Keep Calm and Get to KNO(w)

This is a sort of mandatory post regarding Medan’s new airport, Kuala Namu International Airport (KNO). I believe the guests who have booked their flights for our wedding have received a notification from the airlines regarding the shifting of airport operations from Polonia International Aiport (MES) to Kuala Namu Interational Airport (KNO) effective 25 July 2013.

The modern, bigger airport is supposed to be a good news for the city and its people, but the bitter pill that all of us have to swallow is the fact that it’s located 32 km from Medan city centre. While that distance may not be surprising to other cities in Indonesia, it is a tremendous change for Medan, which many of us dreaded badly. The people in Medan had been spoiled by the old airport that was just a stone’s throw away from the city centre. And now, what used to be a mere 2 km from the city is an overwhelming 32 km away. How can it not be a big deal for everyone? It’s certainly going to take a great deal of getting used to for the people in Medan to let go the convenience that the good old Polonia provided all this while.

David and I crossed all of our fingers, fervently hoping that the new airport would only be in operation after our wedding, which would’ve been a lot more convenient for us and our guests. But sad to say, it’s clearly not working to our favour.

However, we shall keep calm and carry on! Well, the cool thing about KNO is that when you, our dear guests, land in Medan, you won’t have to put up with what the old airport used to be like: small, hot and dirty. Instead, you’ll arrive at a cool, sparkling new airport that occupies 1,365 ha of land, which is also the country’s second largest airport after Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, and – wait for it – the first one in Indonesia with direct rail link to the city! KNO may not be convenient, but it’s surely more comfortable :)

Alright, after much rambling, let’s get to the whole point of this post. So, here are some useful pictorial guides about KNO:

Access from/to KNO

• Jalan Monginsidi is located at the city centre.
• Based on experience, the travel time from the city to KNO by car is about 1 to 1.5 hours depending on the traffic. However, please note that the travel time from KNO to the city could be longer, which may take up to 2.5 hours. This is due to the heavy traffic along the arrival gate to the exit.

Public Transportation

• By train. The train to and from KNO is managed by Airport Railink Services (ARS), which is the pioneer of direct rail link from the airport to the main city and vice versa. Some information about the direct rail link:
  • Besar Merdeka Train Station is located on Jalan Stasiun Kereta Api.
  • The train travels 26 round trips a day to and from KNO.
  • The train can accommodate up to 172 passengers per trip.
  • The train is fully air-conditioned and equipped with spacious cabins, reclining seats, luggage compartments and Wi-Fi.
  • Passengers may make ticket reservation at the train station from 7 days to 1 day prior to departure date.
  • Passengers with domestic flights are to depart Besar Merdeka Train Station for KNO at least 2 hours prior to the departure time of the flight. Passengers with international flights are to depart at least 3 hours prior to the departure time of the flight.
  • If you need to change the train ticket to another departure time, you can do so latest by 3 hours prior to the departure time stated on the train ticket, with an administration fee of 25% of the ticket fare.
  • Cancellation can only be done latest by 3 hours prior to the departure time stated on the train ticket, with an administration fee of 50% of the ticket fare.
  • Passengers aged 3 years and over are to purchase 1 ticket.
  • Should you need further information, you may contact ARS at +62 21 3502963 or info@railink.co.id
  • The train schedule below is for your reference only. You ought to to check the updated schedule here nearer to date.

Adapted from http://railink.co.id/

• By public bus (DAMRI). You’re advised to leave early during peak hours, i.e. 7 am – 9 am and 5 pm – 7 pm, to ensure that you reach the airport on time.
• By taxi. You may read some info on guest information tab.

Personally, we won’t recommend you to take the public bus. Instead, we’d suggest commuting from and to KNO by car or taxi. Well actually, the new rail link sounds very promising as well, but as of now we can’t say anything about it as neither both of us nor our family members have tried it so far. We’ll definitely give you a heads-up about it when we have a chance to give it a try. Meanwhile, to give you a better idea about some of the locations mentioned above in relation to the reception venues, click on the map below.

Source: https://maps.google.com/

Floor Plans

Phew! Don’t you feel information-overloaded? I do, but we really hope you’ll find this piece of information-packed post useful, too :) Have a safe and pleasant trip to Medan this October! ;)

P.S. The pictorial information in this post is taken from an information booklet courtesy of AirAsia Indonesia.

What’s your colour?

