The only thing more beautiful than this wedding – and believe me, it’s stunning – is the love story leading up. It’s what happens when love surpasses 5 years and 5,000 miles to an “I do” that was most certainly worth the wait. Scroll on for the story in the bride’s own words, and brace yourself for full gallery perfection designed in the hands of A & B Creative and photographed by Em The Gem.
From The Bride…The inspiration for our wedding was curated around our love story.
King and I first met at church small group in Beijing, just 3 months before I had to return to Melbourne Australia for my career move. I didn’t expect to be in a relationship at the time let alone a long-distance one. Neither did I expect a guy would like to be in one, especially with a girl who’d be 5,000 miles away. But chemistry has its own way to creep into your better judgement and so 3 weeks after we got to know each other, say hello to a new couple in the group. As if the idea of long-distance wasn’t challenging enough, we are also different nationalities. When you’re dating a foreigner for 3 months but have to live thousand miles apart, you can’t have expectations for the future if you don’t wish to be heartbroken. So we took it easy and we took it by faith; that if we were meant to be together, God would do miracles. So after developing and growing our relationship for almost 5 years apart, gladly to say, God truly brought us through. And so did technology!
A passage from Joshua Harris’ ‘Boy Meets Girl’ sums it perfectly:
‘It’s a simple story really…
Two people learning to trust God
Two winding paths that God made straight
Two straight paths that He chose to cross just at the right time
The Creator of romance, the Maker who arranged
the first “boy meets girl” in the garden so long ago,
is still at work.’
King and I believe that we wouldn’t have come this far if it wasn’t by God’s grace. So we wanted to bring our story back to him. We designed and framed the passage as part of the wedding detail that reflects the story of our journey.
We decided to have destination wedding in Bali because it’s close to home where I was from which is Jakarta, Indonesia. It was also perfect for a lot of our overseas friends and families to travel as far from North america, Australia, and other parts in Asia and make an exotic holiday out of it. We chose Kayumanis Villa Nusa Dua for it’s perfect space for intimacy, as well as its unique architectural structure that has Indonesian, Italian and Western influence, giving it a mix of modern minimalist and rustic feel. Not to mention the greenery around the venue, which all worked perfectly together for my love in rustic and french provincial style.
From the genuine promise of “we’ll stay in touch” through the occasional complaints “are we ever gonna be together?” to the happy finale “will you marry me?”, our journey is summed up in 3 words in Jenna Rainey of Mon Voir’s calligraphed banner “Worth The Wait” that was beautifully styled and hung as our ceremony backdrop, and still kept for my wedding memoir.
Last but not least, my favourite & best moment of my wedding day was not even the ceremony nor the reception. But it was after the last guests had left the venue, and it was just my husband and I, under very dim moonlit walking back to our honeymoon suite villa, with my bare foot. Just seconds when we were standing in front of the door to get in, that was the moment where I could finally be IN THE MOMENT and realised that we’ve made it!
Photography: em the gem | Wedding Gown: Angela Marcuccio Bridal Couture | Cake: C For Cupcakes | Bride's Shoes: Badgley Mischka | Hair + Makeup: Lona Bali Make Up Artist | Ceremony Venue, Reception Venue: Kayumanis Nusa Dua Resort & Spa | Concept + Styling: A & B Creative | Floral: Chantelle Madison | Photography - Assistance: Ashley Keleman | Wedding Stationary: Eza Nasir