A month before my wedding, I wrote a post titled When You’re Excited for the Marriage but Tired of the Wedding. Looking back, I don’t think I was wrong. At that point in time, planning a wedding genuinely felt more like managing a project than celebrating a milestone. I was excited to marry my husband, but if I were being completely honest, I simply wanted the wedding day to be over so that we could get on with our lives.
Now that it’s behind me, I finally understand why so many people describe their wedding as one of the best days of their lives.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t because of the flowers, the dress, the photos or even the fact that everything went smoothly. The biggest lesson had very little to do with weddings at all. It had everything to do with the people who filled the room.
Leading up to the wedding, I heard every warning imaginable. Friends shared stories about 20 or 30% of their guests not showing up, last-minute cancellations, arguments over seating arrangements, disappointing ang baos and friendships that never recovered afterwards. Everyone reminded me that weddings have a funny way of revealing people’s “true colours”, so I should manage my expectations and prepare myself accordingly.
I understand that none of these conversations came from a bad place, they were simply people sharing what had happened to them. Yet after hearing enough of these stories, I realised I had slowly begun treating them as predictions for my own wedding.
Perhaps that’s how I’ve learnt to protect myself over the years. If I prepare for disappointment, then disappointment can’t surprise me.
I never wanted a grand production. I intentionally kept our wedding small, with just 10 tables. 5 were filled with my chosen family and lifelong friends, while the other 5 belonged to husband’s extended family and friends. Looking back, I’m glad we made that decision because it allowed us to spend the evening exactly the way we had hoped, surrounded by people who had genuinely walked through life with us.
Almost everything I had worried about simply never happened.
We had almost 99% attendance on my side, and the 1 guest who couldn’t make it had an entirely understandable reason. Everyone else showed up, and they showed up on time. If you’ve ever organised an event, you’ll know that alone already felt remarkable.
Then came the generosity..
My friends didn’t just help cover our banquet expenses, they exceeded them by far. But if I’m honest, the monetary value wasn’t what stayed with me. What touched me most was what every ang bao represented. It wasn’t simply a monetary gift. It was someone saying, “I want to celebrate this chapter of your life.”
Some of the most touching gestures actually came from friends who weren’t even in the ballroom. A handful couldn’t attend because they already had overseas trips planned or other commitments that they had let me know about well in advance. Others simply couldn’t be invited because our venue only accommodated 10 tables. Yet despite not being physically present, many of them still sent us e-angbaos together with heartfelt messages and blessings.
That really stayed with me. It reminded me that the love people have for you isn’t measured by whether they managed to secure a seat at your wedding. Sometimes, it’s simply reflected in the fact that they still wanted to be part of your joy, even from afar.
As the evening unfolded, I slowly realised something else..
Most of the people sitting in that ballroom weren’t friendships I had made recently. They were people who had known me for years, and in many cases, decades. Some had known me since primary school, others since secondary school, polytechnic or my early 20s. Together, they had witnessed almost every chapter of my adult life.
These were the same friends who visited me and took care of me after cancer surgery, believed in Crysto.light long before it became what it is today, helped me move house more times than I’d like to admit, celebrated every milestone and quietly remained present through some of the hardest seasons of my life.
Looking around the room, I realised they hadn’t simply attended my wedding, they had spent years helping me become the person standing at the altar.
That was why I had written each of them a letter. Long before the wedding day, I had decided that if there was one thing I wanted my guests to leave with, it wasn’t an elaborate wedding favour or an expensive gift. I wanted each person to know how grateful I was that they had become part of my story.
What I never expected was discovering that they felt exactly the same way about me.
One memory from that evening still makes me emotional whenever I think about it. During the maid of honour’s speech, my best friend had secretly coordinated all of my closest friends without me knowing. At the very end of her speech, they all stood together, formed a giant heart with their hands, pointed it towards me and said, “We’ll always have your back.”
I cried immediately. Even now, I struggle to find the right words for what that felt like.
That moment will stay with me for the rest of my life, because it was so deeply personal. It wasn’t a performance.. it was simply a room full of people making sure I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I would never have to walk through life alone.
After the wedding, another unexpected thing happened.
The feedback we kept receiving wasn’t about the flowers, the food or the decorations, although thankfully people seemed to enjoy those too. Instead, people kept describing how the wedding felt.
They told us it was one of the most personal, intimate and engaging banquet weddings they had ever attended. Several friends shared that they had never been to a wedding where they felt so genuinely looked after, and that for the first time, they didn’t feel like “just another headcount” filling a seat in a ballroom.
One friend even joked that it felt like I had “f**k traditions that don’t make sense, it’s my wedding, my way” written across my forehead.
I laughed when I read that because… she wasn’t entirely wrong.
When we first started planning our wedding, there were plenty of opinions about what a wedding should look like. Whether we should invite more people. Whether 10 tables would be too small. Whether we should include certain traditions simply because “that’s how weddings are done.”
In the end, I kept coming back to one simple question: Does this help us create the kind of experience we want our guests to have?
That question became my filter for almost every decision we made.