Some tips to get you started on choosing your wedding colours:

• Follow your intuition. Close your eyes, and note the first few colours that come to your mind. Do it with your partner and find out if you think of the same colours! :)
• Colour your wedding theme. If you have a strong idea about a wedding style/theme you want to have, work from there. Choose colours which represent that particular wedding theme, e.g. nautical with navy blue-red-white, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” with robin-egg blue, etc.
• Match your venue. If you know where your wedding is going to be held, you may include colours in and around the venue and combine it with complementing colours. For example, a reception at the garden will be associated with green, which may be combined with tangerine and yellow to give a feel of a tropical garden. If your venue is indoor, check the colours of the default linens provided, e.g. tablecloth, chair covers, chair sash, napkins, menu covers, etc. Choosing colours that complement the default colours allows you to take full advantage of what your venue provides and cut some cost.
• Seize the festivities. If your wedding day falls on or around a special holiday or festival, you may choose to embrace it and translate it into your wedding colours, e.g. red and green in the spirit of Christmas, pink and white for the love of Valentine’s day, etc.
• Relive the memories. Browse old or recent photos together, talk about memorable moments and important milestones throughout your courtship, or simply stare blankly at a wall and lose yourself in nostalgia. Capture those moments and assign colours to the corresponding elements. For instance, if the first bouquet of flowers you received from your fiancé was sunflowers, you may have yellow, green and brown as your wedding colours. Speaking from personal experience, our wedding colours are inspired by the beach at sunset where David and I got engaged almost a year ago.
• Have fun. Why not show off your hobby in your wedding? If both of you enjoy water sports or surfing and love the ocean, you may choose shades of blue and white as your wedding colours – after all isn’t ombré an in thing? Or, if you both are avid fans of Manchester United, you may gloriously go all red, yellow and white.
• Start somewhere. It may be as simple as your favourite colours.
• See yourself. Choose colours that go along with your personality.  As much as we wanted to have a nautical theme, we couldn’t go ahead with red, navy blue and white because bold and playful are not something we can pull off everyday. Likewise, if you’ve never liked fuchsia, don’t agree to it no matter what great ideas your decor vendor tell you about that colour. Actually, they may probably persuade you because they have plenty of fuchsia fabric to clear off their warehouse.
• Have options. It’s true that it’s hard to please everybody, but finding a middle ground is definitely something we all can do. Having a couple of options will be useful so you and other decision makers may choose the ones that everyone agrees with.
• Get cultural. Colours represent different meanings in different cultures. Be aware of what colours to avoid in your culture, e.g. black, dark blue, and white signify mourning in Chinese culture, while green represents bad luck in Celtic culture.
• Get personal. Choose colours that tell your story, speak your personality, or are your favourites – anything about the both of you. Because your marriage is forever, trend comes and go. I wouldn’t think going all yellow and blue just because minions are so popular now is a good idea, no matter how many minion toys you own. Similarly, if you hate emerald green, don’t force yourself to it just because it’s the colour of the year.
• Flexibility is key. You have your wedding colours chosen, but things may change. Tolerate minor difference in colours when you move forward with your wedding planning. Know that you can’t have everything in your wedding colours. After all, you do not want to overdo it and make your wedding look boring, do you? Yes, having a wedding colour theme holds your wedding together and helps you make a lot of decisions, e.g. the colour of bridesmaids’ dresses, groomsmen’s bow-ties, etc., but the appearance of other colours here and there is what makes it colourful.
• Common colour. If you have more than one event to plan, choose different colour themes for different events, but have a common colour to hold them together. An example of this is that we have peach-and-cream for the bride’s reception and peach-and-blue for the groom’s reception. The common colour gives room for flexibility and allows us to share a lot of things for both events, e.g. invitation cards, decoration items, photo-shoot wardrobe, etc.
• Be inspired. If you’re reading this blog, you must have understood very well the power of Internet. Run a Google search with the right keywords and you’ll be amazed of what you may get out of it. If you aren’t already on Pinterest, it’s time for you to create an account. Personally, I don’t see it as another social media platform. In fact, I solely use it to exploit wedding inspirations. Where do you think I got those colour mood-boards from? Well, this platform efficiently directs you to websites and blogs you never know they exist, which match your interest. After all, they don’t call it Pinterest for nothing. And the beauty of Pinterest is that you can keep things private by making use of the secret boards to pin your wedding ideas.

