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Wedding

Love life Wedding Series

Wedding Series part 1 – Plan, moodboard, and compromise

6th March 2016 - 13 min read

Can’t believe it’s already March!

To the 5th will be my posts about the journey of the wedding of Damar and I, which will be held on May (the 5th month of the year).

It has been quite hectic with new work adjustments, business plans, and everything else that comes around it, oh yea of course with the wedding madness (*happy*). I am juggling with different things at once, but  it is something that I enjoy doing, so that makes me happy to make the efforts.

Speaking about wedding preparation, it is now in 75% of the progress, I would say. The biggest part is done, venue has been booked, the catering has been reserved, make up is done, band agrees on the songs we requested, invitation has been self-personally-designed and negotiated with the the printing, decoration has been down payment-ed, and ‘save the date’ has been sent out to my friends in the Netherlands. Those are the big things, but there are sooooo many little details that are still needed to be sorted out, soon!

There are many articles discussed about ‘bridezilla’ phenomenon where the bride is difficult to handle and giving everyone as well as herself a hard time. I think I am not one of them at all. I am pretty cool and I go with the flow of the process, but at the same time making some clear plans on where the direction of my wedding I want to take. The difficulty that I had was in the beginning when I found out that my dream wedding (outdoor, nature, max 200 people, intimate, friends and family) is not happening. My mother immediately said ‘NO’ when I told her about having outdoor wedding. For her it is too much stress to think whether it will be raining or not, it is based on her experience with my sister’s wedding. Okay, cool I understand, but she had to compromise in giving me a little freedom to decide about the decoration because I somehow still want to have outdoor sensation. And about intimacy, it will sure not happen because according to the culture, giving invitation is always better than making them feel sad by not giving at all. And if we do not want to invite, better not to invite all. So it is either invite all or not at all. That’s basically the theory. Usually the Western does have RSVP system, but Indonesian does not. The polite way to respond the invitation is by attending. In there, I compromised. My big sisters already warned me to just surrender and not sweating for little things, as this is a way to make my parents happy, the last offering/gift before I am taken by another man.

Intermezzo: I could totally relate with this hipwee article about Wedding In Indonesia haha just for amusement 😉

With this wedding preparation experience, I am learning to understand my mother better. She is the one who is busy and executing most of the things *prize and appreciation for my mother*. Now I know how to deal and talk things out with my mother, in which I honestly avoided in the beginning. Silver lining is, I have a better communication with my mother 🙂 Compromise and flexibility are very important in Indonesian wedding, because it is “the event of the parents“, there are certain things I can prefer, but those things need to be discussed and compromised. Note to self: There is always a solution to every problems. And I learn to take times if something gets me crazy, I would just be with myself, think, return to the case (most of the times to my mother) to discuss bit by bit and look for the solution. Because being angry does not solve any problem. 

Okay, back to the wedding planning.
My dad is working in the University and the University has its convention hall that is usually used for graduation ceremony and wedding. Certainly we get a good deal, good price with good benefits. The choice was only in one weekend (because a week before, we just arrived, and a week after we have to go back to Netherlands), so we had to choose whether will be Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Saturday night was ideal but unfortunately it was booked by someone else. And I still prefer at night because we could get the romantic sensation from lights and candles. So Sunday night, May 22nd it is. The first most priority has been booked.

Here are a bit of tips after the venue is booked, and this will especially be applicable for someone who prepares the wedding long distance like me:

  • Hire a Wedding Organizer – I know I need a middle party to be in between me and my mom in some points. WO is considered as legit and experienced organizer, so my mother could take what they say in to the consideration easily. What I did was sending my moodboard to them and there I talk about the theme. I always touch base and refer to the moodboard I have created.
  • Create a moodboard – Moodboard is type of collage consisting of images, text, and samples of objects in a composition. And in this case, it’s the images about how I picture my wedding dream. I have been pinning and collecting pictures of wedding in my pinterest, etsy, my phone, and pc, so for me it was just a matter of selecting which ones I really like which is also good because it narrows down the many choices I have. If I keep pinning, it will not make it any easier to make a decision. The main purpose of the moodboard is to understand the big picture and the direction of the wedding to ease the decision making. But for me the more important purpose is to show to our Wedding Organizer what I want because I want her to present it in front of my mother. They are the ones who are there and able to execute.

I split my moodboard to 4 different categories according to the rituals: Lamaran (yang akhirnya nggak jadi), Pengajian, Akad nikah, Resepsi. And the subcategory will be about the attire (Bride-Groom, family and friends), Make up, Details of decoration, Bouquet, Souvenir, etc. It is extremely helpful! I can always come back to my moodboard to find a guide and remind me what I really want. Paradox of choices out there do nothing than making the deciding process harder haha. So I am blessed that I only have 3,5 months to prepare everything. It makes me move like light speed in preparing 🙂 🙂 and easy to prioritize..

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  • Make a shared wedding folder and check list – Either having it in phone or in journal. I also have a check list in google drive that I share with Damar. Communication is very important! I want Damar to be involved in everything and he pleasantly always does his part very well 🙂 🙂 For the checklist, I can always relate back to the moodboard. The check list is mostly about what Damar and I or I should do. My mother has her own checklist, and my task is to discuss, trust her, and remind her once in a while. Every day the bullets on my check list are scratched but also added, because by doing this you will see what things you have forgotten as well.
  • Once making a decision, stop looking!! – I know that everyday there is always something new on social media, pinterest, etc. But once making a decision, just stop search for it, it will just shaken what I have decided and make everyone who is helping confused with what I want. Grass is always greener on the other side. It’s never enough, that’s just how human being thinks, it is something I surely need to manage haha
  • Anything is possible, just relax and find a way- Like when Damar’s mother all of the sudden used her veto to have traditional wedding to be able to have ‘temu manten or panggih‘ ritual. Temu manten is handover of the groom to the bride’s family. I did not see this happening at all, because all we wanted was just simple wedding and traditional is far from simple. I was upset and stressed out, and plus I did not want to make my mother even busier with all the plans we have had. I tried to make everybody happy. But my fear was not proved because my mother was really easy, she said let’s do it. And at the end I am very grateful to be able to have this traditional wedding for our ceremony, because that is our javanese root and this is something we will always remember. This traditional wedding has been faded slowly, who know in the future it will be even lessen and lessen. So at least I have memory to show my kids and tell them how fun traditional wedding is. And it is even better, because our family’s joglo house can be used in this event. It will be much more meaningful, because it has a family history behind it. Another example is when my parents ask us to have our photographs urgently for wedding registration in the town hall. We were confused in the beginning how to get the pictures very fast. It will take sometimes until the pictures arrive in my father’s hand. So, we use one’s loaf and optimized the technology! We took our pictures with iphone and edited in lightroom. These are the results, not so bad (mind the face, please!)

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  • Manage your expectation from now on – At the end, we can always plan and do our best but because I am preparing the whole things in distance, I need to delegate a lot of things. I just need to trust and manage my expectation realizing that I do not have that much controls in my hand because I am not present. Instead, I need to be grateful because my friends and family have been really nice to me by willing to help etc.We cannot control of what will happen, but we can control how we will react about it…
  • Keep calm and move on – Sometimes it is stressful with different opinions, difficulty of communication etc, but just keep calm and enjoy the journey of once in a lifetime experience. The main purpose of the wedding is to reunite our love, the rests are bonus!!

I can’t even be more grateful that the path has been very smooth to our wedding day so far. Thank you everyone, especially Damar and my mother.. I am embracing this journey fully.

xxx