With the wedding just four weeks away, I'm almost ready to hit the panic button. I had met with f-SIL together with f-MIL last weekend and talking to them about wedding ideas, decorations etc, made me really stressed out. Not having a wedding dress five weeks into the wedding, felt like I was at zero, no matter the other plans and bookings I'd made.

The initial idea was for f-MIL to sew a dress for me, and I'd grown to have that fact in my head while I went along to organize and plan everything else. An unforeseen circumstances with family came up recently, and then it made me feel guilty about having f-MIL take time off to make the dress.

So off we went to the city today, with a shopping list of the wedding dress, wedding rings and groomsmen's ties. And we got all of those almost with no trouble! It's just this whole matching thing going on with the bridesmaid, flower girls and groomsmen having to have similar matching colors to bring out the themes which I was initially worries about. I decided to have Lee's nieces who are our flowergirl and ring bearer, along with my bridesmaid wear a qipao to represent a fusion of our East-West marriage. While the men's side would be wearing their usual smart suits. The guys in full black suits and red neck pieces, Lee in a full black suit and white neck piece.

Anyway, I digress. The initial gown try-outs had me thinking that the right dress was strapless A-line in pure white. But after today's search, I ended up with a gorgeous intricately-brocaded cream colored mermaid silhouette Henri Josef gown, named Briar Rose, which fit me to a tee. No alterations needed at all! *^_^*

Of course no pictures! This is just the detail on the dress. ^_~

My brother sent me a text message tonight, saying that he and my mother finally have their airtickets to come to Sydney for the wedding. My heart weighed heavy, I was hoping my dad would come too.

The airtickets from KUL-SYD now are about RM3000 (USD$948). That's about a month's salary for a lot of middle-income group earners in Malaysia. And if three of my family members were to come, that was just too much to spend. I knew that news was coming.

I'm tossing and turning in bed. And in tears. Suddenly, everything else that I want to have in my wedding doesn't matter. I don't even want to spend on decorations or flowers. I don't want anything else. I just want my dad to walk me down the aisle during the church ceremony, to "give me away"...

Many girls dream about having big lavish pretty weddings, I don't want any of that. I grew up knowing my mother's father had passed away before she got married. Like me, she was close to her father too. I never spoke to her about it, but deep down, I think I know what she would've felt.

Now, my dad is here. And I've always dreamed he would be there for me. But he can't. The wedding suddenly doesn't mean anything to me if I can't have my whole family there. I don't want my dad left behind. I wish I could do something...

Last night, I started up a facebook group asking a small wish from my friends. I still feel a flush of embarrassment for having done that, but four weeks is just so close, I wasn't sure what else to do.

In four weeks, I'm getting married. While it's every girls dream to have a dream wedding, all I want is for my father to walk me down the aisle. I'm only asking for a small donation of at least RM5, to raise just enough money for my dad's return airfare (RM3000/USD$948) from Kuala Lumpur to Sydney so he could walk me down the aisle April 18th 2008.

I moved to Australia in Dec'07, with nothing else but a suitcase and love. Asking this is difficult for me to do, but I'm swallowing my pride here and humbly asking for a very small favour from you. I don't want a lavish expensive wedding, and am not having one. Our guest list is a small 25 person wedding of only family and very close friends of Lee and I. We'll be having a Catholic church ceremony, and nothing else means more to me in this world than to have my dad walk down the aisle and "give me away".

My dad has been retired and out of work now for the last two years. My brother and mum have just barely got enough to buy their tickets. My dad has sacrificed not coming because our family can't afford it. I love my dad, and I can't dream of walking down that aisle without him.

I haven't found myself a full time job yet, and can barely make do with the casual job I have right now. Honestly, the transition hasn't been the smoothest ride without the support and familiarity I'm so used to back home in Malaysia. I wish I had the money to do this myself, but unfortunately, I don't.

I pray that you can help. I have a Paypal.com account which you could put your donations to --
zmt.etc@gmail.com

Or if somehow you would prefer to have something in return for the donation, I would love it if you purchased any of the jewellery I've made during my time here, at http://jewels.midnitelily.com

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. And if there is anything I could do for you in return, please ask.

I am very, very touched and thankful for and by the friends who've responded so far. The amount at the moment is at USD$162.99 ( RM 519.86 ). I will sort myself out and put up constant updates here, and a button to make sure everyone's updated of this mission. Thank you. God Bless.

Lee and I have been meeting with our celebrant Fr Joe Camilleri almost every fortnight since January. Yesterday was our last meeting before the actual wedding rehearsal with the bridal party.

Fr Joe showed Lee and I a run through of the steps for each section of the ceremony. The first part, left me with a lump in my throat. As Fr Joe explained how he usually instructed the bridal party on the walk in, he lead me to Lee and showed how my father would walk me up the aisle where we would meet Lee. Every small gestures and exchange of hands had a symbolic meaning. I had to hold back thinking of that moment on who would be the one to do that on that day itself.

I've always been a person who was into the meaning of things, little gestures and all. While I had earlier initially wanted to have the church wedding in Malaysia, after watching Fr Joe teach us each movement, I am thankful that it was God's grace that He put us under the guidance of a wonderful priest!

The wedding rehearsal will be on --
Tuesday, April 15th 2008 @ 7pm
St Augustine's Church, Balmain

We're pretty much sorted in choosing our bridal party. One maid of honour, one best man, and Lee's two nieces, Holly & Olivia, are our flower girl and ring bearer. Yes, we're going the unconventional (and cheap) way by having darling Olivia be our ring bearer.

The whole task of finally getting my dress over the weekend has sent my whole wedding colour scheme out the window. I initially wanted a white, silver and red theme. But now that my dress is actually an off-white champagne colour, with beautiful gold threads, the white and silver idea has to be scrapped. Now its become an off white, gold and deep red theme. The initial theme selection was an idea going for our East-West fusion marriage. And at the same time, I was really trying to avoid the whole Chinese-sy colours. Hence no ang pow bright red type of colour! But now we're somewhat closer to that. Meh.

In any case, the symbolism of the fusion is by having the boys wear suits and red ties, with Lee in a white tie, while my MOH and nieces wear a cheongsam. I went shopping at Haymarket with fSIL and her mother yesterday. And we found the girls these gold cheongsams. Don't they look adorable?

Weddings seem to have its own glossary of big words. Bombonnieres... Boutonnieres... But they're just favours and corsages, respectively. All this jargon almost made me feel like I was learning another language just trying to sort things out.

Anyway, one of the DIY ideas I had was for the boutonnieres which the bridal party and family members are going to wear during the wedding. I knew going the usual way of fresh flowers would be a waste of money. So I thought I'd try to make a beaded one like ones I've seen on websites, which could become really nice keepsakes. I ended up coming up with this idea of making little flowers out of wire lace. It's a really delicate Italian tubular wire mesh ribbon that I've seen in Japanese beading magazines. And fortunately enough, the products had arrived in Australia in September last year. Thing was, I didn't even know what the wire lace look and felt like, if it will even become the flowers I had in my head. I bought some from a site online, based in Victoria. (Does anyone know where in Sydney I can buy the wire lace??) And finally had a chance to make them!

The first three mini bouquets came up nicely, but then I realised it was too small. I was going to need either a leaf background or something else for it to get attention. So I thought I'd try making a miniature fan out of Japanese paper. The final product?

Voila...

Problem now is, knowing full well I won't have much free time left, I thought I'd complete making them this long Easter weekend. I did manage to make four of these today, then ran out of wire lace!!! Arrgh... =P