It’s definitely one of my favourite films about love and relationships. If you have never heard of this Christian film before, it’s a story about a firefighter, Caleb, who tries to save his marriage from burning to the ground. Everything seems to be going from bad to worse, which eventually leads him to consider divorce. At the lowest point of his life, Caleb’s dad gave him a Love Dare challenge – to perform a simple act of love for his spouse every day for 40 days. It could be something as simple as resolving not to say anything negative to your spouse the entire day.

“The sad part about it is, when most people promise for better or for worse, they really only mean for the better.” 

The film spoke to me in many ways. Just like the quote above, it made me think about life and relationships. How often we go into marriage thinking everything will be rosy every single day of our lives. I often think of love as a choice and commitment. It’s not just a feeling or emotion, because when tough times come (as they surely will), we may not feel like we want to carry through with that commitment. It’s at times like these that you remember your vow to your spouse – for better or for worse. Choice to me does not mean that I have the option to leave anytime I want. It means that I choose to love that person even when I don’t feel like it.

And when tough times come into my marriage, I can say that it’s fireproof.

I was really excited when Chih Wei and Diana took out their Love Dare book from their bag during our pre-wedding session. I think it’s really awesome that couples desire to make their marriage fireproof by going through books like these together.

I was happy to hear that Diana also attends the same church I used to attend when I was studying in Australia years ago. It’s great that we have common friends and similar values in life. Once I got to know Chih Wei and Diana, I knew that we could instantly connect. Diana lives in Brisbane whereas Chih Wei works in Malaysia. I definitely respect any couple who goes through a long distance relationship and survives it! So much patience, understanding and effort needs to be sown into that relationship daily.

Since they are getting married this weekend, I thought I’d share some images from their pre-wedding session here. Congratulations Chih Wei & Diana, and may your marriage be filled with lots of exciting moments!

“When a man is trying to win the heart of a woman, he studies her. He learns her likes, dislikes, habits and hobbies. But after he wins her heart and marries her, he often stops learning about her. It is a lifelong journey that draws his heart ever closer to hers.” - from Fireproof - 

So, here is where I’d like to do something for our blog readers. If you feel like these words have struck a chord in your heart and you’d like to watch this film, do write to me at grace.tan[at]stories.my or leave a comment here and I would love to give you an original copy of this DVD. It’s not a competition, but a sincere gift. We do have limited numbers of this DVD, so unfortunately it will have to be on a first come, first served basis.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Stephen and Andrea met in very exciting circumstances, at an accounting course in the University of Melbourne! After getting to know each other as friends, they took the plunge and started dating, and the rest as they say, is history. Having been together for 9 years before getting married, they took their time…but probably also because they were distracted with everything else.

Their love of food connected them together and the joy of trying new places and cooking delicious meals in the kitchen became a passion for the both of them. (seems like a typically Malaysian thing to do to me!) They also love traveling and make it a point to have a holiday at least once a year. So far, they have made their way through Spain, Morocco, Vietnam, Japan, Hong Kong, Hawaii, France, Thailand, with more to come. They are proud parents of a not-so-little cat called Chester who rules their house and often thinks he’s a dog child. He shows them affection by cuddling on their laps and curling up around their heads when they sleep. Anyone who loves food, traveling, and cats is definitely a friend of mine! :)

Stephen surprised Andrea with a proposal by telling her that they were going to Lorne but instead whisked her off to the Yarra Valley for a weekend of pampering and indulgence. How could she not say yes?

After a year long engagement, they had a wedding ceremony at one of their favourite restaurants in Melbourne – The Stokehouse. It was a typical Melbourne day, there was sun, rain, wind and cloud! The night was a blast with lots of dancing, laughter, good speeches and great company. Their wedding slideshow played that night during the dinner and it looked like everyone had an awesome time!

By the way, Andrea has great taste in clothes and flowers. Love her bouquet!

I asked Steve and Andrea about their relationship and what they are like as a couple. As with most couples, opposites attract. Andrea is a list-maker who attempts to stay organized while Stephen is more of a free spirit who prefers to figure it out as he goes with a huge smile that stretches from ear to ear.

