Singaporebrides | Real Weddings
January 2024
Khye Theng and Tony’s Romantic and Timeless Destination Wedding with Pops of Blue at Villa Plenilunio, Bali
Khye Theng and Tony brought their dream wedding to life in a destination wedding in Bali, where they celebrated with family and friends.
While Khye Theng, 32, and Tony, 31, may not remember exactly how they met, the longtime-friends-turned-lovers remember that they met on the squash court in high school. Despite losing contact when Khye Theng moved away for college, the pair reconnected at her brother’s wedding after she returned to Malaysia. Drawn to one another, Khye Theng and Tony found a home in one another. After a private proposal at Gardens by the Bay, the sweethearts embarked on their wedding planning journey to plan their dream, intimate destination wedding in Bali with their nearest and dearest.
What attracted you to one another, and what is it about your partner that you love the most?
Both: Despite having different personalities, we share similar goals in life, which attracted us to one another.
Tony: I love everything about her! Khye Theng is particularly intelligent and caring, competitive yet compassionate, strong and independent, yet humble and always looking out for those she cares about. Khye Theng is the smartest person I know. Not only does she excel at work, she also excels in settings where her intelligence shines, like in poker or board games. Khye Theng loves to win, which makes her super competitive, but in a good way. She never shies away from a challenge, whether it be a complex board game or a simple bet on whether I’d make a paper ball free throw into a dustbin.
She knows what she wants in life and always makes tactical moves in life and her career. She gives great life advice too! All this, yet she is still incredibly humble and caring towards those she holds dear. She never forgets to wish a friend on their birthday and plans a surprise party for them. She’s the one always getting the birthday cake or the gift. Not forgetting, she laughs at my jokes. I love how we can talk for hours, days on end and would never get bored of each other. We’ve been together for almost eight years already and I never get bored of her company. We’re so comfortable with each other and as it’s usually the other way round, when she’s around, I feel safe, secure, at home.
Khye Theng: I love that Tony is so patient and calm as I am the opposite – I get anxious and overthink or worry about everything. Tony is my anchor and my rock. He always knows how to say and act and keeps me calm when I am not. Tony also does not take life that seriously on a day-to-day basis, and is always silly or try to crack jokes to make me laugh. At the same time, we are also very comfortable doing our own things and hobbies and are very secure in our trust with each other. A good example is that although I love poker, Tony does not really and he’s okay with me going for poker games myself while he plays his space game at home.
Tony also always makes sure I feel safe and protected (he catches cockroaches which I am terrified of, even though he also feels scared of them, always carries the heavy bags on our trips, always making sure I’m okay and comfortable). Most importantly, he is always supportive of me no matter my ambition or competitiveness. He is not insecure about my achievements. In fact, when I have imposter syndrome he’s always been there to support me and help me through my lowest and toughest times. I can’t imagine having another partner other than Tony.
What was the proposal like?
Khye Theng: Tony proposed at Gardens by the Bay at the outdoor Chinese Garden. I did not like very public proposals so he picked exactly the right setting. It was a huge surprise in terms of execution – we had pretended to take a photo and when I turned over, Tony was down on one knee. We also had our closest friends on video as they couldn’t be here in person.
Tell us about your wedding. Where was your wedding venue and why did you choose it as the place to wed?
Both: We got married in Villa Plenilunio in Bali. We wanted a small, intimate wedding as our main wedding where we could plan and execute without the pressures of expectations of our parents (we had another reception in Kuala Lumpur the month after for a broader group of friends and relatives). We always knew we wanted a destination wedding for the vibe and view, and Bali was our top choice.
In terms of picking the venue, we preferred a villa as opposed to a hotel or resort where the latter had much stricter timings around ending the wedding (usually at 10:00pm), and hotels or resorts do not have great back-up plans for rain – most of the time they will assign to you whichever ballroom is empty, which defeats the purpose of getting married in Bali, and you are not able to change your decision once you’ve decided to move indoors. This decision has to be made at 2:00pm on the wedding day. Villas provide more flexibility because you will bring in an external decor vendor who can be on standby with their team to move the tables and chairs decor closer to the time as they monitor the weather.
