This bride swapped heels for bejewelled Crocs

My wedding Crocs coordinated perfectly with the rest of my wedding outfit. The akad nikah, or solemnisation, is the main part of the wedding ceremony and is most common to Western weddings, where the bride and groom exchange vows. For this, I wore a long ‘kebarung’ – a traditional Malay outfit for women – decorated with lace and complete with a pearl-embellished veil.

To continue the personalised theme of our wedding, my bouquet featured feathered shuttlecocks as my husband is an avid badminton player. Crafted by my mother and I, we positioned the shuttlecocks upside down to look almost like flowers.

I made a quick outfit change for our wedding reception and merenjis, a customary practice that involves sprinkling rose petals onto the palms of the bride and groom, then lightly throwing scented pandan leaves onto them as a sign of good luck and to ward off bad spirits. For this, I wore a simple straight ankle-length dress embroidered with bead and pearl tassels and a bow at the back that continued to coordinate with my pearl veil and Crocs.

While most Malaysian newlyweds wear a traditional ‘songket’ – a beautiful but very thick and heavy handwoven fabric – me and my husband, who also changed into a suit, wanted to be in comfortable outfits as we would be seeing all our guests. Our outfit change allowed us to feel fully relaxed and look great too.

I also swapped my bouquet at this point in the day. I have been to so many weddings and seen brides forget their bouquets, or need someone to hold it while they do things. I decided to fashion a practical bouquet, attaching flowers to a wooden ring that I could thread my arm through and then greet guests with both of my hands!

After our first wedding, in line with Malaysian tradition, we had a second reception with Zulhilmi’s family in his hometown. While I re-wore my original wedding dress, this time I opted for a pair of hot pink Siren clogs. I again DIY-ed them by crocheting pink and cream flowers that I glued to the top of the shoes along with beads. A simple shoe change made the day feel just as exciting and gave me a different Crocs moment for each event.

All of these special touches and extra thought we put in made the day even more personal for me and all the people I love.

Alexandria Dale is the Digital Fashion Writer at Cosmopolitan UK. Covering everything from the celebrity style moments worth knowing about to the latest fashion news, there’s nothing she loves more than finding a high street dupe of a must-have designer item. As well as discovering new brands, she’s passionate about sustainable fashion and establishing the trends that are actually worth investing in. Having worked in fashion journalism for six years, she has experience at both digital and print publications including Glamour and Ok!