins and what-nots. It occurred to me that I was being consumed in my fantasy and would be spending money unnecessarily. All I needed was just some draping to cover the office doors of the surau. The most important thing is that I get married, which will happen (InsyaAllah) regardless if I have fresh flowers or gold curtain tiebacks or shaggy carpets.

Moving on to the reception, which is the biggest chunk of the budget, included the hall rental (a fairly BIG sum), decorations, catering, invitation cards (which turned from a simple inexpensive piece to a simple but expensive piece), musicians (part of the fantasy), outfit, makeup and also photographer (which is also inclusive of the nikah too). I was a tad excited and already booked the hall decorators (a big drama with them, but that's for another post). After that photo on Instagram, I felt that I probably shouldn't have done so, but since I've already paid the deposit, I negotiated (and am still negotiating) for a less va va voom decor. Part of (the superficial) me still doesn't really mind spending, hoping it'll turn out nice for my photo album. Tsk.

Lastly, the majlis bertandang, i.e. the reception on his side. Initially I was thinking of spilling some of my guests into his function (hehehe!) but since my hall is big enough to accommodate tons of people, I transferred them back into my guest list. So technically I only need a budget for my outfit and makeup.

So there you go, the outline of my wedding budget. Of course everyone's budget differs to suit your own occasion, but I hope what I've shared could give you an idea of what to expect or trigger your mind on something that you might've overlooked and missed out. Thanks for reading!