Former Miss Malaysia World Deborah Henry walking down the aisle?

Gotcha!! Deborah might not be tying the knot just yet – but as maid of honor she has had her hands full of late… planning and organizing her elder sister Rebecca’s dream wedding. As Deborah is Eurasian (Indian and Irish), I’ve always been curious to see which culture takes precedent when it comes to big events like getting hitched. For Deborah’s family would that mean – saris and lots of Guiness?? Perhaps, perhaps not! But I thought the best way to find out was to give her a buzz and ask away…

Your elder sister Rebecca is marrying a lovely Malaysian fella. What kind of wedding did they decide to have?
Well, we’re Christian so first and foremost she decided to have a church wedding. However, our Indian heritage is very strong too so we wanted to incorporate that as well. Thus when we have the church ceremony, the brides and Bec will all be in western gowns… but for the dinner reception, it will be a change into saris for all! Overall, the feel we’re going for is sophisticated, elegant and classy. Also, our church and wedding reception are not on the same day… we thought it would be too rushed to do so and made the reception the day after.

Theme?
Bec decided on a colour scheme of lemon yellow/ivory for the church and dusty pink/ivory white for the reception. For a motif, she chose birds (not real ones!)… so there will be lots of bird cages and fake birds used for decoration. A really cool idea is that when guests arrive at the reception there will be dove shaped cards for them to sign and write a personal message on. These will then be hung on a few trees that are placed outside the ballroom. Little touches like naming the tables after birds – ‘humming’ or ‘nightingale’ make it intimate and stylish.

The Henrys - Rachel, Deborah & Rebecca (bride!)

What other Indian influences are there?
We are still keeping some traditions. For instance, the night before the wedding, the grooms family will come to the house bringing trays with wedding saris, flowers and a Thali (Indian necklace which takes the place of a wedding ring). This will be presented to our parents.

Bec will then wear the Thali and sari at her wedding reception. Though the food will be western at the reception – after the church ceremony we will have a private family dinner – with some great Indian food!

Entertainment?
Well, Indian culture is all about being colourful and vibrant… so bec’s close friends are putting on a Bollywood dance! On the groom’s side, his friends will be doing a dance as well as singing to ‘My girl’ by The Temptations! Also when Bec arrives at the reception she will go straight into her wedding dance. We are trying to avoid the typical stuffiness of a wedding!

Jai-ho! Jai-ho!

Sounds like a great wedding! And a lot of planning. Did you use a wedding planner?
Nope. Our family is planning it all! We have had weekly meetings… I think because there are so many of us its okie to do. If we were a smaller group then a planner would be a good idea.

Cake?
For the church ceremony– we have 300 cupcakes – a cupcake tower being made by Cuppacakes Wondermilk.

Afterparty?
Just going to get a DJ to play his set in the ballroom.

Any hiccups?
I think planning the wedding is ok if you have a planner and budget is no issue… if not it can be tough. Our challenge was finding florists with modern flower arrangements – coming from Australia what we’ve seen is a lot more stylized and there’s a greater variety of flowers. Another frustrating thing was finding the ‘bird’ décor… in the end Bec had to fly the ornaments back from Australia. It was also hard to find where do we go and how to find online (hint hint: go The Wedding guide!).