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Our special day started from the wee hours of 9 December 2006…At 5.45AM, my alarm clock rang…not that I was sleeping like a log…in fact my eyes were wide open, just waiting for the bell to ring!   I had been feeling a lot of excitement over the last couple of days before the wedding as relatives and friends from overseas were all around me… and well yes, just a tad nervous too (of course that was an understatement)! 

Needless to say, I had difficulty falling asleep the night before…I was glad my lovely bridesmaid, Serina had a “calming effect” on me….(However, I found out later that she only had 2 hours sleep….that was about 2 hours less than me)…yikes!   Looking back, we owed it big time to our makeup artists who managed to do whatever they had to…to cover those “bags”!

Just a bit of background about us…my wonderful husband, Steve …he is from Hong Kong, and I am from Malaysia…We have both lived in New Zealand for over 17 years, however our families still have very strong traditions in terms of culture, and so that explains why the wedding preparations had to start early.

Our Wedding officially started off with the Traditional Chinese Tea Ceremony in the morning where I had to wear a red “Qua” (that is the red Chinese wedding costume).  From the pictures, you can probably tell that “red” is a very auspicious colour.   Steve had to come to my parent’s house to pick me up, however he had to be “challenged” before he was allowed entry into the house.

He ended up having to sing a song “loud & clear” in front of everyone (including the neighbours if they were listening).  I was anxiously sitting in my bedroom waiting…. Steve is such a shy person, so singing in front of my parents, relatives and friends could easily have “chickened” him out!   However, the words of “Only You” came out beautifully and that got him in the house!   So we went ahead with the Tea Ceremonies held at both the bride’s and groom’s houses, keeping track of time as our Wedding Ceremony was to be held in the early afternoon at Hotel Du Vin, located in the Mangatawhiri Valley (45 minutes south of Auckland CBD).  I was feeling a bit anxious about the time and weather, but thankfully I remembered the wise words of my girl friend… “Enjoy the day….seize the moment, and let the small things go…."  With that, I just went with the flow….although the skies looked grey in the morning, streaks of sun started to appear as we were getting nearer to our destination.

We just fell in love with the beautiful fields of lavender as it reminded us very much of Europe…This will bring us back in time slightly of how my husband proposed to me, and how much time we had to prepare for the whole event………It all started off with our first Europe trip together last May.  We had just done the Mediterranean cruise, and we were at our final destination, Paris …we spent one whole day just hanging around the park at the Eiffel Tower when he whispered the 3 words  "I Love You" to me…It felt like “magic” because he was not the type of person  to “vocalize” his feelings.   But alas, he did not propose there & then, however that magical moment did linger inside of me  (even until today)… About 2 months after we came back from the trip, we were just settling back into work and one evening, Steve cooked a very nice dinner and he seemed to be “busy” with something upstairs.  So I did all the washing up and was relaxing in the lounge watching TV when he asked me to go upstairs…As I was walking up the stairs, I could smell the beautiful scent of roses, and laid in front of my very eyes were 999 roses……..I could just faint at that moment, and he knelt down and asked if I would marry him………Of course I said YES!!    I was mesmerized for the next hour or so, and when I finally got back on my feet, we took lots of photos…one of which we have used on our Wedding Invitation Card.

In the Cantonese language, 999 is pronounced as “gau gau gau”…which translates to “forever and ever and ever”.   This is also the reason why our Wedding Date is set on the 9th of December  as it was advised by the Chinese Experts  to be an auspicious Wedding day for us.

So that left us with about 4 months to get organized!!  The hardest thing was looking for a location that we both love….so the first couple of weeks was really quite fun, but stressful at the same time.  With a lot of our relatives being based overseas, we had to get the location details confirmed much earlier for the invitations to go out on time…..When we first visited Hotel du Vin, we just fell in love with it.  

Our dream was to have our Wedding in both Western and Chinese style.  That is why we had our Ceremony at Hotel du Vin, followed by a Chinese Banquet for our Wedding Reception.  The Chinese restaurant is based in Auckland CBD which meant a bit of traveling for our 100 respected guests.    We had to make sure that we allowed sufficient time for our guests and bridal party to go between destinations and we were so happy that everyone was very co-operative and everything was just on time.

One of the most memorable moments for me was when I arrived on the horse and carriage, the delighted faces of our relatives and friends…there were just so many cameras flashing - that moment was priceless …..With the beautiful fields of lavender and hilly backdrop, I felt like a real princess on my way to a castle.  And yes, our wedding cake had to be in the shape of a castle, wholly inspired by our visit to Prague. 

So the ceremony went ahead. and yes, my Dad walked me down the aisle…every step was filled with emotions as I got nearer to my husband-to-be.  The whole ceremony seemed to just fly by, and before we knew it, I was changing into my golden gown, getting ready for the Chinese Reception.

We arrived at the Chinese Restaurant in time to welcome our guests, and our MC did a very good job introducing the Chinese character called “Double Happiness”, and the Bride being represented as “ Phoenix ” and the Groom as “Dragon”.   Everyone had a quick lesson on the Wedding Chinese Tradition.  We had many toasts (in Cantonese it is called “Yum Seng”).  With just over 100 guests, we wanted to go around each table and do the Yum Seng…I’m glad we did that after all the formal speeches!…Everyone seemed to know what that meant “Bottoms Up”!!   All the tables were beautifully decorated and since we both love traveling, we labeled each of the guest tables with places we have both visited together, instead of numbering them.  And for our main bridal table, we summed it all up by labeling it “Our Destiny”.