Getting married: The hantaran decoration

Our hantaran during the akad nikah, consisted of only three trays in total — two from him (ring and wang hantaran) and one from me (ring).

Why so few, you ask?

We didn’t quite fancy the idea of a hantaran, because it required spending so much — mostly on things we didn’t need… for the sole reason of pleasing the elders. I think it’s fortunate that we adopted the Perak customs, which considers the trays exchanged during the engagement ceremony enough that we didn’t need any additional exchanging during the akad nikah, except for the rings and the wang hantaran.

For the decoration of my hantaran, I commissioned my cousin, Zalikha (or fondly referred as Ika) since she did an amazing job decorating hers for her engagement ceremony. The night before the akad nikah, Ika and a few more relatives worked on the hantaran with whatever we could find inside the house.

So for the tray, we made use of my mum’s bohemian crystal cake tray. Ika used a thick sponge as a pedestal and surrounded it with the flowers I’d bought — million stars and chrysanthemums. On top of the sponge, she used smaller crystal tray to hold the ring case.

It turned out into a beautiful minimalist decoration, which I appreciate:

Zalikha currently accepts orders.  If  you want to see more of her work and interested to have her decorate your trays, get in touch and I’ll share her contact details.