According to Andrea, Stephen is usually running a little late, often thinking that he can fly great distances in his car to make up for lost time. Andrea has an addiction to chocolate, E! channel and Law & Order SVU. Andrea says, this drives Steve batty as he prefers to watch more intellectual programs such as Louis Theroux and Grand Designs.

While they may come from different view points, these differences compliment each other and they find that they function as a unit…most of the time.

So we had 4 hours together wandering E&O Hotel and also the Peranakan Mansion in Penang. Despite the fact that there were huge numbers of tourists around, we managed to do quite a bit of creative cropping and made it look as if we had the whole mansion to ourselves.

That evening, we met Steve and Andrea again at Rasa Sayang Resort & Spa for their tea ceremony and wedding dinner.

Hey, we’re never sick of photographing portraits! :) So yeah, more portraits!

Some family photos…

And of course, photos with friends, who traveled across the sea to be with them in Penang.

Have any of you played this game before? A question is asked of the couple about each other, for example, “Who’s a better cook?” and each person is supposed to raise the respective shoe to represent their answer.

Steve and Andrea, now it’s 9 years and counting. I am sure you’ll have many years of fun, enjoying lots of good food, and traveling the world together. It’s time to tick off that list of places to visit, which I am sure exists somewhere!

Credits:

Photographers: Grace & Mark
Wedding Gown: Johanna Johnson
Groom’s Suit: Pino Tailoring
Shoes: Shoes of Prey
Make up: Angela Kang
Stationery: One Tree
Dinner Entertainment: Jazz Hats
Location for Portraits: Eastern & Oriental Hotel & Peranakan Mansion, Penang
Location for Dinner: Shangri-La Rasa Sayang Resort & Spa, Penang 

And an absolutely incredible story of love and faith in God. With only RM1,000 in their bank account, they started their wedding planning despite the huge financial commitments organizing a wedding would bring.

More of their story coming soon… but for now, some casual portraits, taken the day after the wedding. Random unplanned locations. Love it!

Credits: 
Photographers: Grace & Mark, assisted by Diane

When the one whose hand you’re holding
Is the one one who holds your heart
When the one whose eyes you gaze into
Gives your hopes and dreams their start,
When the one you think of first and last
Is the one who holds you tight,
And the things you plan together
Make the whole world seem just right,
When the one whom you believe in
puts their faith and trust in you,
You’ve found the one and only love
You’ll share your whole life through.

I love this poem that Kenneth and Marie chose for their wedding. It reminds me that marriage is a journey we go through together. The path seems uncertain, but what makes the whole journey exciting is the company of the person holding your hand as you discover life.

Sometimes, you also discover that the person you initially disliked is the one holding your hand. You know the old saying, “Never say never?” First impressions can be misleading and Marie never imagined going out with a person like Kenneth. But good things happen to those who wait patiently… and to those who are persistent.

Rolling hills, dodging golf balls, beautifully kept lawns, little lakes… what a great location for a pre-wedding shoot! I’ve always wanted to shoot in a golf course, but somehow it never happened…till I met Kenneth and Marie. They shared with me their idea of shooting their pre-wedding at Kuala Lumpur Golf & Country Club (KLGCC) and I absolutely loved it! On top of that, they wanted to head to Carcosa as a 2nd location, and I was excited about that too! (as you can tell, beautiful locations make me do a little skip & jump every now and then).

The other thing that makes me excited is the ability to connect with my couples. Kenneth & Marie, I completely enjoyed our time together, getting to know the both of you better prior to the shoot and on the shoot day. This includes our little incident at a certain cafe where we discovered a six-legged creature on our table! Congratulations on your upcoming wedding and I wish you many years of hand holding!

At Carcosa, Marie changed into this gorgeous custom designed Zang Toi gown.

View the slideshow below if you’d like to see more images from this session.

Credits: 

Photographer: Grace
Location: KLGCC & Carcosa Seri Negara
Make up & hair: Wedding Isle
Wedding Gown: Zang Toi

Sometimes life gives you a few interesting surprises along the way. Chance encounters that were fated. Especially when you’ve communicated with the person in the first place, but never met each other.

