Hua Hin, a district 3 hours southwest of Bangkok, is a great get away place. There you will find many hidden spots for peacefulness that you won’t be able to find in Bangkok…

Really, there is not much to write about for this picture because…

all I remember was…
the peacefulness…
the happiness…
at the simplest moment.

As much as I would like to try to describe the details of the wedding, I don’t think that I could get into many details. However, there is another blog by Richard Barrow of Thai Cultures Blog, that has information regarding the Thai wedding. The blog provides very detailed insights into the Thai wedding ceremony.

I guess it would make more sense to read his blog then come back to check out the photos that I have taken on the wedding date.

Enjoy

A moment to remember…

A story of a girl whom had ventured to do her internship far away from home. There, she had met her soul mate… Jo! Their story is one to remember… Jo, a man whom had been waiting for the one and Por, a woman whom has found her prince charming at the least expected place.

… to see more of their story, please visit http://www.por-jo.com/ there, you will find a collection of their wedding photos and a MUST SEE video of their story.

On March 14, 2010 I got the chance to take picture of the Thai wedding ceremony of Por and Jo. It was amazing; the room, the location and the moment…. felt magical. The feeling of someone that is committing their life to another is just unexplainable. Yet, the feeling of the parents letting go of their daughter, whom they raised since day one, was just too overwhelming for simple pictures, videos or any words can describe those moments.

I, a mere photographer, can only try to capture those moments to share with us all.

Date: March 14, 2010
Location: The Rose Garden

The guests must have gotten me confused, as for some reason, all the guest will ask me again right asking for their table and direction. Oh well, funny enough… I became a host, greeting all the guests and directed them to their assigning table.

Oh yes! This is about June and Paul’s wedding celebration. As I was occupied with greeting the guests, I didn’t have much of a chance to take pictures, but please do check the pictures out as it was a really amazing wedding. Allow me to try to describe the experience from the guest’s perspective.

Each guest will be greeted with a photos gallery archway where the guest can see June and Paul’s pre-wedding photos taken by PaHn and I. It was a really good feeling to see our photos hanging in the archway and even better when the guests stop to look at each photo.

After the photo gallery archway, was a table with presented pre-wedding photo albums taken by a professional photographing service. A really nice album that I wish someday to have a chance to do one for a couple. The guests will then meet with the bridesmaids that helping out the event. The bridesmaids then direct the guests to a flower archway where they will take group photo with June and Paul before they were then lead to their table.

… a very lovely couple indeed!

The wedding day has finally arrived for June and Paul, but who would have known that the ceremony started at about 4:00 am!

The wedding tradition in Thailand involves the handover of the bride by her family to the groom and his family. The time of the handover, moving out from her house to move in to his house is really important. It is believed that there is a specific moment, the right time for this handover as when done properly will bring prosperity, good fortune and longevity for the couple.

The engagement ceremony for June and Paul is a Chinese one which involves a tea ceremony where June and Paul offer “tea” to the groom’s family members. This tradition is for the couple to show respect to the family and also for the family to show acceptance of the couple marriage.

The morning engagement ceremony lasted til about 11:00 am and then everyone was off to get ready for the evening’s wedding celebrations!

Having not written for a while… only means I am way too busy with work. No, I haven’t forgotten about twostepsbehind. As a matter of fact, I check the web’s stats everyday. Some of my friends and families are starting to wonder of what have I been doing here in Bangkok, Thailand.

January 09, 2010 was the first time that I get the opportunity to take photos of the lovely couple for their pre-wedding photo. It was really fun and I really enjoy seeing the couple’s love that they are sharing and caring for each other. It’s proof that… love exists!

And that was how my interest in portrait photographing began.

Who would have known that googling the phrase “tying the knot” would bring so many interesting articles to read. The very first link that was provided by google was a link to a wedding photography service.

Tying The Knot

-One of the Top 10 Wedding Photographers in the World.
www.tyingtheknot.net

So, I started to wonder, what does “tying the knot” have to do with “marriage” so I again… Googled for “tying the knot meaning” and was lead to a website explaining how nowadays wedding have their customs and traditions traced all the way back to ancient Egyptians!

