A Destination Wedding in Phuket, Thailand
On New Year’s Eve in 2019, I travelled into Phuket to film Lance & Sofia’s wedding. As I landed, fireworks were taking off. This marked the beginning of a new year and 6 incredible days that I would spend in paradise.
ABOUT THE COUPLE
HOW DID YOU GUYS MEET?
One exasperated (almost sarcastic) question thrown at a work colleague who wasn’t able to decipher the sarcasm is the reason we are here today. Upon hearing “Do you have any martial arts mates to set me up with?” A mutual friend decided to introduce us blind at St Kilda festival in 2015 and, although I was harbouring a few drinks at the time, I seemed to intrigue rather than deter Lance. Our matchmaker also decided to third wheel our first date to a Brazilian Zouk dance class and forever became our third wheel.
WHY DID YOU WANT TO CAPTURE YOUR WEDDING ON VIDEO?
As a child, I was present at my own parent’s wedding in Thailand when I was four and one of my favourite things to do was to rewatch the footage over and over again. Seeing the party and celebration (over 3-4 days!) was one of the first feelings of nostalgia I experienced as a young kid. Since then, I always wanted to document my own so my kids could see the first (and possibly the only) time all our families met from all parts of the world.
WHY DID YOU GUYS PICK ME?
We really loved the style and vibe of your films. We didn’t want a run-of-the-mill cringey wedding video. I really liked the concept of a short film with a nice arc and cinematic intrigue and noticed that you did that exactly how I’d imagine it. So, we knew we could trust you with your creative licence.
YOU GUYS… WHAT DO YOU DO? HOW DO YOU SPEND YOUR DAYS? WHAT’S IMPORTANT IN LIFE?
Right now, I spend most of my days looking after our 6 month old, Arki. Otherwise I am an Online Women’s Strength Coach, helping women from all points in their lives build confidence through physical and mental exercises in strength and long term habit formation as well as supporting women pre and postnatally.
Lance is a Karate Instructor at his own school, Twins Martial Arts (Newport, VIC), while also helping NDIS children through Physiotherapy (Ninja Kid Physio).
THE PROPOSAL… TELL ME EVERYTHING
We used to take a yearly trip to Phuket for martial arts training and we had taken a month at the end of 2018. As a keepsake, I like to book a photographer for a few hours in different countries to take some touristy photos and on this particular occasion I had booked one. On the shoot, Lance tried to get us to the beach but we were running out of time and seemed a little disappointed that we couldn’t get there (little did I know that he had pulled the plug on his plan as a result..) We befriended the photographer and shoot director (Ammata and Shir, from Ammata’s Eyes) and Lance suggested organising a second shoot at Karon Beach for the following week. Lance naturally kept everything to himself and didn’t even inform the photographers.
The second shoot came around and Lance had dressed suspiciously nice, given he lived in singlets and flip flops even on nice occasions. Not two poses into the shoot, the photographer needed to experiment with lighting and just told us to stand back to back while he experimented, when all of a sudden Lance swoops around and lands on one knee… all I can hear is Shir (the shoot director) scream ‘OH MY GOD! QUICK! TAKE THE PHOTO!!’ followed by Ammata scrambling to get a better angle while hurriedly pressing the shutter button until it almost broke not to miss the shot! The rest of the shoot was a blur. Lance copped an earful for not telling them so they could organise the shot but it was such a fun surprise for all of us! We then celebrated with Thai style fresh coconuts on the beach.
PHUKET, THAILAND… WHY HERE ABOVE ANYWHERE ELSE?
Our extended families all live in other countries and Australia is quite a difficult place to get to, especially from Europe. My best man lives in London and my Dad’s side of the family in Greece, while my Mum’s have expanded across Switzerland and Thailand. All of Lance’s family are in Malaysia so while we were in Thailand (not three days after the proposal) decided to allow everyone the luxury of just one flight rather than a potential two and have everyone meet half way. This also gave us the opportunity to celebrate our marriage the way my parents did, rich in Thai culture. Phuket especially holds many special memories for us as it is the place we go to unwind, better ourselves physically and mentally and after the proposal we knew we had to have our wedding there to add that extra spice to our special place.