As for why we chose Plenilunio – it is a unique villa that is flanked by two joglos (buildings on the left and right). This makes the space more “enclosed” which is perfect for a small wedding like ours, otherwise our planner said we will need to spend a lot more on decor to fill up the venue space like many other Uluwatu villas which have a field or open space. Having a pool in the middle also provides the illusion of “walking on water” down the aisle, and the pool separates our guests from us – that makes it easier for the photographer and videographer to get shots of the couple walking up and down the aisle without too many people on their phones at the aisle being in the frame.
What was your wedding theme?
Both: We wanted something pampas-based, with a main colour (blue is what we picked). We looked at the stylist’s previous weddings, took inspiration from one of the couples, and added some other colours to the colour theme (grey, gold). I did not want something too feminine but rather neutral-themed, hence why my bridesmaids and bridesmates were in sage or green. It was also important to us that the venue didn’t look too filled with flowers, as we preferred the more clean aesthetic look (we kept our fairy lights clean and simple instead of having lots of dangling ornaments as well). We did not really care much for fresh flowers and were ok with a hybrid of fresh and fake flowers. We had multiple iterations of our decoration moodboard with Cloris to make sure we got the vibe right. One other thing we really wanted was the mirror welcome sign and seating chart so people could take selfies so it became another fun thing.
Take us back to your wedding day. What was the day like and how were you feeling?
Khye Theng: Overall, surprisingly we felt really calm – this was something my makeup artist actually also pointed out. I hate waking up early, so we made the conscious choice to start the gatecrash only at 11:00am, but even then my makeup artist had to wake me up at 7:30am. We could not sleep at all the night due to nerves and animal noises (chickens, dogs, birds) given the location of our villa, but the adrenaline kept us up throughout the day. We were able to mostly keep our agenda on schedule, there were no big issues at all, and while we had to make some last minute ad hoc decisions, we were comfortable with it as we do a lot of problem solving for our day jobs. There were some minor hitches (sparklers that went off too early and burnt out for our grand entrance, pyro and ground fireworks that finished too early, food was served too slow to the bridal table, flowers on the bridal table too high that blocked our faces), but overall, we were able to execute on our vision. We had kept our first dance and subsequent fireworks a surprise from our guests so that was exciting for us.
What did your family/friends have to say about your wedding day?
Both: Our guests loved it, and said it was a genuine, fun and well-organised wedding. A few things we did that we thought stood out was the chill, informal welcome dinner we organised the night before the wedding for our guests to socialise. It was important that guests could get the pleasantries out of the way, and really enjoy the wedding together. So many new friendships were born! We saw different friends hanging out with each other post-wedding when everyone went home. We arranged ground transportation and accommodation for everyone throughout the weekend. This was a big logistical task and major planning required, and frankly not as cheap as we expected, but it contributed a lot to taking the transport weight off our guests, and they were very thankful for that. Many of them mentioned this point where they said it was well-planned.
Our guests were also pleasantly surprised at our first dance – we did a unique mash-up of six songs, starting with “Can’t Help Falling In Love With You”, then transitioning to four hip-hop songs, then ending with the dramatic “Come What May” from Moulin Rouge for a total of 3.5 minutes. Most of the comments were – “You guys had time to practice?”. We just wanted to enjoy the dance and have our guests enjoy the dance so it was very “us” – we’re not too serious people so the hip-hop section in the middle helped showcase our personalities.
Fireworks were the highlight finale and an amazing surprise. It was expensive, and we went back and forth on whether to take it, but really, no regrets. Everyone was so hyped when they came on (especially when we timed it with our bows and the music) and it was the highlight of the night. Having an Indomie goreng supper stall was also a highlight as we headed into the after-party.
