Fire can’t scorch their wedding
Couple’s shoot in burnt house goes viral
PETALING JAYA: Her family home in Kelantan was gutted by fire just as she was set to tie the knot but this radiographer did not let it scorch her plans to marry the man she loves.
Two days before Hasmi Marina Mohd Zahari’s wedding, her family house in Kota Baru caught fire, leaving the upper of the double-storey unit destroyed.
Unfazed by the mishap, the 26-year-old proceeded with her marriage to mechanic Mohd Amer Shafiq Shahiri, also 26, whom she has dated for two years.
Starkly contrasting photos of the optimistic couple in their matching all-white wedding attire standing on their razed home have gone viral and captured imagination.
Last Thursday, the upper floor caught fire at 12.30am while Hasmi and her relatives were downstairs preparing door gifts for her wedding.
“At first we smelled smoke and suddenly, screams alerted us that the upper floor was burning,” Hasmi told mStar, Star Media Group’s Bahasa Malaysia portal.
“My family and I rushed upstairs and the fire was spreading rapidly as the first floor was mainly made of wood.”
In the panic and chaos, Hasmi, the fifth of eight siblings, managed to bring her young cousins aged nine and four, who were sleeping in one of the rooms, to safety.
She said she also quickly helped her grandfather, who was trapped in the upstairs veranda, escape the blaze.
“If we had been a few moments slower, we might have been burnt,” she said, adding that she was thankful no one was hurt, though her mother suffered a heart attack from the shock.
The fire started just an hour after they completed preparing the dowry, Hasmi said, and the items for the wedding preparation were reduced to ashes.
“Seven new trays that had been decorated became seven burnt trays.
“If I followed my mood, I’d have just postponed the wedding and sat crying with swollen eyes,” she said.
Instead, the couple bravely soldiered on and had their akad nikah (marriage solemnisation) on Friday instead of Saturday.
“I was so grateful to have friends from afar who came to Kelantan to celebrate our wedding, despite being informed that the majlis persandingan (sitting together on the bridal dais) was cancelled (on Saturday). It left me emotional,” the bride posted on her Facebook page on Monday.
“Alhamdulillah, my mum’s condition was stable and she was discharged from hospital to witness our akad nikah,” she added.
Instead of a big celebration, the couple’s first days as husband and wife were spent cleaning the burnt house.
“After the wedding, we cleaned the lower floor that was safe from the flames.
“Unexpectedly, I found my wedding dress in the cupboard just when I thought all was lost in the fire.
“I wore it for five minutes and we took photos on top of the burnt house for remembrance,” she said.