One.

Exactly 24 hours. And what was I feeling? ... Nervous, excited, happy and knackered at the same time. I am seriously serious when I said I was knackered. There's no such thing as enough rest if you're your own wedding planner although it's a lot of fun.

What was happening on that day ya? Oh woke up in the morning only to find my (best)cousin, Nazihah to "nag" me .. "Cho! Asal bilik tak kemas lagi ni? Asal ni asal tu.." So cute. Dah la pregnant. Lagi cute. Hehe. She helped me to sweep the floor, mop, wipe here and there, arrange furnitures, threw rubbish etc while I was again running up and down the house. By the time the running was over I was dued for a shower since the person who did my mehndi was just around the corner.

It was 11am when Aunty Mumtaz arrived. It was barely 20 minutes and voila, the henna was beautifully drawn on my skin. Soon after, everyone else in the house was queueing for Aunty Mumtaz! My mom, my cousins, Sakinah and even my mat salleh aunty did it on her ankle hehe. I was told to sit down for an hour and just watch tv to let the henna dry up, which obviously that didn't happen without 'much' endurance. Time tu la nak garu muka, garu hidung, tak boleh duduk diam. Psychologically la I think. Teruk betul. Before Aunty Mumtaz left, she did leave a tube of henna for me to touch up in case if I find the henna on my nails were not strong enough for my liking and true enough, the colour was not as even as the ones on the skin and it wasn't brown enough. So Nazihah and Sakinah (one of my BGFFs) helped me to put on the henna onto my nails and little did we know that it only takes 5 minutes for it to turn red! Instead, we left it for 20 minutes and my nails turned almost BLACK! I was panicking already! We quickly scraped off the henna and Nazihah and I were left to fix my nails. Boyy, it took us almost 2 hours to fix it! I had to soak my fingers into the water while Nazihah try to scrape off whatever that she can from the nails. By the time it was all over, my fingers looked real ugly :( We let the nails dry up and just used another normal tube of henna which Sakinah gave for only 5 minutes this time and wash off. It looked okay by then. Phew. Alhamdulilah. Call that a scary mehndi experience! Lol.

It was also during this time that the house was in the last stage of cleaning & rearranging and the deco team from Kapas Couture and Kem Salleh himself came to set up the dais and bilik pengantin. I, on the nonfruitful hand, lounged on the chair for nearly 4 hours to be exact and that 4 hours felt like the longest time wasted ever since.

5pm. Time to snack up a bit, did a little more runnings and off to get ready for the malam berinai kecil. At 6pm the mak andam came with his assistant but the house was still a mess - my room was still being done so he was made to wait for an hour before I get things sorted. Last last terpaksa make up at my mom's room and you can never tell how semak my mom's room was at that time. Poor thing!

8pm. Ready with my make up and costume. I swear the sanggul lintang melaka head gear is pretty but it was SO heavy and tight! I couldn't move my head much fearing that I can trip at any movement! You can tell that I didn't like it being on my head just by a look on my face. I was faking the smile the whole time. But I did it for my mom - it's her wish to see her daughter get dressed in baju melayu melaka with sanggul lintang, just like she did when she got married. All the stress and pain were worth the effort when I saw how happy she was. Tak boleh lari la kena dengar cakap mak or orang tua-tua when it comes to wedding ni. Orang Melayu and adat resam is like brother and sister. You can not part with it. So yeah, we also had a small marhaban and zikir sunat going on at this time but this do was attended by very, very close and immediate family and friends. Sorry tidak menjemput tsk tsk.

Macam drag queen kan the make up. Pfft.

The only thing that was manageable that night hehe.

11pm. Took out the sanggul lintang and costume. Tak pernah rasa lega gila okay haha! I was cleaning the house again while some others buat bunga manggar, signages etc. It took me 1 hour to shower that night after the cleaning. Not only that my hair is already long and thick, the mak andam backcombed my hair so it was pretty much tangled everywhere! Letihnya Masya Allah.

12pm. Anxiously waiting for my hantarans to arrive which Mel, Shida, Tasha, Ema and Adeq went to pick up. They left quite awhile ago and haven't came back since. So there I was, puzzled, thinking of the worst that could happen. So half an hour later, they came back. I saw the hantaran. I swear it was the UGLIEST hantaran I've ever seen in my entire life! I asked for champagne eustomas + roses + sweet williams but guess what the hantaran maker did?? She ONLY gave me freakin eustomas and that's it! When I looked at it, I kept asking myself, is this what I asked? Because if I remember correctly, I asked for the three types of flowers but why is it that there are only eustomas - as in filler flowers, there? Curiously, I called her and asked. She said I only asked for that. Wtfish? I remember asking for something else! And to add salt to the wound, my sirih junjung looked like a freaking center piece! Sirih junjungs are supposed to be tall, significant and proud but this one, omg is intolerable! It was fugly to the core! And to make things worse, it's already 1.3oam by that time! I got so angry and disappointed of course, I called her up and gave her my piece and yet she had the cheek to say .. "If you want me to fix it then you have to send it to my place?" WTFISH TIMES TWO! Working ethics zero! I know things won't go a hundred percent perfect in weddings but hantarans? No way! I'm so not paying.

Panicked, I went downstairs and grabbed Kem's hands and took him upstairs to my room and showed him the hantaran. He was speechless, in fact, everyone was too! All my girls knew my taste and they're certainly sure that that was not what I wanted. I begged for him to help out of which he did along with my uncle, aunty and Ema and Adeq. I wanted to stay up and repair the fugly hantaran with them but my uncle Musa shoved me off to bed (it was already 230am at that time).

Uncle Musa: "Pengantin kena tidur sekarang!"

Me: "Alaa takpe it's okay I can wake up at 6 later!"

Uncle Musa (while pushing me to my sister's room): "No! Gi tidur sekarang jugak!"

Me (reluctantly dragging myself to the room): "Okay fine fine. Goodnight"

End of (one chaotic dramaful) 4th June 2010.