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Diva
updated 17 May 2010, 12:06
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Tue, May 11, 2010
The Straits Times
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The perfect wedding
by Ignatius Low

Last Saturday afternoon, I found myself bouncing around in the seat of a packed MPV on a bumpy, narrow road in the Balinese rainforest.

'You would have thought that if these luxury resorts are charging an arm and a leg for their accommodation, the least they could do is pave the roads,' grumbled the guy in front of me, holding on for dear life.

That little vignette stuck with me all week. In life, you often have to endure all sorts of ups and downs before reaching a happy ending. And all that turbulence along the way makes the outcome even sweeter, I guess.

So it was with this little trip, which had taken me more than a thousand miles over land and sea, just to be there when T. ties the knot.

T. and her husband-to-be, A., are both Singaporean, so almost all of their guests were making similar journeys. A. used to be a peacekeeper in the United Nations, so some of his friends were travelling from hot spots such as Timor Leste and Afghanistan.

Was it all worth it? You bet.

In fact, it was the most beautiful wedding I had ever been to in my entire life.

The MPV finally stopped in a quiet little driveway surrounded by buildings that looked traditional but on closer inspection housed state-of-the-art computers, gym equipment and toilets within their floor-to-ceiling glass walls.

We walked down a little path to one of them, which served as the reception area. Once we registered, we came out the other end of the house and into the resort proper.

What we saw took our breath away.

All that driving had taken us to the edge of a cliff, on the southernmost tip of Bali. Ahead of us was the massive expanse of the Indian Ocean with waves crashing on the rocks and sand hundreds of feet below where we were standing.

Just behind us loomed six huge Javanese antique wooden houses that apparently used to house the region's noblemen, but now served as the resort's villas.

Later that night, I toured one of them and found not just that there were handcarved panels on the ceiling of the king-sized wooden bed dating from God knows when, but that the bathtub actually floated in the middle of a pond, beside the villa's private waterfall and garden.

After taking about a million photographs of the place, the 40 or so guests eventually gathered at one of the highest points in the resort to wait for the couple's entrance.

It was a simple ceremony, presided over by the wedding planner.

The bride wore Jimmy Choos but the groom was barefoot. Me? It was the first time I had worn flip-flops to a wedding.

Her two younger sisters kicked things off by giving two readings. The first was a delightful passage from Winnie The Pooh, about the bear's love for Piglet.

The second reading turned out to be the lyrics of the Adam Sandler song I Wanna Grow Old With You, from the movie The Wedding Singer.

'I'll miss you, kiss you, give you my coat when you are cold,' the goofy song goes. 'Need you, feed you, even let you hold the remote control.'

Then, the couple were exchanging wedding vows and kissing under a simple bamboo arch in front of a perfect sunset.

I turned to my travelling companion to say something only to find that he was tearing, even though he had never met the couple before.

That was not the end, of course. We went on to have a lovely buffet dinner in a garden by candlelight and later were entertained by a rare performance that tourists reportedly queue for hours to see at temples.

The kecak dance is performed by a circle of 70 or 80 performers who repeatedly shout 'Cak!' as the story of the Ramayana is told through actors in costumes.

According to Wikipedia, it has its roots in sanghyang, a trance-inducing exorcism dance.

Indeed, the winds blew fiercely as the slightly spooky performance reached its climax. And even the two spookier-looking 'raincatchers' - who had successfully chanted away rainclouds for most of 12 hours - could not keep away a drizzle.

At some point in the evening, I went up to T. and hugged her.

I was so happy to see her so happy. And it was then that I realised that even without the perfect venue, ceremony, clothes and table settings, this wedding would have been perfect anyway.

Her friends know that just a few years ago, T. was going through a very dark time.

She had a number of difficult relationships after getting a divorce from her first husband and things at work were also not going well. We spent hours talking about the curveballs that life was throwing her, in between frenzied shopping trips in Orchard Road to chase away the gloom.

At one point, she became cynical and wondered if she would ever find happiness again, but life has a way of turning itself around when you least expect it.

One day, she flew to Bali on holiday and met A. Now, six years later, at the age of 40, she was marrying the man she calls 'her best friend', in the place where it all began.

When I got back to Singapore, I got to thinking about weddings and second chances.

How many couples I know have gotten married because they really wanted to, and not because they needed to?

Even if they really wanted to, how many of them got that perfect day that they deserved - celebrating it with the people who mattered the most and in the place and way that they have always dreamed of?

I have heard that a typical Singapore wedding nowadays costs anywhere between $30,000 and $100,000, depending on how many guests the couple invite. Lavish as it may have sounded, I don't think T. and A.'s Bali celebration was out of this range.

More importantly, that perfect Saturday evening reignited my faith in love.

Relationships break up all the time, but people can come back from the edge of despair to find happiness again if they open themselves to new possibilities and work hard to make it happen.

T. and A.'s own courtship wasn't smooth sailing. They were separated for long periods of time because he was working overseas.

At times, it seemed that he didn't want to commit. There were tears and fights, and some days it felt like it was going to end.

It matters, in the end, that they made it. And I hope their love for each other endures.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.

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