nicole and edward

Edward and I initially met at work; he used to occasionally glance across my way hoping to catch my eye.

One stormy summer night, as I was preparing to go out to meet my friend, a window in my house broke. While panic (and a lot of rain) set in I began to scroll through my phone hoping to find that ‘someone' that can rescue me. The gentle, kind and sweet colleague at work came to mind, but before I plucked up the courage to ring him for help, he rang me. He arrived armed with plastic, tape and heavy duty glove. He taped up my window, picked up the broken glass and set candles for the blackout - keeping me company until the power came back on.

From that moment, Edward and I instantly became great friends. He says it was love at first sight for him, and I would have to agree. We had returned from our travel to his hometown, China and purchased our first home together. On settlement day, after we picked up the keys to our house, he asked me….for ice cream. Of course, this was a regular occurrence in our life as we loved celebrating over a delicious bowl of desert at ‘Freestyle' in Rosalie, so I thought nothing of it. He proposed while we were waiting for our desert, having trouble getting the ring out of his pocket in the process.

We had over 18 months to organise everything, although it was fairly difficult as the majority of our families were in China and Indonesia and we were having a Brisbane wedding. Needless to say we spent a lot of time on the internet looking at different venues, photographers and florists. We were extremely busy with coordinating appointments because of work schedules, but luckily we had much support from both our parents for the wedding souvenirs, dresses/suits and invitation. In total, we had 27 family members traveling from China and Indonesia for the wedding.

The days leading up to the wedding were absolutely hectic. Edward and I travelled to Indonesia to meet my family and organise for his suit and my wedding dress. The dress had French lace as the top and a traditional hand woven cloth for the skirt. We had one day with the designer in Bandung, Indonesia for measurements and style sketches. They did a wonderful job in creating a traditional Indonesian yet modern outfit. Edward's suit was designed with both our cultures in mind, a Chinese style jacket with part of the Indonesian cloth inserted inside the sleeves and collar. When we returned to Brisbane, Edward got working on designing our wedding invitation. We had three pages with three different languages on the invitation as we were sending it to our friends in China, Indonesia and Australia.

We wanted to incorporate all our cultures in the wedding so we had our traditional Chinese tea ceremony and Sumatran ceremony the day before the church service. 70 people attended the ceremony which was held at my parent's house.
I awoke the morning of our wedding and my beautiful 3 bridesmaids, family and I got ready at Mums house. Our flowers arrived and they were absolutely stunning. I almost started crying right there and then, I was so happy (and nervous). My florist Mei Li Chong (Bassara Flowers) was an absolute genius and delivered the most stunning oriental lily and Singapore orchid trailing bouquet - exactly what I had dreamt of. The next thing I know the photographer had arrived along with my husband and then the cars.

Our ceremony was absolutely beautiful, we decided on having both the Ceremony and Reception at Bundaleer Rainforest Garden. We didn't look at other venues as we really took to Bundaleer for its beautiful silk marquis and garden instantly! The deck area where guests mingle afterwards was just beautiful and I loved how intimate the actual garden area was where we were married. I also particularly liked that the guests were able to see the bridal party, my dad and I in the horse and carriage drive to the ceremony. It was like in the movies - a dream come true!

I am so glad we decided to get Shaun Murray (Shaun Murray Photography) as the photographer because the slideshow during our receptions was just fantastic, and it was so good to watch the events leading up to the day with our guests.

We came across Shaun through the web and when we met him, we knew he was for us. Shaun was so friendly, professional and most importantly patient. Every time we look through our album it only serves to show that we made the right decision with Shaun.

Our day was magical. Our guests all had a great time too which was great to hear. The whole day just went by so quick so really enjoy every second of it! We are so grateful to so many people who made our day so memorable; our family, our friends, Bundaleer, Bassara Flowers, Limoso Limousine A Heritage in Harness, Karen Voss-Willcocks and Shaun Murray.