Our Wedding Ceremony

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. We truly understand the uncertainty of these times, and how extremely stressful it is to plan your wedding in Singapore amidst the whole pandemic. We are writing this post in hopes that it will be helpful to those of you who are in the same situation. Insha'Allah ♥︎

Related: How To Get Married in Singapore Without Your Father / Wali

We received quite a number of texts and direct messages with questions about our intimate wedding ceremony during the pandemic, so we thought it’s best to consolidate everything here and just send this link to those who asked. We're also thankful for friends who have held their own “covid wedding” and took the time to share their thoughts with us when we had questions, so it’s time for us to pass on the "knowledge" and share from our experience :)

Questions about the couple

I thought you and Fazwan got married a long time ago?

We honestly get this question a lot and some even mixed up our engagement in 2018 as our wedding. But truth is, we just behave like an old married couple sometimes because we spend a lot of time at each other's house and with each other's families. Alhamdulillah. We officially got married in 2020.

Was Nurul a bridezilla?

Nope! She expected herself to be one though, but she wasn't. With the pandemic, it really helped to scale everything down so having a super intimate event really helped calm the nerves. Everyone was worried because she was too relaxed and wasn’t feeling the jitters at all. The couple even went to eat prata for breakfast (bride's request) but everything went well with the ceremony, Alhamdulillah.

Was Fazwan a nervous groom?

He was a little cranky that morning but other than that, he was really cool about everything, Alhamdulillah. From the prep for our engagement up til our wedding day, he’s super chill. He even managed to say the akad nikah (marriage terms) in one full and solid sentence, without any pauses or hesitation. Alhamdulillah, again. So nope, he was not nervous at all. If he was, he managed to hide it really, really well.

How did you save up for the wedding + duit hantaran in such a short time?

There were a lot of sacrifices that we had to make and challenges that we faced but Alhamdulillah, we made do. In 2019, Fazwan got called up for Floorball World Championships and spent 6 weeks in Prague & Finland. Our savings were on hold for a few months in 2019 as he was on unpaid leave during that period. Five months before the wedding, I also lost my job due to the pandemic, so that was a challenging time. Nonetheless, we agreed to be as frugal with our money as possible and thanks to suggestions from our friends, we created a joint bank account after we got engaged. With that account, we saved a portion of our salary each month and this amount is then used for the wedding and our expenses. 

Any tips for saving such a big sum in a short period of time?

Right after we decided to get engaged, we became extra thrifty. We stopped travelling, stopped eating out and stopped spending money on dates. Our dates were mostly spent at each other's houses, with our families and friends. We pack lunch and bring food to work everyday, even until now. 

A huge tip: pandemic or not, try to opt to have an intimate wedding if you can! Getting married in Singapore is extremely overpriced as compared to other countries and having an intimate ceremony really saves you a lot of trouble and money. The marriage is more important than the wedding.

Questions about the wedding ceremony

How intimate was your wedding ceremony?

Our wedding package was initially for 1000 pax but unfortunately for us, the number of guests for weddings were limited to 50 pax due to the restrictions in Singapore at that time. We had the venue for approximately 4 hours. 2 hours to get ready and 2 hours for our solemnisation ceremony. We were not allowed to have a buffet, but instead, our guests were given a huge goodie bag filled with a bento set + lots of other goodies. Alhamdulillah, everyone was happy and the guests did not even have to queue to take pictures with the bride and groom because there was a lot of time and very little guests :)

Was it difficult to change all your bookings to the new date?

There was a little negotiation that had to be done with the venue, but other than that, everything fell right into place. To be honest, we were blessed with really kind vendors and sponsors. Alhamdulillah. But before we finalised the date change, we did consult with our vendors to double check that they could switch dates. It’s best to discuss with your vendors first before making any decisions. Help them, so they can help you!

Why did you guys pick that date? Isn’t it a weekday?

We got engaged on the same date in 2018, so the date was quite a happy coincidence for us. We were not disturbed by the fact that it was a weekday because we knew that it would be easier to be assigned to a Kadi (as there is less likely an influx of bookings) and we could get all the attention from our vendors too. No one said you can’t get married on a Wednesday. Hehe. As long as we get married to each other.

Any tips on handling the invites?

Decide which names are compulsory or non-compulsory. Compulsory here refers to the 5 people that is obligated to attend, in order for the solemnization ceremony to proceed in the first place: Bride, Groom, Kadi + 2 witnesses. Divide the remaining invites into two, and discuss with your partner, on who to invite. We're honestly thankful for understanding relatives and friends in our life. Insha’Allah your relatives will understand too. It’s not that you don’t want to invite them. You can’t due to the circumstances. So don’t be too hard on yourself. Most importantly, plan it together with your significant other!

Questions about vendors & sponsors

Did you book your vendors in advance or did you book it at the last minute?

