gendang si gendrum

Ok so which one of you buggers did not get engaged or married on 10/11/12???

Hahahahaha kecoh pe Facebook, Twitter and Instagram aku jadinya, everywhere flooded with pictures of engagements and weddings and congratulatory messages for even more engagements and weddings! Congratulations to all 158 Malay-Muslim couples who got married last weekend!

Unsurprisingly, my mat and I had weddings of our good friends to attend, so off to Bedok and Clementi we went last weekend! Ok, I must explain here that I've never really followed my mat to any of his friends-related events like dinner gatherings, housewarming parties, birthday celebrations, weddings, stuff like that - I'm usually busy with my own events or feeling extra bloated or extra pemalu hahahahaha so I almost never make an appearance at his friends' events. Sampai to the point that they actually asked him before whether he really has a girlfriend, whether I actually do exist and jokingly speculated that he must have "an imaginary girlfriend".

SO TAK BAIK YOU ALL.

So when my mat asked whether I wanted to accompany him to his good friend Shahrizat's wedding in Clementi last weekend, naturally I flat out refused and used the excuse that I wanted to stay on at my good friend Sheikh's wedding in Bedok. He quietly grumbled about how we're already engaged and I'm still not open to meeting his friends but knew better than to nag about it.

He must be in luck that day, though - I don't usually change my position no matter how crestfallen he looks, but I was positively buzzing from all the happy wedding vibes and he looked extra adorable quietly grumbling and pujuking his disappointed self that day that I decided oh what the heck, let's go rentas to Clementi together. Anyway, no harm lah, right? Clementi je, ape. Cuma kena bawak passport je.

In the end I was very glad I had that tergerak hati moment to follow him that day because I was "rewarded" in two ways! Firstly, I found out that the caterers for his friend's wedding was Haji Abu Catering when I went to the buffet line! Been wanting to taste their food since berkurun lamanye because I keep hearing good reviews, so it was nice to finally try their food myself.

Hahahahaha yes as you can see, I had to seize the opportunity and tried the usual nasi minyak with sambal goreng pengantin, ayam masak merah and rendang and the mee soto and the gado-gado. His friends must've thought I was such a gelojoh perakus hahaha what what, this is the giveaway signs of an enthusiastic bride-to-be lah ok. Musttt try everything at the wedding baru muai!

[Personal opinion: Have tasted better food from other caterers - and the daging rendang was keras ke-batu! - but I usually forgive if one or two out of so many dishes fall short of expectation because things can't be perfect all the time sooooo overall, the food tasted pretty good and I liked their neat and clean presentation - almost similar, if not the same, as Maria's Le Caterer's presentation. Just the right amount of variety in terms of food (Personally liked their gado-gado sauce! Thick and spicy, yum yum), servers behind food counters were attentive, kendarat was fast and efficient, but not in an annoying way like some over-enthusiastic kendarats who hover over you like a pesky little housefly while you're still trying to savour your last few bites. Eeeyer. At least housefly boleh sebat dengan fly swatter seh. Kalau kau sebat budak kendarat dengan fly swatter kat majlis kahwin orang dah jadi lawak tengahari nama nye tu.]

I know there are quite a number of fellow Malay btbs who keep Googling and keep asking around for Haji Abu Catering punya contacts because the latter does not have a presence on the online platform and social media, which sucks for modern young 'uns like myself who depend on social media to find vendors, read reviews, trawl through albums, etc, when planning a wedding. So for those who are searching for Haji Abu Catering contacts, here you go bbs!

 (There's no email addresses, only handphone numbers, but still better than nothing hor.)

Now for the second "reward" that I'm very excited about!!!

Ok, you see, now that the engagement's out of the way, my mat and I are starting to gear up for our next stage of preparations. The last few months have been very peaceful on the wedding preparation front since we didn't have anything else to do after settling the major vendors on our list, except wait until the next wave due early next year.

We talked about it a few weeks back and decided on five main things that we want to start recce for, and one of the items on our list is a good and reliable kompang group for our reception.

We've started to actively recce a few groups since then, but have not really firmed up on anything because we didn't really have any opinions on the kompang groups that we saw online. (Although a few of them were quite meh). We weren't really too bothered about it though, because we were only planning on recce-ing the players in the market first so that our research can help us decide from a list of kompang groups by the time January next year comes around.

Well, well, whad'dya know?

The kompang group that played at Shahrizat and Nadia's wedding turned out to be awesome!!!

When the kompang group came in to iring the pengantin, I was so impressed ok! The bunyi of their kompang playing was very sedap and crispy (rasa dia sikit sikit macam ayam KFC gitu ah) and it was so loud and thunderous, it created a rancak and bertenaga atmosphere where everyone was so excited to see and sambut the pengantins! Not lemau like some other groups punya kompang playing at all! And something that really, really appealed to me was the fact that the kompang group comprised of sturdy grown men who were dressed to the nines in their matching bright baju melayus and their trademark songkoks adorned with a piece of feather!

