Road to Wedding Day || Part 1 – Pre-Engagement Preparation
Since 7th June 2008, I have been engaged with my one and only fiancée and virtually out of the ‘market’. I never really imagine myself being soon-to-be-married guy but the fact is here I am enjoying every second of it. I mentioned in my past few post about setting up a section on my blog about my “Road to Wedding Day� preparations and this is it, the first post for the section.
In this 1st post I’ll share some of the photos captured from my phone. These photos are from pre-engagement day activities.
The journey begins after the day (or night) that we decided to take our relationship to the next level. After that beautiful moment which I shall keep between me and her, the planning kicks off. Setting dates is one of many tricky tasks that I have to go through. Suddenly I have like 1001 things to do!
WEDDING COURSE!
Amongst the first thing that we did was attending a mandatory marriage course organized by a certified organization. My fiancée and I along with our 2 friends attended the 2-day course in Zura’s Akademik. Sound very familiar? This is ‘the place’ where all celebrities, ministers, famous people go for wedding course. Why do they go there, I have no freakin idea, probably word of mouth? Why did I go there? Simply because it has available slots and it’s reasonably priced. I could not care less about those famous people 
It turned out to be a cool course anyway. Very beneficial and I learned a lot of theory stuff of being a husband and a father (typing that out still scares me!). Anyway the place is well-equipped and comfortable despite being housed in an old building in Bangsar.
It even has a mock setup of a wedding ceremony.
And various checklists for different states that have different procedures. This I find very helpful. Tried to look at other states’ procedures (just in case) before I get caught by my fiancée which made me stick to Johor 
The less-positive thing about Zura’s Akademik is how they keep pushing for ‘other services’ such as insurances, photography services, and wedding cards during the breaks. It is nothing wrong but after a while it is repetitive and rather annoying. Also they have this notice board with all the photographs of famous people attending the wedding course at Zuras Akademik. Many caught my attention.
But this one tops it all.
If you haven’t heard of her, she’s one famous actress.
MEET THE PARENTS
One of the first things that I did was bringing my parents to meet my fiancée’s family. It was an impromptu trip to Johor as I just came back from 5-day trip to Singapore. Although it is not a mandatory thing and our families have met before a couple of times, it is still nice to have a courtesy visit prior to engagement day.
Edy accompanied me while the ‘adults’ were discussing on the engagement.
Fortunately it went smoothly and both our parents agreed for us to get engaged. At that time I was one happy but tired dude!
THE ENGAGEMENT RING
Unlike westerners who propose on their knees with a diamond ring in hand, a Malay guy is supposed to follow the Malay culture, hence diamond ring can only be given during engagement ceremony (not when being proposed).
After some comprehensive market study (yeah rite!), I decided to go for a simple yet nice ring from Habib Jewels. Conveniently I know one of the people there so bargaining and selecting was not an issue.
We had fun choosing…
…and negotiating…..
….the only not-so-fun part is this part…$$$$ there goes half of my monthly salary hehe
But it is worth every single cent
On the next post, I’ll share some photos of the ‘fun of shopping’ for my engagement day.