We booked everything in 2018. Technically, it was just 2 vendors — Lagun Sari & Atelier Weddings. Closer to the date, we confirmed our sponsors for the berkat, Abang Hafeez as Fazwan's Pak Andam, as well as Vixel Weddings for our wedding photography & videography. Henna was sponsored by my sister in law.

Can you share your list of wedding vendors & sponsors?

For our guests and vendors, their berkat was a huge goodie bag filled with a delicious bento set from Lagun Sari + a huge bottle of spicy salted egg snacks from our friend Wyse and @farzcookiesbites. For our wedding invite, Nurul created a digital card with an illustration by @withbreena. For family / friends who couldn’t be invited, we had macaron berkat from @homesweetoven and also chocolate bars.

As for photo & video, we engaged our good friend Adzmin from Vixel Weddings who came through for us at the very last minute. We knew how good he is as a videographer because Nurul works alongside him full time so we’ve seen how dedicated he is with his craft.

As for bridal, we engaged The Atelier Weddings in 2018, after being recommended by our good friend Karim. We didn’t even go down to the studio to meet Kak Nas because Fazwan just flew off to Finland at that time. We browsed through her catalogue, Nurul then liaised with her and booked her services virtually. We only went down to the studio 6 months before our big day to pick our outfits.

Any tips to avoid losing money from unexpected situations like covid?

This is difficult because we did lose a total of $8,000 from the deposit made for the booking with our wedding planner. One thing we’d do differently, is to read every single word in the terms and conditions. There are bound to be clauses that protects the vendor in times of crisis, so be 100% certain that you agree to that clause before you sign their contract.

This is something that we overlooked when we engaged our vendors 2 years ago. No one knew covid was coming and we happily signed the contract. It’s good to be efficient and book early, but don’t be complacent that nothing will happen in the future. If you can negotiate the terms for unforeseen circumstances to be advantageous to both parties, that’ll be best.

Would you recommend your vendors & sponsors?

We don’t see why not! We had such a good experience and our wedding ceremony went by smoothly, Alhamdulillah. Don’t forget to quote us when you go for any of these vendors!

Your Tok Kadi was so funny during the solemnization! What’s his name?

Omg, we would recommend him in a heartbeat! We are beyond grateful to have Uztaz Karim Bin Ahmad as our Tok Kadi and Wali Hakim. He handled everything for us and even helped us with regards to the submission of documents for the missing person’s ad, so that Fazwan didn’t have to go down to ROMM multiple times. He was also very very reassuring and full of dad jokes and advice. Alhamdulillah. Do choose him if you get the chance to!

Can you share your wedding day schedule?

I saw your wedding live stream, it’s so cool! How did you do it?

Nurul conducts live broadcasts at work so we activated a personal account on Streamyard just for the wedding and taught our bridesmaids / groomsmen how to operate it. We broadcasted our solemnization to Fazwan’s personal Facebook page and Nurul's YouTube channel. You can catch it here.

Basically, Streamyard is a third party app that lets you stream to multiple platforms (Facebook, YouTube & LinkedIn).

Pros: Stream to more than 1 platform with the same phone. Show up to 10 different camera angles. Can be streamed through a phone / ipad / laptop. All you need is a strong wifi connection. With the paid version, you can customise the background, logo, add overlay and customised banners on screen, etc. You also have an option to either make it a public or private broadcast. The video will still be published on your chosen platform and will be available for you to rewatch, with comments and everything still there. Oh yes, comments from the multiple platform (eg for us, Facebook + YouTube) is merged - so you can see all the comments from both platforms - and your tech guy can click for comments to pop up during the livestream.

Cons: Instagram is not one of the platforms available for streaming. You can only stream on 1 account of 1 platform. (eg, 1 Facebook Page, 1 Facebook Profile, 1 Facebook Group but cannot stream to 2 Facebook Profiles). The free version is sufficient but super limited in terms of customisation. If you don’t mind the huge streamyard logo and lack of customisation, just go for the free version. The cheapest paid version is USD25 for a month and this is the plan that we activated. It works via subscription - so you must remember to unsubscribe. You do need a tech guy who understands how it works, to handle the behind the scenes of your live stream through a laptop or an iPad. It’s not super easy to operate but if you’re used to working with computers, their online tutorial should be rather easy to understand.

But don’t worry, if you want to do it this way but don’t wanna learn how to use it, you can contact Adzmin from Vixel Weddings to provide this service for you!

Thank you everyone who shot us a question through Instagram stories or direct messages. We honestly had fun writing about this and we hope that this post managed to answer some of the questions that you had. For those of you who sent questions related to getting married without a dad who is still alive / getting married with your dad in another country / finding a kadi in such short notice, check out this blog post!

That's all from us. May Allah ease your wedding preparation and marriage, Insha'Allah.