Oooooh aesthetic value! Akak very appreciate all these! Look!

(Source: Kompang Zapin Berdendang)

Ok I'm not a fan of anything feathery (Bulu bulu feather ni semua very the feeling feeling cabaret, nyah) but that distinguishing mark of theirs really stood out fabulously enough for me to accept it, man. Even caught the attention of my mat who immediately declared that he was going to have his own feather on his songkok for our nikah!!!!!

Korang tengok ah dekni. Perangai dasar jantan cabaret sak.

Anyway. Bakal laki perangai cabaret who I shall deal with at another time aside.

I posted the picture below on Instagram, and mentioned that it was a lovely wedding with lovely pengantins and that I fell in love with their kompang group!!! My mat thought they were fabulous as well and we agreed that we've found the kompang group for our wedding reception!!!

The first thing we needed to do was find out the name of the kompang group.

My mat texted his friend for the name of the group but we didn't get the answer immediately (For obvious reasons, of course. Aku rasa kalau Shahrizat keluarkan handphone dia kat atas pelamin, itu jam jugak bini dia crack out dia nye whip hahaha) so we thought we'd wait it out. In the end tak payah tunggu lah pun sebenarnya because less than an hour after posting the picture, one of my girlfriends Faezah told me that the kompang group in question is... Kompang Zapin Berdendang!

(Later that night, Shahrizat replied my mat's text and said the name of the group is "Gendrum Network". We did a quick check on Google and Facebook and discovered that both our friends' answers were correct - Kompang Zapin Berdendang is in fact under the wing of Gendrum Network. In other words, sama sama lah aiyah.)

The next step was to watch videos of their performance online to reaffirm our decision on engaging Kompang Zapin Berdendang as our kompang group. Unfortunately, there are no videos of them tengah iring the pengantins (not an issue though, since we've already seen them in action at Shahrizat and Nadia's wedding) but they've posted up videos of their short performances after they iring pengantin - one of our favourites is this one:

So niiiiiccceee! I very like and I very approve! Ada accordion somemore!

In a way, this helps to soothe the ache of sadness I felt after letting go of Sri Mahligai! Tak dapat awesome traditional Malay music at my wedding for 6 hours, dapat sikit for a 3 minute performance pun jadi lah. Jamah sikit so tak kempunan, betul tak, geng! Hur hur hur.

Tanpa berlengah lagi, that night jugak I sent a private message to Kompang Zapin Berdendang on Facebook! For good measure (or a bakal pengantin's irrational anxiety, whichever way you see it haha), I called up the number listed on their Facebook page the next day to confirm that they're available on our wedding date and confirm our booking but my call was unanswered! So I emailed directly to Gendrum Network in hopes that they'll reply faster via emails.

No such luck. It turned into an excruciating week long wait because there was no reply to my Facebook message, no return call and no email reply received. I usually don't bother anymore when a vendor or service provider does not reply within a week but we really like them and we weren't as keen as this when we saw other kompang groups so I decided to make an exception and thought well, ok, let's wait it out then - maybe their administrator has had a very busy week.

Yesterday, my mat and I were discussing about another one of the five major items that we want to settle for the next stage of preparations when I mentioned to him that I was having no luck getting a reply from Gendrum Network/Kompang Zapin Berdendang as a form of update. At the spur of the moment, we opened up their Facebook page again and I saw that there was another number that I hadn't tried yet so I said "Ok let me try texting this number and see whether boleh dapat response."

Lo and behold, we got an almost immediate response and the text correspondence went like this:

"You are in luck." "That's our last slot in November." 

With heart racing and head pounding (a very familiar feeling I've gotten ever since I embarked on this crazy wild journey of planning aggressively for a Malay wedding muahahaha), I immediately flashed the text message to my mat, who shot me a stern "Book." and after that was pure Kahwin Khronicles history - texted the person back with my confirmation and transferred the deposit sepantas gazelle yang kena kejar dengan a pack of lions. It was only after I transferred the deposit and got confirmation that the receipt will be sent to my email inbox come Monday that I could go through my thought process, which went something like this:

"Are you freaking kidding me??? Last freaking slot for November??? Next year??? KOMPANG???"