Some recommended websites with wedding colour mood-boards for your browsing pleasure:

• www.weddingsillustrated.net
• www.revel-blog.com
• www.bridalmusings.com
• www.fabmood.com
• www.theperfectpalette.com
• www.onefabday.com
• www.weddingsbylilly.com
• www.heartloveweddings.com
• www.flyawaybride.com
• www.marthastewartweddings.com
• www.weheartit.com
• www.theknot.com
• www.onewed.com

So, what’s your colour? I’d love to hear what your wedding colours were or will be like ;)

Peach and Cream

As soon as we picked the colour theme for the groom’s reception, we decided one for the bride’s reception, too. A little bit about the bride’s reception before I dive into colours again. In Hokkien tradition, the bride’s reception is considered as a pre-wedding reception (lau tia) hosted by the bride’s parents to tell the family and friends about the happy news that their daughter is getting married. However in our case, it’s not that straight forward because we are having our solemnisation in the morning of the same day of the bride’s dinner reception. Technically speaking, we will have been legally married by the time we march in to the ballroom for the bride’s reception. I don’t prefer referring the bride’s reception as an engagement party or a pre-wedding reception because it is essentially a wedding reception, as it is with the groom’s reception. Well, we actually wanted to have a combined reception, but due to limited venue options (will blog about this next!), our parents decided to have 2 receptions. Despite the double planning, we feel honoured and blessed to be able to celebrate and share the joy of our marriage twice! :))

Traditionally, the bride’s reception is a lot smaller than the actual wedding reception, i.e. the groom’s reception. Due to this nature, the groom’s reception tend to be grander and more extensive in many aspects. We think it makes sense to start subtle and simple and finish off with something more sophisticated, after all having a climax is always better than an anti-climax. This affects how we approach the 2 receptions.

As for the colour theme, I wanted to have a common colour across the 2 receptions. This is a no-brainer, really. A common colour will portray the bigger picture of the 2 receptions and embrace them as a whole. It’s like the linking bridge between the two to let both themes flow seamlessly and harmoniously. Well, although the 2 themes will inevitably be different, the change won’t be too abrupt. Same same, but different! Also, having a common colour is the way to go when it comes to anything shared between the 2 events, such as stationery design and photo shoot concept. It’s more economical as well, as it allows flexibility to reuse items from one event to another. Therefore, since we decided to have a subtler colour theme for the bride’s reception, we picked the more neutral of the two. So yes, peach is the common colour!

Looking back to our original inspiration, i.e. the beach at sunset, we covered the sunset sky (peach) and the sea (blue), so we were left with a colour to represent the sand. And needless to say, neutral is the way forward.

I felt some heavier neutral colours like beige, bronze and latte were a tad too dark, so I opted for something brighter and slightly more yellowish like cream to lighten up the subtle colour theme.

Source: http://www.revel-blog.com/

I adore how peach goes perfectly well with cream. The blend looks delicately romantic, fresh and modern.

Source: http://onefabday.com/

Well, I seriously think that peach is the new pink as far as romantic colour is concerned. Peach and cream look so sweet together I want to eat them!

With that, peach and cream make up the colour scheme for the bride’s reception. While the groom’s reception will have a touch of nautical/beach elements, there won’t be any particular theme for the bride’s reception. We’ll simply do classic in a modern way :)

Peach and Light Blue

Peach and light blue had never been our favourite colours until we picked them as our wedding colours in the early stage of our wedding planning. Well, they still aren’t David’s favourite colours, but for me, it’s very hard not to fall in love with this pastel combo. How can I not adore them when every single day I dream, think, and plan in these colours? It’s nearly like an obsession! If my brain had a default colour theme, it would undoubtedly be peach-and-blue. When I walk into a fashion store for instance, my eyes will automatically scan for peach-and-blue items and nonchalantly disregard the rest. Sometimes, I see and think so much of the colour combo that my brain can’t differentiate if a dress is pink or peach or orange, and if a bangle is turquoise or light blue or mint green. It made me wonder whether too many colours would actually turn people colour blind.

So anyway, I must say that I’m very, very glad that we’ve found what we think is the perfect colour theme for our big day despite a brief ‘colourless’ phase at the start of it all. The good thing was that we had a clear direction on our wedding monogram early in the planning process, which was exactly where I started my brainstorming about our wedding colours from. The monogram looks like a sail, so quite naturally, the colours navy blue, white and red popped up in my mind.

Source: http://www.weddingsillustrated.net/

I looked at the colour inspiration board and realised that this colour combo was very bold and playful – something that I wasn’t sure we were ready for. I mean, David and I are not always the serious type, but I don’t think a playful wedding is what we want. Besides, it seems like it would take a full-fledged decoration dedicated to all things nautical to pull off this colour theme successfully. Well, this would be great if David was – ahem – a sailor, or if both of us were sailing enthusiasts, of if he proposed on a yacht or something like that. But let’s just face it – the closest thing we’ve ever got to being nautical is taking a ferry to Batam and that’s that. Ha!

So, I scraped that and decided to remove one colour from the combo to tone down the colour scheme a bit. Red and white would be a little too patriotic as it is very Independence Day-like, so I settled with navy blue and white instead. I visualised navy blue and white would look quite elegant, yet still maintain the nautical element.

