#DIYFAIL: Bunga manggar

Look who’s on a roll — this is my second post today!

I already had the skeleton of this post crafted weeks ago, but it was just sitting in my drafts waiting to be beefed up. I’d make quite a lousy reporter — almost all my posts are stale news!

Anyway, one of the things I thought I’d DIY is the bunga manggar.

Bunga manggar — a seemingly unimportant feature, but makes a world of a difference.
Source: durrah on Flickr

I’d wanted to do something different with the bunga manggar, something like this:

Source: prettypeektures

But it didn’t take long before I canned the idea when I saw how much effort is needed to make it!

Mind you, the flowers you see on the wire didn’t come ready made. They were from pieces of material that you first had to attach to a shorter wire and twist into shape, before it can be attached to the longer wire that would be stuck into the sponge. I mean, just look at how many flowers you’d have to make!

Being the lazy ass (or smart ass, depending on how you look at it) that I am, of course I tried to find ways to cut corners. I thought, hey, if I could skip making the individual flowers and find small ready made artificial flowers, I wouldn’t mind giving it a go.

I haven’t gotten the chance to make a trip down to the kahwin-kahwin supplies stores. Any idea if they’d sell small flowers like these?
Source: Lovely Wedding by Shaja

Anyway googling further, I found this on a blog belonging to a former bride from Malaysia (they do everything differently there, don’t they):

A real floral bunga manggar!
Source: Yes…I do

Here’s a close-up.
Source: Yes…I do

I’m not sure if they used real or artificial flowers for this, but I am just in love with the idea! So much so that I went to look for artificial flowers that very weekend! I found myself at level 5 of The Verge at Serangoon, where I weaved through the four or five artificial flower shops there, and eventually found something that could work:

Here’s the super adorable and helpful Mr Quek from Ming Sing Flowers holding up some flowers for us to get a picture of how our floral bunga manggar will look like.

I think it has the potential to look stunning!

But — and this is a huge BUT here — a stalk costs frickin’ $3.90, and those were already the cheapest option we found! I think Mr Quek was holding up 12 stalks here, which may or may not be enough for one bunga manggar. So let’s do the math:

($3.90 x 12 stalks) x 2 bunga manggar = $93.60

And let’s not forget, we’ll still need 2 poles, 2 sponges, and some material to wrap the poles and sponges with. So the question is: Is bunga manggar worth spending over a hundred bucks on? Or if we choose to do the first option, is it worth spending so much time and effort on? It’s something we’ll use at most 15 minutes in the entire wedding.

I think not.

Until I can find cheaper artificial flowers (perhaps a trip to Malaysia is in order), it’s back to the traditional bunga manggar for me.

For those of you who have the luxury of time, energy or manpower, here’s an aggregation of ideas for your bunga manggar:

Satin bunga manggar
Source: Kanda Dinda with Love (with tutorial!)

Ribbon bunga manggar
Source: Hazlynda Kushairi (with tutorial!)

Straw bunga manggar, anyone?
Source: I’m Yourss

Bunga manggar for the sweet-toothed. I guess the overall appearance depends on the sweets you choose for this. It’s quite a practical idea, because the sweets will be consumed after the wedding!
Source: Afie with Ayie

I know these are table centrepieces, but hey if it fits your theme, ostrich feathers can be used for bunga manggar as well! 
Source: Kimberley Lace

I thought I’d end with some trivia: Did you know that the coconut palm blossom (coco nucifera) may have very well been the original bunga manggar back in the day?

We’ve certainly come a long way, haven’t we?
Source: Rimbun Dahan

Wow I think I just broke my own record for the most number of photos featured in a single post.