A Sunday newspaper love story
Sunday Times editor marries her JC crush in lunch ceremony
By Sylvia Toh Paik Choo
July 29, 2010
A WHIRLWIND romance and Sumiko Tan married her Hurricane.
PICTURE: THE STRAITS TIMES
The Sunday Times editor and columnist, effectively one of the first bloggers with her Sunday Times column on life and loves, tied the knot with her junior college crush (nicknamed Hurricane after a Korean TV hero) last Sunday.
In a wedding friends described as ‘nice, simple and classy’, the nice and classy Tan became Mrs Quek Suan Shiau before 200 family and friends at the Four Seasons Hotel.
The pair of JC mates went their separate ways after one date – she broke his heart according to him – and reconnected only last year.
You would have read all about it (the long poem he wrote and read her, the second date in Mexican cantina in Dempsey) – the not-so-much storybook romance, more a Sunday newspaper love story.
The couple, both in their mid-40s, pledged their troth in a lunch ceremony which left not a few colleagues teary-eyed.
As a wedding guest retold it to The New Paper: ‘The common refrain was, we were all so happy to see how happy she was!’
The bride wore a lovely ivory gown with short train and the groom, a dark suit with a silver-buckled belt.
The guest added: ‘They had to kiss three or four times for the photographer.’
Every shot of the lovely couple radiated delirious bliss.
‘She was a little giggly, probably nervy and ecstatic.’
The best man interviewed the couple about their love story. The groom’s brother baked the traditional wedding cake and the bride’s young niece ‘helped me out with the informal wedding,’ said Ms Tan.
A bunch of colleagues had prepared a video for the bride-to-be’s hen night the Sunday before – she so loved it, she showed it at the wedding.
‘No, no, no baby photos of their growing-up years. There was a shot of Suan Shiau when he had a full head of hair, though,’ said one of Ms Tan’s colleagues.
Do not back out
Another office friend had good-naturedly formed a Do Not Back Out Of Wedding support group for Ms Tan. No cold feet, just the warmest of wishes from everyone.
There were cocktails at 11am. The couple appeared half an hour later to mingle with friends, guests and family, followed by the solemnisation in the ballroom and then a ‘scrumptious’ buffet lunch.
‘It was intimate and beautiful. One of our artists was the wedding planner, right down to the flowers which had a little note, ‘take me home’,’ said a colleague.
‘She couldn’t invite everyone, but remembered the people she ‘grew up’ with, worked with in her early days at The Straits Times.’
Ms Tan thanked her newly extended family – hubby’s from a large family compared to hers (mother and sister and niece and nephew and brother-in-law) – all by name, and the groom said he ‘always knew she was the one for me’.
Final word from Ms Tan when we called her up for a quote?
‘The wedding was everything we’d hoped for and thanks to our family and friends for their support.’
The NewPaper