CHANGE

I previously mentioned that I'll blog about the change in one of our wedding service providers.

Jeng. Jeng. Jeng.

Hahaha ok lah tak perlu nak dramalah, let's keep it simple and keep it quick ok - the service provider that we've decided to change isssss...











... our service provider for entertainment.

That's right. Entertainment. Which is supposed to be - that's right - Sri Mahligai.

Before you all pikir bukan-bukan, let me explain what happened and why we've decided to change Sri Mahligai to something else.

It all started at Sham and Aisyah's wedding earlier this month.

(Yes, guys. Ni semua korang punya pasal ok!!! Hahahahaha.)

My future parents-in-law, who went to Sham and Aisyah's afternoon reception, were very impressed by the wedding emcee that the latter engaged for their reception. They really liked his eloquence and his steadiness in addressing a wedding crowd, and they were especially pleased with his mindfulness towards prayer timings and informing guests on the location of prayer rooms.

Even my mat and the rest of his friends thought the wedding emcee in question was a good speaker and handled the wedding proceedings well. But part yang paling penting that really appealed to them was: He did not make merepek lame jokes or inappropriate comments like some other wedding emcees that we've seen and heard at other weddings! Sejuk~~~ jantung aku dengar (a'ah dia ada telinga, boleh eavesdrop.)

It can be really painful to look and listen at some wedding emcees ok! Very cringeworthy. Everytime a wedding emcee cracks a joke yang inappropriate or tak kelakar - on a booming microphone, no less - I never know whether to force a laugh or cry in shame or yelp in extreme pain. Kadang kadang macam nak tolong dorang dig a hole for them to hide in pun ada.

My mat and I were talking about Sham and Aisyah's wedding when we started considering the idea of dropping Sri Mahligai and engaging the said wedding emcee instead. Our original idea was to get Sri Mahligai to help make general announcements for the reception (Sri Mahligai can make general announcements for receptions, it's stated somewhere on their website) but after talking it through, the idea of having an actual dedicated wedding emcee seemed to be more appealing.

Plus, his parents were really super duper keen on this dude, and my parents were super duper cool with the idea so after a quick discussion listing the pros and cons, we decided to take the plunge and engage Zan Sofiyan from Medialite as our wedding deejay/emcee!

(Without a goddamn karaoke set for all the mabuk microphone hantus to abuse! Woohoo! Very pleased that we didn't have to go to any perang dunia ke-tiga for this because our parents share our sentiments! Ok fine, my mother would have preferred to include the karaoke set but she's an excellent team player who goes with the majority vote so the motion to not have karaoke set was carried unanimously.

Fuh. Dah macam Annual General Meeting seh, ada motion carried segala. Haha!)

What we considered before making the decision:

(1) Our contract with Sri Mahligai is for a 6-hour gig from 11am to 5pm at the price of $1,600.00. Our initial plan was to have Sri Mahligai play at our lunchreception and then engage a deejay/emcee (someone who will come with own equipment segala) for our dinner reception, which would have cost us an extra $500.00 to $800.00.

(I know some people rope in friends to help emcee dinner receptions but we didn't want to do that right from the start because we wouldn't want any one of our friends, especially a rapat one, to stress over or focus too much on his/her role as an emcee - we want all our friends to be able to enjoy the proceedings in peace and move around as they please.)

The Wedding Lunch + Dinner DJ Package from Medialite, on the other hand, costs $2000.00 for a 10-hour gig from 12pm to 10pm, which fits our lunch and dinner reception schedules perfectly.

This means that: 

(a) We don't have to susah payahkan diri to look for another deejay/emcee for our wedding dinner; 

(b) We only need to liaise with one service provider, instead of two separate ones; 

(c) The cost is more or less the same, with more convenience and better planning for us (instead of Sri Mahligai setting up in the morning then packing up in the afternoon to make way for the dinner emcee to set up, it will only be Medialite setting up the night before, and then packing up after the dinner reception is over. Quick, clean and fuss-free.)

(2) One of the things that we realized from helping or attending our friends' weddings is that having a good wedding deejay or emcee is something that is pretty important - sadly, this is something that is often overlooked by bakal pengantin, including us!

