SITTING ON A TREE

As part of our wedding photography package, Finessence allowed us an afternoon of engagement photos. We had the flexibility in choosing the types of shots. We didn't want anything fancy, we just wanted to capture what/who we are together - some things about us that we enjoy together. We chose climbing trees, eating lots of food, coffee (him), hot chocolate (me). Even our clothing was carefully selected to show our preferred style of comfort, it was also a freaking hot day for Spring.

Here's some photos of Karen greeting us at their funky studio!

I really wanted to climb trees. The story behind the tree climbing was... thinking back to a fun holiday memory of us on a hot and humid Chinese day in a small Guangdong village climbing lychee trees. We ate so many lychees that day. Australia doesn't have lychee trees, but it has so many old and magnificent trees for climbing, and we're the adventurous type. Yes, Karen (our photographer) called us monkeys.

Sunny's really into MMA. So he wanted to have shots of both of us on the mat doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu or kickboxing. But that would have looked plain silly as I'm a complete noob at it. So he was happy with distinctly Melbourne laneway cafe shots. That hot chocolate mm :)

Sunny's camera shy so he had a hard time being natural in front of the camera.  Whenever I try to take photos of him, his jaw will immediately stiff up. With Karen's friendly manner and calming skills, he relaxed a bit, and she managed to get shots of him not looking like a statue.

 

This one's my fave :)

His fave

Photographer: Karen Woo, Finessence Photography

Make-up and Hair: Joyce Wang Melbourne Bridal Makeup and Hair

Location: Canterbury area - Canterbury Gardens, Maling Rd, Alleycat Cafe

His clothing: TOPMAN, La Coste

Her clothing: Seed, ASOS

THAT LOST RING

This moment caused all types of emotions. The worst and most relieved of feelings. It also tested my faith and definitely strengthened it.

I woke up nice and early the morning of our engagement photo shoot, excited and in a hurry to get ready so I could go straight to the shoot after work. I took off my ring to wash something in the kitchen and rushed back to my room. A few minutes later, I went back into the kitchen to put that ring back on. But wait, where had it gone? Surely I had left it on the bench. Uh oh...

I began in the kitchen area. I searched high and low and retraced my steps. Mum searched the kitchen bin. Not even a sparkle in sight.  I began getting super anxious, told my manager I had an emergency and continued the search. 

Not that I would've looked as elegant as J Lawrence with that face

Overreacting? That's out-of-character. Put yourself in my shoes - I had to wear the engagement ring to an engagement photo shoot, go figure. I had just received the most expensive thing I've ever owned and if that's not enough, it was his symbol of wanting to spend forever with me (:p *cringe now*).

I flipped the house inside out. I literally searched every nook and cranny. I prayed to our heavenly Father earnestly and endlessly. I told myself to have faith that I will find it in time for the photo shoot, and I managed to have faith, it was my only hope.

An idea suddenly sparked up: the ultimate answer-finding machine! I Googled "How to find a lost engagement ring" and there were all sorts of funny and touching stories on the web, but I didn't have time for that. Quite a few results and ads popped up for metal detector businesses. I was about to go down that path, but then I came across some forum where one guy found his ring amongst mounds of hay in his horse paddock (kudos!) by waiting until nighttime and shining his torch around to catch the glimpse of shimmer from the diamond. I had tried almost everything so I though why not. 

So I turned the lights off and grabbed a torch and shone it around like crazy. I'm not sure why I went back to the kitchen bin but thank God I did. I shone the light from the top and braced myself for rummaging through those dirty food scraps. But if it was in the bin, it would've sank to the bottom of the bag. I lifted up the plastic bag, and shone the torch at the bottom of the bag... there it was. 

THAT. LITTLE. ROUND. SILHOUETTE. 

It dawned on me that the ring could have been lost forever if I hadn't found it that morning! If it was anywhere else in the house, I may have been able to find it later on, but in the bin, no matter how eager I may have been to walk through stinky dumps at the rubbish tip, there was no chance.

Relief, joy, gratitude. I could finally let out that breath that I had been holding for four hours! I could also have a giggle about the situation too :) Your comments made my day. Oh and I could finally tell Sunny.

   

As for how it happened? Later on I found out that poor mother must've accidentally swept it into the bin as she was wiping up spilt tea leaves. No wonder she searched the bin first, sneaky.

THE PROPOSAL

I've been asked a fair few times to recount that romantic moment he got down on one knee, well, lack of...

It was a perfect morning, the snow was plenty and the sun was warming against my cheeks. As I was crawling my way across the fresh blindingly white snow, Sunny dropped down and lay on the snow with a little smile, saying "let's take a rest". I agreed and fell onto the snow also, as you do when you've got snowboard boots on.

He announced he was thirsty and started grabbing chunks of pure snow to eat. I was astounded at this sudden barbarianism. But then I was thirsty too, we were at the top of the mountain and there was nothing but snow around us, so what the heck. Not before long, we were both stuffing our mouths with snow.  

Suddenly, mid-way eating, he grabbed my hand while pulling out a little box from the breast pocket of his puffy ski jacket. He opened the box and in Cantonese (he usually speaks in Canto during these crucial life moments), he asked me those four words (pretty sure it was also four words in Canto).

Stunned, all I could say was "whaaat". It was totally unexpected. Even though we talked about marriage all the time, I often said, not this year, as I imagined I'd marry when I at least turn 27. Anyway, I started giggling for a while, and I think Sunny must have peed his pants from the angst! While giggling, I thought about who I wanted to be with for the rest of my life, and of course it was him so why wait any longer? And managed a YES! 

We spent the rest of the day with him beaming and me questioning why he didn't bend down on one knee, giggle. 

Lucky for Cloris and James, they were the first ones to find out! The rest of the world was second.

I forgive him for not bending that knee, it must've been hard with the snowboard, boots and all.

THE COUNTDOWN BEGINS

Time really has flown and I had been trying to keep our movements hush up until now. If you've missed out on the small and oh so subtle engagement Facebook announcement back 5 months ago, guess what? It's official, Sunny and I are (finally) tying the knot.

I decided that this blog will be the perfect way to capture and share our (mainly my :p) little project towards the day we say "I do". It's ironic, though. I've been avoiding the wedding blogosphere and bridal magazines as I didn't want to be too influenced by how other people did their weddings. I wish to tell our story, and budget allowing, to bring out our personal touches. 

Note that many of the posts will be about past events, as I've collected snippets of joy along the way waiting to make time and reveal! 

I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I do.

x