J & Q · wedding at Rin at Raintree

Grew up abroad, came home to marry

Many of the couples we work with are Thai but grew up on the other side of the world. English comes easier than Thai. Their closest friends are foreigners. The family they’re marrying into has never once seen a Thai ceremony.

And yet, so many of them want a wedding that carries the scent of home. Perhaps it’s because the longer you live far from home, the more clearly you know where your roots are.

P’J and P’Q were exactly like that. So the brief was never simply “make the Thai ceremony beautiful.” It was: how do you take a ceremony that’s centuries old and tell it, in a single afternoon, to people who don’t understand a word of Thai? And not just have them understand it, but have them genuinely enjoy it with you.

P’J grew up in the United States, and that’s where she met P’Q. The first time we met, I took her for an outfit fitting, and she told me she didn’t want to be called “Khun.” Let’s be pee and nong, she said, the Thai way of calling each other older and younger sibling. So I’ve been her Nong Belle ever since.

The day began with a Thai ceremony, then a Western ceremony, and ended with dinner and a reception. Both of them are architects, and P’Q designed the backdrop and decoration and matched almost every colour tone. I’m so happy they ended up with exactly the wedding they loved. (A little secret: they asked to colour-edit some of these photos before sharing them here. Thank you both!)

Two moments I still smile about. P’J’s family keeps a lot of corgis, and one of them, Tobi, came to the wedding as the cutest guest of the day. And P’Q’s vows arrived on a scroll so long the whole room was laughing.

Planning this wedding felt warm. I felt looked after, too.

And if you’d like to call me pee or nong, either is fine. I won’t tell you my age, but I’m a ’90s kid.