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Grace Tan

Catholic Wedding in Brunei: Ben & Michelle

“Ben is probably the most kind and caring person that I have met. He is such a softie that he often feeds strays on the roads or on our travels with our food packed in our bags and will go to great lengths to make sure they are doing ok before we leave.” – Michelle about Ben –

“Michelle is a great storyteller and always recounts her experiences in great detail to anyone who would listen! She is quite acute to people’s emotions and feelings often anticipating what they need and acting on it . She’s content with spending evenings in with a good movie or a good book and  often cries too easily during soppy parts  and hates horror movies (no zombies for her!).” – Ben about Michelle –

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They were quintessentially your typical high school sweethearts. Having grown up in rival schools (Michelle from Catholic school and Ben from the Chinese school next door), they grew closer through participation in church youth activities and ever since Secondary 3, Michelle has had a crush on Ben! Perhaps it was a guy thing, but Ben was totally oblivious to her feelings! :) She  always thought Ben was a pretty cool guy, with an amazing smile and very funny personality.

So for 13 long years, they went through a couple of rough patches as they dated. For 3 years, they went through a long distance relationship (UK & Australia) during their university days. The reality is that, when you date for so long, break ups are bound to happen. They went through 2 heartbreaking years of an ‘on and off’ relationship, but in 2011, felt a real renewed commitment and resurgence in their relationship with both of them working through their individual issues and ultimately coming back together to bring out the best in each other.

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6 Types Of Wedding Guests You Shouldn’t Have Bothered Inviting

In collaboration with The Wedding Notebook, the hidden actors in us made an appearance in a fun video, featuring guests are a little lacking in wedding etiquette. It’s just a little tongue in cheek video. We hope you like the video. We are planning on coming up with a series of videos with all sorts of topics related to weddings, so if you would like to follow us, head on to our Youtube page and subscribe. (It would make a difference because we need a minimum of 500 subscribers to get our personalised channel name, The Wedding Stories).

Oh, and do see if you can identify our Stories team in the video by looking at our family page!


Rustic Pre-Wedding shoot with a VW Kombi: Eu Jin & Samantha

Her idea of a perfect day would be to cuddle in on a rainy day with a good book and a cup of latte. Ideally, next to the beach with the sound of waves breaking softly in the distance. His idea of a perfect day would be an early morning cappuccino followed by a good game of golf. And then enjoying a Rambo or Indiana Jones movie while dreaming of traveling to Africa one day and thinking of how to adopt a white tiger as a pet.

Together, they love to daydream about the future and talk about how to train their future white tiger pet. This is probably done over a Zinger burger meal at KFC! When they are not watching the sports channel on Astro, they are probably traveling the world seeing as much as they possibly can!

What a cute couple Eu Jin and Samatha are. Jamie and I truly enjoyed photographing their pre-wedding shots, and I am sure Chi Yin enjoyed herself too while shooting the behind the scenes video that you can see here. On the day of the shoot, it was raining at Sekeping Tenggiri and we weren’t sure if it would be raining too at UPM. But we took the risk and it was a perfect day which ended in a gorgeous sunset.

Smurfette, our resident VW kombi made an appearance too at the shoot! I am glad that I managed to drive it without any problems! Was worried about driving this manual car that has absolutely ZERO power steering. But all was good, and we had an awesome time.

Eu Jin and Sam, can’t wait for the wedding!

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Beach wedding at Westin, Langkawi: Jase & Alicia

Jase and Alicia live in South Australia. Over Skype, I got to know them before the wedding, and found out that they met each other when they were just 18. Nine years later, Jase proposed on Mystery Island, Vanuatu during a cruise to the South Pacific. Since Jase is a jeweller, he designed Alicia’s wedding and engagement ring. The bonbonerie candles were made by the groom’s sister and place settings made by Jase and Alicia themselves. I love Alicia’s custom made gown and her vintage hairpiece. The Westin, Langkawi became the gorgeous backdrop for their wedding. It was truly a beautiful beach wedding set against the Andaman sea. I never get tired of beach weddings!

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Being a Peacemaker

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This is the 9th year of my marriage. What incredible 9 years filled with joy, hurt, reconciliation, love and compromise. Deep down, I know that marriage comes with its own set of challenges. There’s no going into it feeling naive. There will come a time when you will argue, say hurtful things to one another and regret it. As a Christian, I’ve always based my marriage on the principles I read in the Bible. It really helps me to know that my husband values marriage and wants to work at it as hard as I do.

I recently read this verse that made me stop and think a little more about relationships.

They must turn from evil and do good;
they must seek peace and pursue it.
1 Peter 3:11

What really struck me were the words seek peace and pursue it.

It takes effort to keep the peace. It must be something that is worth pursuing and going all out for. We must be proactive in any relationship to maintain the peace, and not expect it to just ‘happen’. In any relationship, we have to believe that pursuing peace is worth the fight.

Which brings me to the other question… “What does peace mean, really?” (According to Alex, he says it’s when the wife doesn’t nag).

After giving it some thought, I think a peaceful relationship means that I can trust someone. That we are both working towards the end goal of each other’s happiness. It doesn’t mean we keep quiet or sweep under the carpet issues that need to be discussed just to ‘keep the peace’. It means talking things through and being mature enough to compromise sometimes.

I am not an expert at marriage, but I work at it. Hard.