I have more than 40 nephews and nieces. Hence weddings are inevitable. We have family weddings almost every year. Sometimes we had 2 or 3 weddings in a year and that does not include our cousins' children.
Last weekend, we had another wedding. It was a happy ,funny and amusing occasion. Everything went well during the religious solemnization of the marriage which was held in the state mosque. . However, things turn a bit peculiar during the traditional custom of exchanging gifts and when the bridegroom slipped the wedding ring on the bride's finger. Suddenly there was a stream of what looked to us like Chinese people taking endless pictures of the happy couple. At first we thought they were friends of the bride or the family but we heard somebody said,"Wow! Today is your lucky day. There is a real live wedding!".
Then we realized they were actually a group of Japanese tourists. Maybe to some people, it was a grave breach of privacy but to my family we just took it with a pinch of salt. We laughed and said "Konichiwa" to them.
One of them had to wear a sarong (kain pelikat) because he wore shorts to the mosque which is a no,no. It was awfully funny looking at him wearing a sarong like he just completed his circumcision amidst us who were wearing our traditional clothes. Like what Anthony Bourdain, the famous chef and traveller said, "you don't go to a place of worship wearing something like you're going to the beach..."
M y brother, the host, held the garden reception in the evening. And as wise men said, we, mere mortals can only plan, God decides. So... It rained and rained giving the true meaning of 'RAINforest'.
Astonishingly...people still came! And they came in throngs including uninvited guests. We even overheard them phoning their friends to come over for the free food!
The caterer was late to serve and when they did eventually serve, it was not enough. However my bighearted brother accepted the uninvited guests and forgave any shortcomings.
Even though with all the glitches, the wedding went quite well. The groom and the bride were resplendent in their traditional wedding attire. The groom Elliya, was absolutely handsome. The bride, Hannah was absolutely gorgeous. And he melts her heart when he serenades her with a beautiful, romantic song.
May Allah bless both of you and may you live happily ever after...
Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of them to be inserted now. It seemed my photographer(my husband) was either too busy... or he slept through the whole thing.
Maybe I can get some pictures from the Japanese tourists...
p.s: finally a picture is inserted after this blog was written
Thank you Ita...what a wonderful notation this is. It melts my heart, too, reading your description of the wedding reception. Oh yes, we planned extensively and intensively...leaving no stone unturned.But really, it's ALLAH SWT's decision that it rained that night. Hujan Rahmat yang menurunkan rahmat untuk sekalian insan dan makhluk yang hadir pada malam itu.
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Deletethanks hasan.InsyaAllah next time it will be a nice sunny day.
Deletehere is another good story teller among anak2 pah haroun. we have the novelist, Dr Rahmat Haroun, the script writer, Fohiman haroon with his award-winning script of Embun and now the blog writer, rozita haroon. thumbs up ita, for the beautiful description of ellya's wedding. go on writing dearst sis. I knew you were a good writer since you were in primary school, I used to read your short story written in exercise book. I was disappointed when you stopped writing suddenly but later I was delighted to see you going into public speaking activities winning oration, debates and law moot at university level. keep it up
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Deletethanks kak pah,for your kind words and encouragement.
ReplyDeleteKeep on writing Ita,dont stop,we enjoyed reading them.I hv hardly time to do much things nowadays,busy..busy until I'd low blood (below 100)recently.nasib tak pengsan!
ReplyDeleteThanks Ijah. May Allah give you strength, good health and patience to deal with life's predicament.
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