Selamat Pengantin Baru, Azfar & Liza

Last weekend, I wrote about the bride's side berinai, akad nikah and the real kenduri. And Saturday, it was the bridegroom's turn. We are a big family. My mother is the eldest and has 8 other brothers and sisters who among themselves have many sons and daughters. The 4th generation (cucu to my Tok) aged between 10 and 30 days old and there are alone, 17 in number I cannot remember the exact count of US all, but I think 63 about sums up us.

Anyways.

Weddings have always been a family affair to us. We have many, many meetings prior to any weddings and it is a real fun to have, with minutes, mind you! We have t-shirts printed out for the wedding and vests too. We are a closeknit family. So, I arrived very early on Saturday to a buzzing house at Taman Rashidah Utama, Seremban. The 8 large tents were all set up. The caterers' busy cooking. The aunts and uncles were making special gulai daging with batang pisang and gulai kuning daging salai. The kids were running around the pond in the huge yard. Breakfast was served in the side of the house.

The house was recently renovated and it's mega big now. There are 5 fans alone in the kitchen! Aku sungguh jeles dengan rumah ini. Tasks : Me - VVIP usherette and get lollipops for kid's gifts. MrGart - VVIP usherer Aliya - bunga manggar carrier (the other one was carried by Nor, her same-age cousin) Ayisha & Adani - official flower girls. There were 6, but 1 refused to wear the dress and the other one was Nobita's 1 yo Arissa. Ariz - stay of out mischief, ALL mishief thinkable. Rehearsals were carried out to the delight of the aunts and uncles for the flowergirls.

They were all decked out in burnished brown, gold dresses (thanks to me!) with ribbon-y headbands, crafted by my cousin Anis. My Mak Tam took the trouble to out make-up on these girls, a bit too red and tacky. So, after the girls ate their lunch, dengan mulut yang termuncung-muncung, I wiped the merah kampung lipstick off and put on pink lipgoss instead. Now, they look girl-ish pretty.

So, when the guests started arriving, things fell into place. I ushered the Datuks and Datins to the VVIP's area and at the beck and call of my Mak Ndak, the hostess. Tiring! Very very tiring. The flowergirls did great, even if they had to berarak jauh la jugak. They smiled and sat prettily next to the pengantins on the dais. The silat was uhmm rather ganas. Apparently, they were real SEA Games athletes, my MSN uncle had engaged. Foooohh! It's almost demonstrative, but they sure tumbled and kicked ferociously to the delight of the VERY interested little boys, already imagining their ultraman and ben10 fights with aliens!

Anyways.

Ramainya la manusia. By 4pm, when it was all over, all of us, the younger ones were sitting at one table, lollipop tasting session when suddenly, a man walked up to us with a salam. Hmm he looked familiar. Yikes! The MB of NS was there himself. Cit! Terkulat-kulat we all, even with lollipops in our mouths. Earlier we had the was-tobe-MB-Kelantan-but-denied puffing cerut in front of my wheelchair-ridden grandma, nonchalantly. And we had an ADUN from a alternative party there too with some political reports thrown in for good measure. Aku dengar je la.

Ah well. All in well, it went well.

We went home around 11pm with heavyy eyes, full stomachs and great great day. Selamat Pengantin Baru, Azfar.

p/s sorry no piccies, I din't have my camera on me. Ye la, sebuk dok suruh tuan/puan, datuk/datan, pakcik/makcik masuk makan. Once I get some from my cousins, I'll try to post them here.