Matthew and Cheng met on their first day of college. Coincidentally, they both did not really like each other very much: to Irene, Matt looked like the typical playboy with long spiky hair; to Matt, Irene was this quiet studious overachiever person. This changed after getting to know each other over the years especially when they enrolled in the same university (IMU- Medicine).
Since they organised a lot of university events together, the draw and attraction towards each other became mutual. After IMU, they left for the UK together (Irene in Aberdeen, Scotland; Matt in Nottingham, England). Those long, never-ending 7-9 hours train rides from one place to another (simply because they couldn’t afford flights) were painful and yet memorable.
It was at South France just before coming back to work in Singapore where Matt got down on one knee and popped the question (on top of Baux-de-provence). To make it even more enchanting, a passerby shouted ‘Brava-brava!’. So simple and private yet special and memorable – and the rest is history.
Part 2 of Arvind and Dhanya’s wedding happened the day after their Hindu temple ceremony. From beautiful blue walls of the temple, we moved to the vibrant red walls of Christ Church, Malacca. I grew up in Malacca my entire life but their wedding was the first time I actually stepped into the church. It is a quaint little 18th century Anglican church in the heart of town. As the wedding ceremony started, some tourists popped their head into church, curious to see what was happening.
Interestingly, the church and surrounding Stadhuys building were originally white but painted the signature red by the Dutch in 1911 and the colour remained ever since.
Our video team did a great job covering both ceremonies as well and you can view the beautiful edit in the Vimeo link below.
The first time Arvind met Dhanya, she was probably about 2.5 feet tall, a petite little girl running around in a Malaccan kindergarten. It was years later at a tuition class when Dhanya was taller, that Arvind met her again. Six years later, they bumped into each other again in Malacca while hanging out with different groups of friends. Fate had it that Dhanya had to travel to India to complete her final year in dentistry school while Arvind had to leave on a sailboat for work. His 6 month sailing voyages meant that it was difficult to initiate contact with Dhanya but every now and then, she would get an unexpected satellite call and email. Despite the long distance relationship, love bloomed.
Their wedding ceremony was held in Malacca (naturally!), the city where they were born in. Since it was a marriage of two faiths, Arvind and Dhanya had two different wedding ceremonies – a Christian and a Hindu wedding. I had never been to this temple in Malacca before, but the beautiful blue walls with lovely doors enchanted us. We’ll share the photos from the church wedding (and video highlights) in a separate post. Enjoy the photos!
They met in medical school 8 years ago. He was the boy in class who made the most noise, and was always fun loving with a great sense of humour. He thought Ameerah was cute (apparently that’s all it takes, according to her). They started going out as friends, initially in big groups which eventually shrunk to just the two of them.
They spent a lot of time studying together, while listening to music on her iPod. It was only years later did she find out that they did not share the same taste in music at all! It was his excuse of sharing earphones just to be close to her. One fine day, he told her he loved her, and they became a couple. He was a total romantic, writing Ameerah love letters and sweeping her off her feet with flowers and fancy dinners. Many years later, he proposed at Lake Como and she said yes… and this March, they got married!
He describes himself as a non-stop talker. Totally expressive, definitely funny and as I discovered at the wedding… a good rapper and dancer too! Jimmy was born in Massachusetts, US but moved to Hong Kong in 2006 and Singapore in 2010. Wei Miin, on the other hand, grew up in Malaysia most of her life but moved to Singapore and subsequently to Hong Kong to work.
Wei Miin is the sweetest little thing we have ever met. Her kind and gentle spirit brings such a wonderful balance to the relationship. I had the privilege of doing a short one hour casual engagement shoot with them before the wedding and found out that we had a few friends in common! We had so much fun at this wedding, it was crazy. There was an emotional first look, heartfelt vows, great speeches, superb dancing and crazy people jumping into the pool. You have to watch the video to believe it. I really love the edit for this 10 minute wedding highlight, beautifully done by Chi Yin.
Here’s an excerpt from their website about how they met:
Jimmy met Wei Miin during a random cooking class he decided to take in 2012 while finding interesting stuff to do in Singapore. Wei Miin caught Jimmy’s attention because he thought she was in a group of students who were young university graduates speaking Mandarin to each other (Wei Miin: Jimmy catches everyone’s attention as a class clown).
Jimmy found it interesting to get to know the quiet young woman who was very disciplined in her cooking skills and decided to meet up with her for coffee (Wei Miin: Well… Why not?). Even more intriguing was that Wei Miin’s friends were mostly Christian and he had a lot of “life discussions” with her during their friendship period.
After some encouraging by Wei Miin’s good friend (Liz) and Jimmy, Wei Miin finally decided to go to Alpha course and to church early 2013. What really sparked Jimmy’s interest was Wei Miin’s true desire to find faith in Jesus Christ, and even going to church on Sunday when Jimmy was not there. During those 2 years, there was a growing in faith in their relationship, a short breakup, and a lot of reconciling of cultural and personality differences.
Despite all that, from Jimmy’s point of view Wei Miin helped mold him into a more and more unselfish person, (Wei Miin: Jimmy really helped me to form a deeper relationship with Christ) and Jimmy was attracted to Wei Miin’s ability to listen, to be a gentle comfort in times of stress, encouraging and most importantly, selfless! (Wei Miin: I love Jimmy’s positive attitude towards life and respect his wisdom in tough situations). Jimmy realised that Wei Miin meant more to him than any other human being in the world and proposed on July 5, 2015 (Wei Miin: it was a surprise proposal at Tuscany and I said yes!).