We weren’t trying to reject traditions for the sake of being different. Some traditions carry deep meaning and are worth keeping. But I’ve never believed that “because everyone does it” is a good enough reason on its own. Traditions should serve the couple, not the other way around.
Looking back, I think our guests felt the difference because every decision was intentional. Creating a smaller wedding meant we had the time and emotional capacity to genuinely connect with the people in the room. I even had friends who are usually very active on social media tell me afterwards that they didn’t take any photos of the food that night because they had been too busy talking, laughing and simply being present.
To me, that said more than any compliment could.
Perhaps that’s also why the atmosphere felt different. It wasn’t because we had planned a “better” wedding. It was because everyone in that room was trying to appreciate one another at the same time. I had spent months trying to make my friends feel seen through handwritten letters and small personal touches. Somehow, they found countless ways to make me feel seen too. That mutual appreciation became the atmosphere of the entire evening.
If you’re reading this and planning your own wedding one day, I hope this serves as a gentle reminder that you have far more autonomy than you might think. Your wedding doesn’t have to resemble anyone else’s to be meaningful. Don’t be afraid to question traditions, expectations or advice that doesn’t resonate with you. Keep the things that genuinely add meaning, let go of the ones that don’t, and create a celebration that reflects who the two of you are.
I have a feeling that’s what people will remember long after the flowers have wilted and the banquet has ended.
For someone who has spent most of her adult life learning how to be independent, my wedding quietly reminded me that I had also spent those same years building something else entirely.
A community.
When I first moved out on my own, I wasn’t trying to build a community. I was simply trying to survive a season of depression and learn how to build a life that felt worth living again. When I went through cancer, my focus was on recovering my health. When I started Crysto.light, I was trying to create meaningful work that reflected my values. When my husband and I bought our home, we were thinking about the future we wanted to create together.
At no point did I consciously think, I’m building a community.
But somewhere along the way, through thousands of ordinary conversations, birthdays, meals, hospital visits, business milestones, house moves and countless moments that never made it onto social media, that’s exactly what had happened.
Perhaps that’s why weddings can feel so emotional. For a few short hours, you get to stand in one room and physically see decades of your life reflected back at you through the people who chose to show up.
Looking back now, I don’t think my wedding restored my faith in people. It restored my faith in my people.
More importantly, it reminded me of something that extends far beyond weddings.
Sometimes we spend so much time listening to other people’s experiences that we unconsciously begin treating them as predictions for our own lives. We hear enough stories about friendships falling apart, people disappointing us or weddings bringing out the worst in others that we begin expecting those outcomes ourselves.
Sometimes those stories are true, they deserve compassion because they come from real hurt.. but they don’t automatically become ours.
Other people’s experiences can offer wisdom without becoming our destiny.
I’m still someone who believes in managing expectations. I still believe relationships require communication, effort and intentionality. But my wedding reminded me that gratitude isn’t only about appreciating the love we give to others. It’s also about allowing ourselves to fully receive the love that has been quietly surrounding us all along.
Perhaps that was the life lesson I never expected to learn at my wedding.
The evidence had been there for years. I just hadn’t allowed myself to see it.
Of course, I don’t say any of this to suggest that meaningful friendships simply appear out of nowhere, or that everyone who feels lonely has done something wrong. Relationships are complicated, and sometimes people give their best to friendships that still don’t survive.
My wedding also reminded me to ask a question that I don’t think we ask often enough.
Instead of only wondering why we don’t have friendships like these, perhaps it’s also worth reflecting on the kind of friend we’ve been to others over the years. I am not implying that friendships are transactional, but because community is something that’s built slowly, through countless ordinary moments of showing up for one another.
Have we remembered their milestones without needing to be reminded? Have we checked in when life became inconvenient? Have we celebrated them without secretly competing with them? Have we made space for their joys, their grief, their changes, their seasons of becoming someone different from who they used to be?
Because community is not built only in the moments when we need people. It is built over years of ordinary, often unglamorous consistency.
A message sent. A visit made. A birthday remembered. A difficult season witnessed. A business supported. A house move helped with. A celebration attended even when life is busy.
Looking back, I don’t think I received all that love at my wedding by chance. Those relationships had been built slowly over many years, not because I was expecting anything in return one day, but because I genuinely loved being part of their lives.
Seeing that love returned all at once was something I’ll never take for granted.
For friends and family who have been asking about the amazing people behind the wedding… ❤️
From the food, makeup, gowns, photography, videography, emcee, lighting, and everything in between, these are the people who helped bring our vision to life.
A huge thank you to each and every one of you for your talent, hard work, patience, and care. We couldn’t have done it without you.
They can be found on instagram.
MUA: @deniseleemakeup
Gowns: @digiobridal
Photographer: @darrenandjade
Videographer: @xinyi.dnj @intoxincant @bennytgh
AV & Lighting: @turtlemediasg
Video Booth: @onceuponahello
Stage backdrop: @theroadofmarriage_sg
Florist: @starflorist_sgwedding
Banquet Team: @aloftsingapore