In 2005, Eng Wah’s company had a job vacancy. Penny’s housemate was his ex-colleague, so she got in touch with Eng Wah through MSN and sent him a resume. Unfortunately she did not get called in for an interview and as luck would have it, she never got to meet Eng Wah.

Two years later, they met each other in an IT event. She came with her colleague and he was there with his housemate. They sat together, had lunch but did not talk to each other.

Fast forward to 2009. Somehow his contact was still in Penny’s MSN list, so one day, she noticed his status had changed to include an IQ test. Penny answered and it was right. That was the first time they started a conversation online. Everyday, Penny and Eng Wah looked forward to their online chats. “Good morning” was the keyword to trigger the conversation of the day. Gradually, they found their similarities… same college, favorite restaurant, favorite food, favorite song, pasar malam, travelling…

Eventually, they started going out for dinner, movies, pasar malam every Wednesday…

When Eng Wah cooks, she tests his food. When Penny goes out for photo shoots, Eng Wah becomes her model (which is unusual, as most girls tend to be the model instead!). Their friendship grew, until one day, he finally mustered the courage to hold her hand while shopping at Isetan.

Which led to… 2011.

One day, Eng Wah picked Penny up from a company event and they went home together. When she arrived home, she found that he had used her color pencils to write “I LOVE YOU” on the ground. On top of that, there was a delicious looking jelly inside the fridge with the words “Would you marry me?”on top. And she said yes!

The day of our photo shoot (by Eng Wah & Penny)

In order to make sure we are relaxed during the shoot, we decide to take whole week’s leave. Before the actual shooting day, we went to Melaka for food hunting, ate a lot of food… Satay Celup, chicken rice ball, durian cendol, capati and roti naan, nyonya food, coconut milk shake… we might have added a few extra pounds during that trip, but we didn’t care… as long as we were happy.

It rained on our shoot day. When Grace reached Pullman hotel, she told us, “Don’t worry, the rain will stop soon. Let’s start shooting in the hotel room first.”

Grace always tells us to enjoy the moment, talk to each other …. But the problem is that we didn’t know what to talk about! So the only thing we said to one another was… “Wow the food in Malacca was great! Satay celup, chicken rice ball, durian cendol…. ” BLA BLA BLA…. So when we talked about the food, we laughed as well.

The day when we received the DVD

The day we received the DVD from Stories.my, that night, the both of us kept repeating the slideshow… repeat repeat and repeat. I can’t remember how many times we hit repeat… I kept telling Eng Wah, not enough… one more time please….  The photos are just so beautiful. And we discussed which one we should print as canvas… this one… that one…. Ahhh~~ can’t decide which one is the best… almost all are best!

Eng Wah & Penny, am so happy you love the photos. Though the mosquitos at the park were voracious, I didn’t mind. Wish you many years of excitement hunting for new places to eat, and places to take photos! :)

Some months back, I blogged about my travel to Nikoi Island for a pre-wedding photo shoot. I met Kevin & Katherine (also known as Ruifeng & Peishan) about a year ago when they traveled from Singapore to KL just to meet up with me. Katherine is an avid supporter of my work which I am grateful for. :) She comments on so many of my Facebook updates which is really really nice! Kevin & Katherine flew me into Singapore for their wedding on the 22nd of October, and prior to that, their pre-wedding shoot in Nikoi island.

I must say, I have a weakness for beaches, the sea and islands. Over the next few weeks, you’ll find a number of postings on the blog related to beach weddings – we photographed so many over the past few months! Back to Kevin & Katherine’s pre-wedding shoot – this was a memorable event for me. Actually, the trip itself was an adventure. Alex and I had to fly to Singapore, catch a ferry to Bintan island, take a 45 minute taxi ride across Bintan to another jetty, hop onto another ferry for 30 minutes, and then we reached Nikoi island! Phew! But it was worth it! I love the seclusion of this island, plus I could walk around it in 20 minutes. Alex and I had a private chalet to ourselves, thanks to Kevin & Katherine’s generosity.