Source: http://www.fabmood.com/

I loved how it was much simpler and classier than the previous colour scheme. My brain went wild for I just couldn’t stop daydreaming about every little detail of our wedding in navy blue and white. The more I thought about it the more I loved it. And bam! A big ball of reality hit my head squarely and told me there wasn’t a chance for the wedding to be in those colours.

We were still very green about this wedding planning stuff, and it hadn’t occurred to me that we needed to get the folks’ approval for every decision we made about the wedding even though it was obviously our wedding. Surely, I wasn’t very pleased. And when the colours navy blue and white got double rejections, I was like a bear with a sore head.  Allow me to sidetrack to cultural norms here. Apparently in Chinese customs, the colour blue, especially dark blue, is often associated with black, which signifies mourning and is used on sad occasions. And what about white? It’s worse – it’s like the official colour for mourning. With that, the navy blue and white got stricken off without question. The folks must have thought I was nuts to choose propose such depressing colours for a very joyful occasion! Though I was still a little disappointed, I tried to understand and see things from a different perspective. Just when I needed it, a graphic designer friend of mine told me something that opened up my mind. He said something along this line, “Sometimes, I can’t design according to my idealism, but that doesn’t border my creativity. I try to connect what I like with what my clients like, and reason it out.” It totally gave me a new direction in approaching the wedding colours and many other aspects of the wedding. Thank you, Romi! :) By the way, just as I was typing the quote, I got a Facebook notification from him! What a coincidence, eh?! As if he knew I was mentioning him, ha!

Anyway, it got pretty colourless for a while until that one lazy afternoon I found myself looking back at the photos we took in Tanjong Beach on the evening we got engaged. It dawned on me that the colours of the beach at sunset could be just the perfect colours for our wedding. It’d be cool to be able to relive that special moment all over again. Aside from that, come to think of it, we’ve shared a lot of memorable moments on the beach that it’s become one of our favourite places.  Personally, I love everything about the beach – the infinite horizon, the waves, the breeze, the sand, the sun and the sky. And if things were different (if you know what I mean), I’d kill for a beach wedding! Oh well, since I can’t have my dream beach wedding, transferring the colours of the beach into a ballroom will have to do.

As for the colours, I thought of shades of beige, light blue and orange, which of course, were inspired by the sand, the sea and the sunset sky respectively. By now, you should’ve known what I was up to: multiple tabs of Google search on my laptop screen and endless stream of Pinterest pictures on my iPad.

Those are some of the inspiration boards of beach wedding colours that I picked from various sources. The colours range from orange, tangerine, coral and peach to blue, turquoise, teal and mint. There were just too many colours to choose from! However, I knew that coral and turquoise were out because my skin seemed to be a tone darker in them. Next, after a couple of – literally speaking – colourful hours staring at various colours combinations, I fell in love with peach and light blue combo.

Source: http://www.revel-blog.com/

I love how the colours complement each other beautifully. The softness of peach carries just the right amount of romantic feeling that is not overly sweet but still feminine, while the lightness of blue brings out refreshing and soothing effects.

Source: http://bridalmusings.com/

We also think this pastel colour scheme is neither too girly nor too playful, and it’s quite laid-back yet still elegant for a wedding colour theme. Besides, it’s definitely on the safe zone as far as the approval is concerned ;)

The good news was that we got a green light for these colours. But what’s better is the realisation that we could still incorporate the nautical elements even with this colour theme, simply because nautical and beach weddings absolutely relate to each other. So we get to play around with anchors and wheels without being too bold and playful, and at the same time apply the colours that are not only acceptable and lovely, but also hold special meanings to us :))

Source: http://ericcahan.com/

We can’t wait to see how it’s all coming together on the 6th of October!! I feel so excited about wrapping up the decoration very soon. In fact, we just met our decor vendor yesterday to settle the details of the decoration. Felt so relieved to know that it’s in good hands :)

I’ll have another (shorter) post to discuss about the colour theme for the bride’s reception, and will also post some tips to choose a wedding colour theme. Stay tune! Meanwhile, if you have any decoration ideas for indoor nautical/beach theme weddings, we’d love to know :) Ahoy, mates! ;p

Sailboat of Ours – Finally!

After the second draft, we couldn’t wait to get the sailboat logo properly designed. Fortunately, in early April, we set an appointment with an invitation vendor. Our first meeting was like love at the first sight. We told the lady who’s doing our invite about our wedding theme and colour palette, showed her the second draft of our logo, and discussed the design of our wedding invitation. And bless her, she simply got it right :) And bless our wedding cake vendor, too, for recommending her to us.

Amazingly, it only took us 2 rounds of revision to arrive at the final logo design. Yay! I mean, I recalled my past work experience as a client to several branding consultants, and I could barely keep track of the number of revisions we had to go through. I guess, knowing what you want or at least having an idea of  it really speeds things up. So, after a month of waiting, she came up with 3 variants of the logo. And with that, we officially moved from pencil-and-paper to digital era, ha!