My mat and I were so relieved after that, we started high five-ing and patting each other on our backs macam baru menang a million dollars from a game show or something hahahahaha (Ok bedek. Kalau betul menang a million dollars, I'll be so happy sampai PENGSAN BERDIRI LAH OK)

SO THAT SETTLES THE PART FOR KOMPANG!!! So much for waiting until early next year to settle it. Hur hur. Looks like we don't really have a need for the list of kompang groups that we've complied! In case you're at the same stage as us and looking for kompang groups for your wedding receptions or whatever other event that you have, I've included the list that we've complied below:

Andika Prak Bing Bing  
Facebook: Andika Prak Bing Bing
Youtube: Andika Prak Bing Bing

Putra Al-Qawi 
Facebook: Putra Al-Qawi
Youtube: Putra Al-Qawi

MizteeQ Services
Facebook: MizteeQ Services
Blog: MizteeQ Services
Youtube: MizteeQ Services

Kompang Fityan Darul Ghufran
Facebook: Fityan Ghufran Love
Blog: Kompang Fityan Darul Ghufran
Youtube: Kompang Fityan Darul Ghufran

Kompang Al-Itqaan
Facebook: Kumpulan Kompang Al-Itqaan
Youtube: Kompang Al-Itqaan

Ilhan Damai
Facebook: Ihman Damai
Youtube: Ilhan Damai

Ikatan Setia
Facebook: Ikatan Setia
Youtube: Ikatan Setia

Kompang Kumpulan Ikhwan & Al-Mujahhid
Youtube: Kompang Kumpulan Ikhwan & Al-Mujahhid

Kencana Kayangan Satria Dewi
Facebook: Kencana Kayangan Satria Dewi
Youtube: Kencana Kayangan Satria Dewi

Kumpulan Kompang Nurul Ihsan
Facebook: Kumpulan Kompang Nurul Ihsan
Youtube: Kumpulan Kompang Nurul Ihsan

Sinaran Surya
Facebook: Sinaran Surya
Youtube: Sinaran Surya

Kompang Warisan Utara & Putri
Facebook: Kompang Warisan Utara & Putri
Youtube: Kompang Warisan Utara & Putri

Kumpulan Kompang Syabab

Facebook: Kumpulan Kompang Syabab 

Twitter: @teamsyabab

Instagram: @teamsyabab

Blog: Kumpulan Kompang Syabab
Team Eva-luna
Facebook: Team Eva-Luna Wedding Services
Website: Team Eva-luna Weddings
Youtube: Team Eva-luna 

Ukiran Rentak
Facebook: Ukiran Rentak
Youtube: Ukiran Rentak

Etrust Services (Kompang by Nurul Iman Connectionz)
Website: Etrust Services
Youtube: Nurul Iman Connectionz

Lanang Warisan
Facebook: Lanang Warisan
Multiply: Lanang Warisan

Kumpulan Kompang Sehati Sejiwa (Qalbu Hapbun)
Facebook: Kumpulan Kompang Sehati Sejiwa
Multiply: Qalbu Hapbun

Sriwana 
Facebook: Sriwana
Website: Sriwana
Youtube: Sriwana Kompang

Sri Warisan
Website: Sri Warisan
Youtube: Sri Warisan

Firqatul Wannazam 
Facebook: Firqatul Wannazam
Youtube: Firqatul Wannazam

 Kompang Kumpulan Al-Muqtadir
Youtube: Kumpulan Kompang Al-Muqtadir

(Kindly note that I do not have contact details of all of the groups listed above because I only got to the stage of compiling names and links, but belum dapat all of their contact details and prices.)

Thank you to Nurul and Seri Pengantin for providing a list of recommended kompang groups as well as trusty old Youtube for recommending links after links of one kompang group's videos to another hahaha wah helpful lor that function! Actually got more groups lurking around Facebook and Youtube but since we already found one kompang group that we really like, now I malas want to go through and put them into the list already.

Biasa lah... Habis madu sepah dibuang! Cis! (Takde link hahaha)

More on what's next on our list in another entry because this one is getting a little bit out of hand already! Seriously minta kena serve with Beyond Parental Control order ah ini blogger hahahahaha

Next up in December! Ashik and Fisz's wedding! Quite excited to attend their wedding because Ashik stays a block away from me so it'll be easy breezy lemon squeezy for me to make my way to his reception - turun lift, walk across the carpark, daaahhhhh selamat sampai haha! Partly also because Fisz's wedding will be held at Siglap Community Centre, and I've been wanting to see how the venue is like. I keep hearing from other people and reading on forums about how Siglap CC is one of the community centres in Singapore that has a special area kat sebelah where you can cook onsite, instead of having to incur extra costs booking a nearby void deck for your caterers to cook and wash. Sounds good hor? Which is why I really want to see how it looks like!

Plus plus plus they shared with me that the rental cost is less than $2K! When most community centres in the East side can easily cost $2+++K! How damn awesome is that!

Really liked their matching matching hard cover invitation cards as well - not my cup of tea but it's really nice and simple and functional and oh ho ho, whad'dya know - it's lovingly designed and printed by the pengantins themselves! So if you want to know what they have to offer in terms of invitation card designing and printing, you can give them a call at their numbers (see below) ok! Sorry no website or Facebook page, I think they're planning to launch full speed ahead only after their wedding.

Ok guys, bergendang bergendrum, over and out!