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Westin Langkawi Beach Wedding: Justin & Nicole

While the team is in Langkawi yet again for another wedding today, we thought that it’d be wonderful to share another set from a wedding at the Westin, Langkawi. The peach, pastel tones of the bridesmaids’ outfits look so sweet against the earthy tones of the beach. I also like how the coffee beans were a feature in their ring box (reflecting the coffee addict in Nicole!) – not only did it look good, it smelt heavenly too! Here’s how one coffee encounter led to something bigger and better…

20160312_WEDDING_JUSTIN_NICOLE_32Nicole & Justin:

Like most relationships, we got together through a combination of luck, perseverance, and fate. We were introduced by a mutual friend, but it was not exactly like sparks flew the moment we met, especially since Nicole had one dating condition – no dating lawyers!

Through luck (Nicole accepted Justin’s friend request and actually replied to his Facebook messages), perseverance (constant spamming by Justin on Facebook) and fate ( we were both single then), we went out one fateful day for coffee. Coffee turned into dinner. Dinner turned into missed appointments for the day. It felt like we had so much to share that day (Justin: so much that I held my need to pee for a good 5 hours). That was the start of a beautiful relationship.

It hasn’t always been easy, but we’ve both realized that tolerance and giving in has been the reason we still love each other very much every day. Justin is now a pseudo coffee addict (he secretly prefers Teh Tarik more) while Nicole is a pseudo active gym member (She spends more time on social media than the treadmill). It also helps that we share loads of common interests- our dog, traveling and just being lazy, and we make a good team – Justin manages the finances, and Nicole everything else.

For us, we know that no matter what happens, how annoyed we are with each other and how stressful our day has been, it will always be alright because we have each other.

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Beach Wedding at Westin Langkawi: Jimmy & Wei Miin

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!).

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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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Planning a Destination Beach Wedding

Langkawi-panoramaPlanning a destination beach wedding in Malaysia? Without a doubt, Langkawi is at the top of the list. It has everything – deep blue seas, white fluffy clouds, white sandy beaches, great 5-6 star resorts, duty free shopping and great Malaysian food. Of course the other famous beach wedding destinations like Maldives, Hawaii, Bali or Phuket has its own charm, but if you are hoping to have a beach wedding in Malaysia, Langkawi is the place.

As a team, we would take the one hour flight from Petaling Jaya to Langkawi pretty frequently to cover beach weddings there. Organizing a beach wedding can be relaxing and yet stressful at the same time. Everyone is away at an exotic location, just ready to have fun in the sun. But planning for a destination wedding from a faraway country on your own can be a pretty daunting task.

To make your life a little easier, I’d like to share some thoughts about how to best organize your day so that you can get the most out of your photography. Since I consider sunset as the focal point of the day, I’ll work backwards from there and give you a pictorial journey of planning a beach wedding from a photographer’s viewpoint.

1. Do check on sunset times for the date of your wedding. 

On average, the sun sets about 7.30pm in Langkawi, so a good time to start your ceremony would be 5.30pm. It will be slightly warm at that time, but starting this early would give you ample time for portraits and formals after the wedding ceremony. There’s always a rush to document all the dinner reception details too after the wedding, so if your ceremony starts too late, we will be running around like headless chickens trying to capture all the important shots before night falls. Ideally, I would like to have at least an hour for portraits after the ceremony ends. Continue Reading

Mad Men-Inspired: Pre-wedding of Jonathan & Jacinda

Honestly, I’ve not watched a single episode of Mad Men. But the images are so iconic of the 60s and styled so well that it encourages photographers all over the world to do Mad Men-inspired shoots. When Jon and Jacinda mentioned about doing a Mad Men-styled shoot, I excitedly said yes. With a few challenges ahead of me (like for example, both Jon and Jacinda are Asian, we photographed at the Westin, KL), I had to figure out how to pose and create a mood that would portray the look we wanted to achieve. Thought of some ‘parody’ shots too and discussed with Jacinda’s wedding planner Mun Tzin about the types of props that we would need.

So here’s my little take on a Mad Men-inspired shoot for Jon and Jacinda. Hope you like the images!

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