We fell in love with the sailboat right away. The sail is truly ‘AD’ at its best! She’s transformed sketch no. 7 to a sailboat that is not only proportional, but also charming and elegant. Love, love, love how the watercolour brush strokes turn out! The wave accent is also a sweet addition to the sailboat. However, she told us that putting our names on the sailboat would look rough and abrupt due to the limited space, and would spoil the trim look of the sailboat. We agreed. So we took up her idea of adding a ribbon-styled banner with our names on it below the sailboat. That’s right, we chose the one on the left, but with the following revisions:

• We didn’t like the font with handwriting style for our names, so we asked her to change it to a more minimalist block font.
• Since we have 2 dates (4 October and 6 October, if you don’t already know :b), it would make things simpler to exclude the date from our logo.
• We wanted the logo to be uncluttered, so we didn’t fancy the addition of any other form of typography but our names. We asked her to omit ‘the marriage of’.
• Although we thought the semi circle around the sailboat was rather pointless, it did remind me of something. If there was one thing I learnt from the past branding projects I handled, it would be the following. When a brand logo has several parts to it, it is better to have a confining outer shape that holds the loose parts of the logo together. This is to allow consumers to naturally focus their attention on the logo as a whole, as a big picture, not just the typography or the shape. As a result, the message that the brand aims to communicate to consumers do not get truncated by the different elements of the logo. The consumers will be more likely to connect emotionally to the logo as a whole, which will increase the brand recognition and the brand recall. Okay, enough of branding stuff. So anyway, since we’ve got the sailboat, the wave and now the ribbon with our names on it, I wanted to have a confining outer shape that holds all of them together. I thought a full circle would be nice. Plus, it could look like a port hole, which would definitely complement the nautical look.
• The colours were partly correct. The light blue was what we wanted, but the peach looked way too pink to our liking. Also, we decided to have our names in cream instead of white. Peach, light blue and cream are our wedding colours, with peach as a common colour across the 2 wedding receptions. I’m absolutely going to dedicate one whole post to talk about the wedding colours in great details soon!

And for sure, we were so excited when we received the revised logo :D

When we saw it, we knew we were almost there! The peach colour is so much better and we like the new font. The circle does contain the logo elements perfectly even though the port hole idea didn’t really make it to the design. I got the idea of the circle from the nautical spread featured in ‘Her World – BRIDES’ magazine which is by the way, the one and only bridal magazine I’ve had so far. Anyway, I reckoned the banner would capture most of the attention since it is in the only part with solid colour, as shown in the logo on the left. So I guess it’s kind of a reversed psychology to make our initials (the sail) stand out instead. I realised the only thing which would highlight our initials was not the lack of colour on the rest of the logo, but the opposite. So we chose the logo on the right, with a couple of final touches. I requested for our names to be bold and the circle to be in peach-blue instead of white-blue. And with that, we’ve finally come to our final wedding logo that we love so, so much! :))

Quite a journey, isn’t it? :) I know it might be silly to give so much thought and go through all of these just for a wedding monogram/logo, but I don’t know, for me it feels incredibly rewarding and meaningful. I think every bride-t0-be focuses on different element of a wedding. Some insist on wearing only designer wedding dress, some travel half around the world for their pre-wedding photos, but some other like me  simply cares a little too much on the design aspect of the wedding. To be honest, it sometimes feels like doing a real branding project! Well perhaps, I’m influenced by my previous work to a certain extent, and without me realising, I’ve taken up this whole wedding project as I did those branding ones. At some point, I felt that I was overdoing and over-thinking it, but well, it’s comforting to know that there is indeed such a thing called wedding brand! And ours, it happens to be a sailboat :)

Sailboat of Ours – Revisited

We had been pretty happy with our sail monogram until about 3 months ago. I looked at it again and pictured it to be on our wedding invitations and other stationery. Bleah. There’s no way it would look nice thanks to its rigidness. Though we still liked it, we had to admit that it wasn’t suitable to be applied to wedding stationery. We knew we  needed to get rid of its rigidness and gave it a softer look. I sat down, pencil poised above my note book, and my eyes fixated on the sail monogram. These were what I came out with after an hour – much better, eh? ;)