To be precise, the chalet looked like this:

Since Katherine loves details, she planned and transported all these items for her photo shoot in Nikoi.

The first time Katherine laid eyes on Kevin was during their Mathematics lecture back in National University of Singapore…

Katherine: To be exact I only caught sight of his back more than his looks and that was only because my male friend said there is a good-looking guy sitting in front of us. My first impression? Oh my goodness! How can he be good-looking?! I thought he looked rather unfriendly! Haha!

But from then on, I noticed him all the time since we were in the same faculty and course. I decided to do a search on the then-popular Friendster and found him. From there, I realized that Kevin was actually from the same junior college as me and decided to get to know him by sending him a private message through Friendster.

Kevin: One fine day, I got a message from *tadah!* Katherine via Friendster, and I was surprised to find out that we were both from the same junior college! With this common bond, we sent a couple of private messages and started chatting with her on ICQ. Somehow, we seemed to connect really well and enjoyed our late-night online chats. It felt like we were old friends rather than two individuals who barely knew each other for less than a month!

First impressions? Tall. Slim. Somehow, a little different from the other ladies in our course, but I didn’t really think too much about it at that time. Love at first sight? Definitely not for us, I guess! One thing led to another. We met up on campus, went on a date, and the rest is history.

I promise you, the skies are real!

The next morning, we woke up early to catch the sunrise. Our make up artist Cherry had a hard time doing her make up in a dim chalet at 4am but she did a great job.

Kevin & Katherine, thanks for your hospitality. I felt pampered while I was there at Nikoi for our shoot. Glad the weather was great! I had a good time in Singapore over the weekend too. Hugs and kisses!

It was 8am. I arrived at Aaron’s home in Subang to be greeted by his warm and welcoming family. In a matter of minutes, they made me feel at home, our conversation drifting from what they do for work to why I shoot portraits for a living to pieces of artwork on their family wall. For an hour, I took some informal photos of Aaron’s family. An hour later, Sheena arrived at Aaron’s place, having rushed over from work not too long ago.

She had just completed her night shift at the hospital, and hadn’t slept at all. After her shift ended, she rushed home, got dressed, did her own make up and made her way to Aaron’s place. I was really amazed at the energy this girl had! I was concerned that she would be really tired for our portrait session, but Sheena made everything look so easy.

The both of them are super easy to photograph. They kept laughing at every little thing I said (or didn’t say!). Our shoot location was no where glamourous. In fact, it was a tiny park across the road from Aaron’s home. I hope these photos show you that it doesn’t matter at the end of the day where we shoot, what matters most is the connection between the couple. Aaron and Sheena were so comfortable in their own skin and in front of the camera. Sometimes I felt ignored. But that’s totally fine with me. :)

Nice touch with the t-shirt…

Aaron & Sheena will be getting married on the 7th of January 2012! Our team will be covering their wedding then. So if you are friends of the couple, save the date!

Some great childhood memories just last a long time. And some great friends last a lifetime. Even though you might only see each other once every few months, or once a year…it doesn’t matter, because every time you get together, it feels like old times again. Amanda is one of those childhood friends who totally fit the bill. Since our primary school days to secondary school and onwards… we grew up together, saw each other through the ugly years (when I still had braces!) and through all the hardships a teenager would normally go through.

Mance, thanks for all the fun memories from our days in Malacca… I wish I could be there on your wedding day, but unfortunately, that date has been booked by another client months ago. I am glad that I managed to photograph your family portraits and some casual shots of you and Ivan though! Nice meeting Ivan for the first time, but we definitely have to sit down for a proper chat over a meal soon! Maybe after your wedding?

Hope you like the photos and slideshow!

The Pang family…

A week ago, I posted some photos from Aaron & Chrystin’s pre-wedding shoot. It was such an elaborate set up that I knew we had to document it with a video. What you don’t really see in this image below is the many piles of cow dung that we had to avoid stepping on in that field. The shoot was done at UPM, where cows graze freely at certain times of the day. Thankfully, I managed to find a cow-dung-less spot to set up our little picnic mat. So hope you enjoy the video and do leave a comment behind!