It took me a while to decide how I wanted to write about my travels. Do I publish one post after another while the memories are still fresh? Or do I write beauty stories in between holiday stories because this is, after all, a beauty blog? After mulling about it over the weekend, I’ve decided to talk about my holiday one post after another to allow continuity of the stories. Hope that’s all right with you. Beauty posts will resume in a week, I promise. 🙂

The entire holiday began with one hashtag (#tinetravels) and two weddings. I don’t think it would have happened if not for these two weddings. The union of two couples we love, one in Malaysia and the other in the UK started out what is now probably the best holiday Tim and I have ever had. These were weddings where Tim and I weren’t just guests of, but also played rather significant roles in.

Beetrice & Kevin

Followers of my blog will know that Beetrice is my cousin who lives in KL. In fact, she’s not just my closest cousin, she’s also the sister I never had and one of my best friends. So when she asked me to be the matron of honour for her wedding, I was truly honoured and didn’t hesitate to say yes.

© Darren Jee Photography (hard to pull us off our phones, even on the wedding day)

Now having said yes, I was also possibly the worst matron of honour there was because I barely did anything for the bride leading up to the wedding. I wasn’t the one who planned the hen’s party (the credit goes to Rinnah and Dom who planned an amazing evening). Oh, and I even mucked up her emergency kit on the wedding day (as in I completely forgot to bring it with me to the church and had Tim drive all the way back to her house to get it, causing him to miss the entire ceremony). Oh yes, I was a great matron of honour, all right. Lesson learned: don’t ask Tine to be matron of honour. Ever. 😛

© Darren Jee Photography

LeGeeque and I were roomies for a week at Bee’s home. We helped her out the best we could to tick items off her long wedding to-do list. But when we weren’t busy with wedding stuff, oh the shenanigans us three girls got up to!

© Darren Jee Photography (my matron-of-honour dress was from an Asian clothing store in Melbourne and cost me a grand ol’ sum of AU$30.)

© Darren Jee Photography

Despite a few hiccups here and there, it was a very beautiful wedding. The ceremony was lovely and everyone had a great time. They even had an ice sculpture in their wedding dinner with their wedding hashtag #kbbw! Social media fans or what? 😛

It was also great catching up with old friends and meeting new ones. Ahh weddings are great occasions for reunions too, no?

© Darren Jee Photography

Shirley & Eric

Exactly a week later, we were in bonny Scotland for Tim’s best friend’s wedding. This time, Tim was the best man and trust me, he performed his best man duties a lot better than I did my matron of honour ones. 😛

Let me just pause for a moment and show you where the wedding was held.

This is Fasque House at Fettercairn, about 50 minutes south of Aberdeen. Oh yeah, the wedding was held at a freaking castle! As most of the guests had to travel from other parts of the UK and even the world, Eric kindly put them up in the castle. Before you say “oh you lucky duck, you get sleep in a castle! Is it haunted?“, nope I didn’t get to stay there. The groom stayed at a wee cottage just down the road, which meant that the best man also had to stay there, which also meant that the best man’s wife had to stay there. Damn. I really wanted to sleep in the castle. 😛

Our room at the attic of the cottage. How very Enid Blyton.

As Eric decided that since he was getting married in Scotland, it was only appropriate that he wore a kilt to the wedding. This also meant that Mr Best Man over here had to wear a kilt too (it was his first time). The kilt fitting was, er, interesting. 😉

One of the bridal games had the groom applying bright red lippie on the best man. Too bad it wasn’t a Chanel.

Oh it was a grand wedding all right. The bride walked down the aisle to a bagpiper. The dinner was scrumptious. My favourite part of the wedding was the 3-hour céilidh (Gaelic folk music and dancing) that followed the dinner. There was so much dancing that after just the first hour, I was exhausted. I’ve never seen Tim dance the céilidh before and certainly not for 3 whole hours! And in the kilt too!

Two very beautiful weddings of two beautiful couples. We couldn’t be happier for them and are so honoured to be a part of their big days. We wish them all the love and joy in the world.

Next up, it’s off to Paris!