For the second draft as shown above, I replaced all the straight lines with the softer curves wherever possible. I also made an important decision to include the boat with our names on it. I was aware that our initials were not that apparent, as they were meant to look like a sail. However, I wanted people to know that it wasn’t just some random sailboat appearing on our invitations, so putting our names on the boat would hopefully serve the purpose. My idea was to have the first letter of our names look exactly like the initial itself, as to give the initials a subtle emphasis. I drew an anchor between our names to complement the nautical feel of the design. I also gave the ‘D’ part of the sail a doubled line at the bottom to connect it with the ‘A’ part, which also made the whole look more balanced and rather unique. After drawing one revision, I simply couldn’t stop! Possibilities were aplenty, so I came up with 8 (slightly) different versions. It was a very satisfying feeling, I must say ;)

David complimented and loved all of the designs, but his favourites were design no. 1 and no. 3. And then, the elimination process began. I asked a number of  relatives and close friends to vote, and also sought opinions from a few graphic designer friends of mine. The top 3 designs were no. 3, followed by no. 7 and no. 4. Quite a perfectionist that I am, I knew there was a lot more refining to be done. I wanted the boat to be more subtle, slightly abstract, so that the sail (the initials) stands out more. But oh well, my creative juice seemed to dry out. In times like these, naturally I consulted my two powerful sources of inspiration: Google and Pinterest. Oh yes, together they do wonder! I was inspired by these images shamelessly stolen from the aforementioned sources.

I thought the watercolour brush strokes would look really good on our sailboat logo. I really liked the fact that the brush strokes have different thickness which would make the logo look dynamic. Also, both the gaps and overlaps between those strokes kind of oozed out an abstract feel. I also thought incorporating some wave accent below the boat was a great idea. And look at that, an anchor superimposed with a rope shaped like an ampersand – isn’t it genius?! Ahh, how I wished I had been a graphic designer so that I could quickly launch Photoshop or Illustrator and do some magic to our logo! But of course, I could only wait, as the digital magic got delayed till later.

Sailboat of Ours – The First Draft

No, we didn’t buy any sailboat – in fact, we’re clueless about sailing – nor are we dreaming about having our wedding on a boat. This is about another kind of sailboat that somehow makes it to our wedding.

There were those times before we got engaged when I daydreamed of getting married to the man. It was pretty silly and embarrassing but I just couldn’t help it! I guess my heart was trying to tell my brain that I was ready. Well, the first thing that I thought about after the wedding dress was our initials.

I wrote our names in a piece of paper and played around with the letters. I would stare at that piece of paper while squeezing my brain for whatever creative juice it got. You know, I’ve never liked those wedding monograms made by cursive initials. I wanted to design something clean, clever and meaningful out of our initials – ‘A’ and ‘D’. It was quite a challenge combining the two letters because the letter ‘A’ is slanted on both sides, while the letter ‘D’ is straight on one side and curved on the other. I scribbled a lot of variations of  ‘A’ and ‘D’ in block letters and tried to find ways to combine the two to make an aesthetically pleasing monogram. I’m not a designer, and you’ve guessed it, I came out with nothing. Nonetheless, it was through this process DAVIDANGITA was first coined and we liked it a lot :)

The quest for our monogram resumed rather unexpectedly. The company I was working for won a tender for an F&B establishment located at a yacht club, and I was part of the branding team for that new restaurant. I was doing my desktop research about yacht clubs, and anything nautical or maritime-related when I chanced upon a simple sketch of a sailboat. I proposed to cut out the back of the wooden dining chairs according to that sketch to accentuate the nautical theme of the restaurant. I was observing the shape of the sailboat cutout when it dawned on me that the sail somewhat looked like an ‘A’ and a ‘D’!

So I grabbed a piece of scrap paper and started drawing. I am not a very artistic person, and my first draft was probably what you could find in geometry textbooks, ha! It was very rigid and symmetrical, almost boring. But I didn’t really mind that. I was contented enough that I managed to combine the two letters. It was obviously simple and clean. I think it was clever in a way that overall it looked like a sail, but it was actually our initials, too. Besides, a sail is a crucial part of a boat, and a boat is often used as a metaphor to talk about life, relationship, and love. So I guess, after more than 6 years of building the boat, we finally got the sail up and stand strong. Isn’t that quite meaningful? ;) Anyway, here’s the sketch of the first draft of our monogram. Pardon the low quality of the photo – it was taken using the notoriously lousy blackberry camera.

We were still not sure if we wanted to include the boat in the monogram, so it was still a sail, not yet a sailboat. Actually, right before David proposed, he drew the sail on the sand of the beach where we got engaged :) A few months later, I even got my engagement ring and his engagement key-ring engraved with the sail monogram :)) The engraving on my engagement ring turned out to be so fine and tiny that you’ll need to view it at a particular angle and bulge your eyes to spot it. I don’t regret it though, even after we scrap that sail monogram, and move on to the second draft and more.