Everyone felt like there were a lot of personal touches to the wedding and that it was very “us” – the personalised wedding favours for them, our wedding speech (we addressed guests by names), walking down the aisle to our favorite songs, first dance, bringing in our favourite babi guling stall for food, and so on. Given that the wedding was small, I also had a guest table for my vendors whom I flew in (photographers, videographers, makeup artist) so they felt like semi-guests. They really appreciated this and thanked me, because it’s very easy to overlook your vendors and their well-being in the midst of your wedding day.
Share with us the most memorable moment of your wedding?
Both: When we did our dance well, and then took our bows, and the fireworks that came on timed perfectly to our actions! That was also at the end of the night so we were also happy and relieved that most of the wedding went well.
What is one lesson you’ve learned from your wedding planning that you’d like to share with other couples?
Khye Theng: Oh, so many things! I’ll share my top three learnings. First, people (family, guests) make the bulk of the stress of wedding planning, so a big advice would be to have almost no expectations of anyone, even those closest to you, because your wedding is gonna be the most important to you and your partner but less so for others. This will help you through the stress and not take things personally when things don’t turn out the way you hoped. As long as you and your partner are on the same page, then nothing else matters as much.
Secondly, double check everything, including invoices, decor mood-board, preferences, and so on. I conveyed a lot of my wants to my planner early, but most of my vendors and planners really only ramped up 1-2 weeks before my wedding, given their business model of first-in-first-out. I noticed they missed some details because they probably did not remember. There were a couple of invoices close to the wedding date that I also did not double-check and got charged extra.
Lastly, for brides, here’s some tactical advice for your gown shopping. Go to a place that allows you to take photos and videos of you trying on the gowns. There were many gowns I tried on that looked good in person but did not translate well to photos and videos. You want to get something that looks good in both. You should also consider if the bottom of your dress can be hemmed – I ended up buying my dress from Digio Bridal as they couldn’t hem if I rented due to the dress material. When you’re walking down the aisle, all you want to do is look good, smile and hold a bouquet as you make your way to the altar, instead of thinking about whether you will trip or not, or focus on kicking your dress as you walk to ensure you don’t trip.
When renting, consider how far away you are from the day you pick out your dress to your wedding day. Sometimes the dress can go through multiple wears and may not be in the same condition and colour (white can be a bit greyish) if it is worn multiple times before your turn. Most importantly, think about the type of look you want for the back of your gown. Like me, I wanted a clean, zipped look instead of a corset back, so I had to hunt for such dresses.
The Venue: Villa Plenilunio, Uluwatu, Bali
Cost of Wedding: $60,000 (all inclusive)
Size of Wedding: 64 guests
The Gown: Digio Bridal (main gown), Wedding Isle (cheongsam), Lulus (dinner reception dress), Nadine Merabi Bridal (getting ready pyjamas)
The Bride’s Shoes: Christian Louboutin
The Suit: David & Co tailor
The Groom’s Shoes: Aldo
The Wedding Bands: Tiffany & Co (groom), Chow Tai Fook (bride)
The Wedding Photographer: MomentsbyJeremy
The Wedding Videographer: Pause Studios
The Hair and Makeup Artist: Justine Tee Makeup
The Bridesmaids’ Dresses: The Thread Theory
The Groomsmen’s Suits: Their Own
The Florist and Event Stylist: Cloris Decoration / Senja
The Wedding Invitations and Stationery: Cloris Decoration / Senja
The Caterer: Bali Miracle Catering
The Wedding Cake: Griya Cakes
The Wedding Planner: Balifortwo
The Photobooth: Katuta Photobooth
The Wedding Favours: Handwritten message & photo collage for each guests + chocolates from Japan
The Wedding Band: Family! They say a tailored song to us to the tune of Top of the World
The Solemniser: Sancita Resen
Emcee: Sancita Resen
DJ: Meta Mirawan
The Wedding Resource: SingaporeBrides
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