A Tale of Two Hearts

Attended a wedding yesterday.

4th of October 2008 marked a special day for my friend Jully. It's the day she made a marriage vow with her husband Nicholas.

Jully is my ex-faculty-mate. Strangely, we never spoke to each other all those five years when we were undergraduates. We only started to get closed during our master's studies, probably due to the fact that many of our friends had left to venture into workingdom, so there were only a few of us who stayed :p .... and coincidentally, she's also a church-mate of Alvin's, who was then my next-door neighbour. Now that I think of it, it was also Jully who introduced me to yoga. She invited me to join her and Amy (her coursemate) for yoga class (although they stopped after a few months :p).

The wedding was held in Melaka. Both the bride and the groom are from the historical state of Melaka. It was a church wedding as both are Catholics. It was my third time attending a church wedding. During the first time, I was only in my primary school so I could not recall much of it. The second time took place during Alvin and Janice's wedding last year.

Jully had chartered a bus to take all of us in the southern region to Melaka to attend her wedding. She also rented two apartments for those coming from afar and needed to stay overnight.

I followed the bus and made a day trip to Melaka. We started the journey at dawn and arrived around 8.30 am.

The ceremony started at 9 am with the arrival of the bride.

Cute little flower-girls

More flower-girls

Older flower-girls :p

Jully walking down the aisle, with her father at her side.

Her father giving her away.....

The church ceremony ended around 10.30 am with the bride throwing away her bouquet of flowers. It hit a guy hahahaha..... and he gave it to his girlfriend.... :p

The wedding lunch (yup, it's a lunch instead of dinner for the convenience of those attending both the ceremony and the lunch) was held in a five-star hotel. It was scheduled at 1 pm, but we arrived early so I took the opportunity to take some pictures of the ballroom.

I like the flowery arch

The VIP table for the bride and groom and their family members. Nope, that's not the picture of the groom :p ..... they were just testing the LCD and the sound system...

Posing under the flowery arch hehe....

Another one... just to show off my boots hahahaha... :p

It's an ice sculpture! It melted a little and water was dripping... but it managed to stay in that form throughout lunch...

Part of the backdrop at close range...

During the lunch, Jully came over to our table and so we took some pictures together.

There were slide shows playing intermitently,displaying their wedding photos, childhood pictures.. and of course their love story.

Theirs was a great one. Just like something out of a Hollywood romance...

When two paths cross.... (相遇):

Fate first brought them together when SHE joined a uniform unit in secondary school where HE was an officer. Friendship blossomed....

First trial (考验):

Soon, HE left for UK to further study while SHE stayed in Malaysia to finish her secondary school.

Reunited (重缝):

Fate reunited them when HE came back to Malaysia and happened to work in the same state where SHE attended university..... the beginning of a beautiful romance.....

Second trial (再度考验):

HE was sent to work abroad while SHE continued her study in Malaysia. A long distance relationship took place for three years.... but they were still going strong....

SHE later joined HIM and they spent a year abroad...

The Vow (一生一世的诚诺):

After one year of life abroad, they decided to come back to Malaysia ... to start a new journey together.....

This song is dedicated to Jully and Nicholas... and to all the couples out there.....