Solemnisation Check-list

Here’s our own check-list to plan for a wedding solemnisation:

1. Venue. Choose several venues to consider, and decide on the one that is most suitable. We considered 2 temples, one is a Theravada temple and another one is a Buddhayana temple. Due to stricter rules of the Theravada temple, we decided to have it at the Buddhayana temple.  Besides, both of us took refuge in the Triple Gem there, so we feel that it has more meanings to us :) The location is also much nearer to the city centre.
2. Duration. Check  how long the ceremony takes. A typical Buddhist wedding ceremony usually lasts for an hour.
3. Officiant. Check if the officiant is provided or you have to engage one on your own. A Buddhist wedding ceremony is usually performed by a layperson who is known as Upasaka (a.k.a. Romo). Our officiant is a Romo representing the temple.
4. Offerings. Check what kind of offerings are required if any. Find out if those offerings are provided for or you have to prepare them on your own. Offerings made in a Buddhist wedding ceremony are flowers, water, incense, and candles. The temple will prepare these offerings for us.
5. Marriage Certificate. Check if the marriage certificate can be arranged and prepared by the officiant/organisation or you have to make a separate arrangement with the civil registry office. It’s good that we will sign our marriage certificate during the solemnisation.
6. Decoration. Check if decoration is provided or allowed. Find out if fresh flowers are allowed for decoration purposes.  The temple allows us to decorate the hall as long as the tear-down is done immediately after the ceremony ends. However, decoration using fresh flowers is not allowed.  We will do a simple decoration, and it’s very kind of my mum to offer to take care of it :) She’s going to borrow some decoration stuff from her friend who is very experienced in decorating the halls in temples.
7. Capacity. Check how many people the hall can accommodate. Find out how many rows there are and how many people can fit in a row.
8. Air-conditioning. Check if there are air-conditioning units available. And that’s a yes for our case ;)
9. Furniture. Check if chairs are provided or allowed. Some stricter Theravada temples do not allow the couple and the guests to sit on chairs during the ceremony, as it is considered being disrespectful to be of higher level from the ground than the monks. We’re thankful that the temple provides chairs for both of us, our parents, and some elderly guests. Other guests will sit on the cushions provided on the floor as per normal practice in the temple.
10. Dress Code. Check if there is any dress code to be observed for both the couple and the guests. The temple doesn’t require any particular dress code, but I will want to wear a bolero over my wedding dress. We would also like to encourage guests to dress modestly. Furthermore, as guests will be seated on the cushions on the floor, we would like to remind female guests to take this into consideration in the choice of dressing. Other common practice in the temple also applies, i.e. any footwear has to be taken off prior to entering the hall.
11. Sound system. Check if sound system is provided. Find out if you can have someone playing an instrument. The temple provides microphones, CD player and speakers. However, we would also like to have at least a keyboard for my brother or my cousin to play as we walk down the aisle and during other ceremonial rituals, but the temple has not given us any confirmation on that yet.
12. Rehearsal. Check if there is any rehearsal prior to the D day. It’s too bad that the temple doesn’t conduct rehearsals. We need to practice the sutta recital ourselves and brief everyone involved nearer to the date.
13. Photography & Videography. Check if photography and videography are allowed. We will absolutely have our photographers and videographer ready to capture the solemnisation ;)
14. Helpers. Check if you need to assign any ceremony-specific tasks to your families and friends. The temple requires us to appoint 4 people to carry the offerings – 2 for the flowers, 1 for water, and 1 for incense. Two of my Buddhist bridesmaids will carry the flowers, and David has yet to decide on anyone for the other 2 offerings. Both of our parents will carry the candles. The signing of marriage certificate requires 2 witnesses who are married, one from the groom’s side and one from the bride’s side. I will have my closest uncle as my witness, and David will have one of her elder sisters as his.
15. Attendance Requirement. Check if there is any requirement to attend a number of services held prior to the D day. Find out if there is any pre-marital classes/programmes that you have to undertake prior to the solemnisation. The temple doesn’t require couples to attend their services regularly in order to hold their wedding ceremonies there, but we will make it a point to be more active in the temple.
16. Refreshment. Check if refreshment is catered for or allowed. Find out if there is any restriction on meal types. The temple allows us to cater meals for our guests as long as they are vegetarian meals. Since the solmenisation ends at 10 am, we will provide light vegetarian refreshment for the guests.
17. Parking. Check on the parking capacity in and around the venue. The temple has limited parking capacity, but parking is allowed alongside the road where the temple is located.
18. Fees. Check what are the fees charged. The temple charges a very reasonable sum of money which presumably covers administration fees, cost for offerings, token of appreciation for the officiant, and other cost incurred by the temple for the solemnisation.

That’s pretty much it. Have a good Sunday!

