Love story iiChinese wedding
Mei Ling& Jason
A tea ceremony at home in Petaling Jaya, a banquet in Bukit Bintang, and one gold hairpin.
18 April 2026The day
Mei Ling and Jason met at a Saturday badminton league in Kelana Jaya and married eleven years later, on a Saturday, in the house where she grew up.
They asked us for one thing: photographs that looked like their families, not like a wedding magazine. So Hana and Sofia spent the day at kneeling height, mostly silent, mostly photographing hands. Here is the day in the order it happened.
One hairpin, three generations
The gold pin was her grandmother's, worn at her own wedding in 1961. Hana heard the story in Cantonese, in the kitchen, before anyone thought to tell the photographers.
The gate, and its terms
The sisters wrote their demands on the back of an angpow envelope. Jason met all five, eventually. We photographed from both sides of the gate and kept the envelope for the album.
Terms for entry
- Sing one verse in Hokkien. In tune.
- Name her three favourite kuih.
- Ten push-ups per groomsman.
- Drink the "sour, sweet, bitter, spicy" cups.
- Promise to always let her win at badminton.
Tea, offered with both hands
Kneeling, cups raised, they served thirty-one relatives in order of age. Every cup came back with an angpow and a blessing, and every family branch will want its own photograph — so we made all thirty-one.
Red packets, and a second pot
Between families, the aunties refilled the pot and laid out the double-happiness cups for the groom's side in Cheras. We photograph the tables before the guests arrive and after they leave.
The quiet hours
Every wedding has an afternoon lull. It is when we photograph the objects: the porcelain going back into its box, the phoenix crown waiting for the evening.
Eight courses in Bukit Bintang
Forty-two tables, white flowers and a seating plan that took three months. Sofia filmed the morning for the same-day edit while Hana photographed the room before the doors opened.
Three yam sengs, and then the groomsmen
The third toast went on for eleven seconds. Then the groomsmen lifted Jason under the hanging flowers, and the only sharp thing in the photograph is the joy.
A card in the post
The gallery went out in week five. The album, thirty pages in linen, followed in July. This arrived in between.
Hana spoke Cantonese with my grandmother all morning. Every tea ceremony photo looks like our family, not like a wedding. Ah Ma has the hairpin one by her bed.
— Mei Ling & Jason