We used to only fuss over bridal and decor and catering, but surprisingly our wedding journey has shown us that having a good wedding deejay or emcee at your wedding makes a huge difference to your wedding reception - a good and trusted wedding deejay or emcee ensures that:

(a) your guests are properly welcomed and entertained and he/she knows when to announce for guests to come up to the dais for phototaking

(You'd think that this is perkara standard that all deejays/emcees will do but ho no no no, my friend, there are idiotic deejays/emcees out there who will stand around and play music with no initiative to usher/direct guests - this happened at my friend's wedding recently wherein the deejay had to be prompted a few times to announce that the pengantins are ready for photo-taking... and even then he didn't get a list of names from the pengantin's family or whatever - he just did a generic announcement over the music which did not even get the guests' attention or get the guests moving, and my friend didn't get to take pictures with a few key groups of friends);

(b) your event timing is taken care of and does not run off course for too far or too long due to unnecessary hegehness; and

(c) ensure that guests get clear directions as to who or where the mak bapak pengantin are, what is going to happen in the next five minutes, explain the proceedings to your guests who are not familiar with Malay wedding proceedings, stuff like that.

(One of the criteria that we had for a wedding emcee was for him or her to be able to speak comfortably in English. My mat told me that Zan Sofiyan's English is pretty lancar so that's a plus point for us!)

The downside to this whole thing is of course the forfeiture of our $100 deposit with Sri Mahligai, but the pros outweighs cons by berkilo-kilo so in the grand scheme of things, forfeiture of $100 is something that we can take. We might have been more reluctant to let go of the deposit if it was $500 or half of the contract price but it's not so... let go of Sri Mahligai, it is!

To think Sri Mahligai was one of the first few items that we booked for our wedding early tahun ni seh. (Don't judge ok, we did not plan to book entertainment that early, until we realized at the point of enquiry that Sri Mahligai was booked up until early 2014. Tak kelakar, geng.)

Both our mothers, my mat and I met Zan Sofiyan last week (our fathers wanted to come along but had other commitments) because he preferred to have parents around so he can get a feel of our family backgrounds and dynamics. The meeting went pretty well, I thought, different from what I expected but it was good nonetheless.

He was tersangatlah chatty hahaha (he's a deejay/presenter, of course he's chatty, geez) and was very serious and religious-centric when it came down to business, sampai at one point he must've have caught the mood of the discussion and he himself said "Ni dah macam marriage counselling eh" hahahahaha ah tau takpe eh bang. Even my future mother-in-law joked at the end of the session: "Rasa macam berbual dengan tok kadi!" Haha!

When my mat and I recapped the whole meeting over the phone that night, my first comment was: "Wah, at the start of the meeting, I ingatkan dia nak kasi khutbah or syarahan agama or something seh." Not that there's anything bad with this, of course! I must say you're better off with someone else if you're looking for a gila-gila wedding emcee though, because Zan Sofiyan is - in the words of my future mother-in-law - someone who is very... beradab. Which is something that both our parents like so it's a good match lor.

(Side note: This dude believes and is forever quoting “The wedding belongs to your parents and the marriage is yours” - a sentiment that I understand and can agree with to a certain extent, but I also feel that this is something that cannot be applied across the board. Judging from our tweet exchanges about this statement, my group of friends are pretty divided about it but we haven't had the time to fully debate the statement... TIME TO CATCH UP OVER DINNER AGAIN, GUYS! New topic to pertikaikan! Hur hur.)

It's a damn shame we can't have both Sri Mahligai and Medialite together at the same time for our reception. I still think Sri Mahligai is one of the best Malay traditional bands in the market and would love to have them perform at our wedding! Unfortunately, we think that $1600 (Sri Mahligai) + $2000 (Whole day emcee services) = $ 3600 for entertainment is a bit too excessive so it's one or the other.

Plus, we also have to bear in mind that having them both onsite would mean we would have to allocate more space for entertainment alone. Mana nak letak pelamin, mana nak letak dessert table, mana nak letak buffet tables, mana nak letak sound system, mana nak letak kerusi meja, mana nak letak kandang untuk letak and ikat kanak kanak budu yang suka lari lari tak tau diam...

We also considered having Sri Mahligai for our lunch reception and then Zan Sofiyan from Medialite for our dinner reception but that idea very cepat kena tanam di ladang gandum because it didn't make sense to top up $1380 for Zan Sofiyan to emcee our dinner reception for a mere 2 and a half hours.

If any of you happen to have the same wedding date as me and memang nak Sri Mahligai, cepat cepat cepat pergi place your deposit before the slot gets snapped up ok! (Note: FYI, Sri Mahligai's rates are no longer $1,600.00, but $1,800.00. Their price hike happened on 1 May this year.) 

So I guess this is it... Bye bye Sri Mahligai booking :(

I hope you'll go to another couple who deserves good music and entertainment at their wedding ok! (Nampak sah dah gila, berbual dengan a mother bloody booking hahaha)