Marriage and Buddhism

During the journey of our wedding planning, we came to realise that a marriage can be recognised in 3 ways, i.e. by law, by culture, and by religion. In Indonesia, the law states that a couple must share the same religion to get married. It’s ridiculous, but that’s how it is. No wonder many couples with different religions opt to register their marriage in other neighbouring countries, or pay someone under the table to get the legal side of their marriage settled. Well, both of us are Buddhists, so it’s not a problem at all. In fact, we had decided to have a proper Buddhist wedding ceremony at a Buddhist temple even before we got to know about the law. For simplicity, let’s refer Buddhist wedding ceremony as solemnisation, as not to be confused with cultural wedding ceremony (i.e. tea ceremony) which is often called the wedding ceremony.

To gather more information about Buddhism and marriage, we did some desktop research, borrowed some books from the Buddhist library, and visited a few temples. We’d been wondering why Buddhist wedding ceremonies are not as well-established and as common as wedding ceremonies of other religions. In his book ‘A Happy Married Life‘, the late Ven. K. Sri. Dhammananda wrote, “Buddhism does not regard marriage as a religious duty nor as a sacrament that is ordained in heaven”. In other words, Buddhism does not consider marriage to be a sacred ceremony, but a secular affair. But don’t get this wrong, it doesn’t mean that Buddhism is against marriage. It’s just that it is considered a social rather than a religious occasion. Therefore, there is no particular set of  format of how a Buddhist wedding ceremony should be carried out, and thus it is usually influenced by the customs of the country in which it is taking place.

We decided to have our solemnisation in Theravada tradition because that’s what we’re most familiar with – we know most of the Pali chanting by heart. Since marriage is not a religious duty in Buddhism, Buddhist monks do not perform solemnisation. Instead, the officiant of the ceremony is an Upasaka, which is also called Romo in Indonesia. In local Theravada ceremony, the officiant leads the couple to recite some suttas in Pali and facilitates the wedding vows. The solemnisation also includes making symbolic offerings, exchanging of wedding bands, receiving blessing from the monk, and signing of the marriage certificate.

It was pretty challenging at first to plan for the solemnisation due to our lack of information. The paperwork requirement could also get pretty confusing at times, as it is combined with the requirement for the marriage certificate. We’re The groom-to-be is still compiling all of the remaining documents at the moment (this is a reminder to you, David :p). Beside that, since the person in charge to arrange for the solemnisation is usually a volunteer at a temple, the liaison is unfortunately not as efficient as we’ve hoped for. However, despite all the hassle, we believe that it’s going to be worth it :)

If you are planning for a wedding solemnisation, do look out for our next few posts! We’re going to post a solemnisation check-list for your (future) reference.  Meanwhile, we’d like to wish all Buddhists a Happy Vesak Day!

DAVIDANGITA

Sorry, we’re late!

I didn’t expect to write the very first post of our wedding blog this late – 9 months after we got engaged! Even a baby would’ve been born, ha! Well, I could write a whole long list of excuses, but let’s just say I’ve been going through a lot of changes since our engagement. I packed all my stuff, left Singapore, and moved to Medan for good. I went through a reversed culture-shock, which was more shocking than I’d expected. I faced differences in everything, everyday, everywhere. The people, the language, the environment, the transportation, the safety. At home, at the gym, on the road. No routine, no job, no friend. I gave away the ‘in’ in my independent self, and I hated that.  And what’s pretty daunting was that for the first time in our relationship, it wasn’t just the two of us anymore.

If you know me, you’ll know I’m not exactly the most flexible person. All of those changes, boy, did they stress me up. I got irritated, I complained, I got angry, I cried, and the cycle went on and on. I knew in my brain that I had to learn to accept, but my heart just wasn’t ready for that. So I let it ‘fight’ till accepting was the only thing to do. Luckily though, David has always been there for me through all of those changes, giving me his support, encouragement and advice, lending me his ears and shoulder, and showering me with love. He’s been my best friend, sometimes my only friend, my everything.

I was just starting into the ‘accepting’ phase when I flew to Australia for a short vocational study and many other good reasons. In retrospective, I’d say it was what people call a soul-searching trip. It did me so much goodness. Time spent away from home gave me a break and helped me see things from a different perspective. The course I took made me discover my passion, gave me a sense of purpose and achievement, and rebuilt my self-confidence. I went back home a better person. Not only that, the certification I earned from the course also landed me a part-time teaching job as soon as I was ready to be back to the workforce. I’d been teaching for about 2 months before I officially started teaching full-time 2 days ago. It’s quite an irony that I finally find time to write this blog only after I have a full-time job!

So anyway, that leaves us with less than 5 months to our wedding. Oh, the nerves! More posts on wedding planning coming soon!

DAVIDANGITA