Wedding Traditions & Their Origins

- Tying The Knot. This comes from the days of the Roman empire when the Bride wore a girdle that was tied in knots.
The Groom untied the knots prior to the consummation of their marriage.
www.pibweddings.com/traditionsorigins.html

What was I thinking that made me took the picture when I saw the rope tied on the boat?

I guess the message was “commitment” because when tying the rope together it meant to have one “attached” to the other, to add length, to extend, to go beyond… what one rope can do. Meanwhile, there are tension that pulling the ropes away from the knot in opposite direction, proven by Newton’s 3rd law of motion “Whenever a first body exerts a force F on a second body, the second body exerts a force −F on the first body. F and −F are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction”, therefore the only thing that will hold 2 ropes together is how strong would each rope would be able to withhold the tension that is being created with surrounding force.

The knot would never untied the itself, but the strength of the ropes is the key that hold them together… Maybe this is the reason why the phrase “tying the knot” has so many related article with wedding and marriage because it take 2 people’s commitment that the will provide a lifetime of support and cherish each other, as long as they can withhold the pressure from the surrounding and that one rope doesn’t snap before the other.

*a moment of photo taken on the rooftop of the long boat that was taking me and my family to the Nail Island, Phang Nga, Thailand.

Love… happens

In celebration of the 1 year anniversary of TwoStepsBehind… I chose this Panorama that was taken in Phang Nga Bay, Thailand. The island also known as the Nail Island. The picture was taken on Christmas of 2009; the same day that I was reunited and met many of my long lost family members. It was the family trip that I must have mentioned on previous posts.

Looking back a year to date…  there are many changes in the way I process pictures, which hopefully have improved greatly. A year ago, I believed that there would be a day that I could take a nice landscape shot, a panorama of some sort… as my very first post at TwoStepsBehind, Hello Planet Earth, Welcome to Two Steps Behind!, was a panorama of the Vancouver Bridge, Canada. That belief… brought me to where I am today… with the photo which I am really proud of. To me it’s a really big step that was made of many small steps.

A year has passed and I couldn’t believe how much things have changed… or at least just me.

There was so much to learn in a year, and I can say for certain that life is…

to Live and Learn…
to keep going forward…
to give and to love unconditionally

and most important of it all…

to never lose hope.
because I do still believe strongly that, hope achieves the impossible.

In celebration of 1 year anniversary of TwoStepsBehind… I am going to make a slide show, when I have time, to see where has TwoStepsBehind has visited. I know that Apple has those cool programs, iMovie, iDvd… etc to make the globe spin from one place to the next. Let us see how would that turn out!

But first things first… I must thank you everyone for visiting this website…
First of all, my mother for making me realize that I should write a blog so that she could keep up with my where abouts.
Secondly, Qi for gifted me with “HALF” of the Canon Rebel XSI for my Bachelor of Architecture graduation present.

Thirdly, SCI_Arc for exposing me to the world of APPLE and MACBOOK PRO

Forth, WordPress + Flickr + Facebook + iPhoto… for making it so easy to blog.
Last but not least… is Trey, the god of HDR for sharing his tutorial at www.StuckInCustoms.com which became a great inspiration for me. Thank you to all of my reader to continuing reading many if not most of my non-sense posts!

THANK YOU!!!

Cheers… on to the next and many more year to come!

Photos taken at Phang Nga Bay, Nail Island, Thailand on December 25, 2009

A year ago…

I believe that everything happens for a reason…

Today post may sound a bit serious and very personal, but it is part of who I am and could and would affect the way I see and do things that may be different from others.

I truly believe that everything happens for a reason… that is simply because of John 14:6 “I am the way and the truth and the life…” said Jesus Christ.

Before I became a Christian, I always needed proof or some sort of evidence to verify each life events that happen to the point that… I always asked myself, “why on earth would this have to happen to me?”

No matter how many “because dot dot dot” for the answer of “why dot dot dot happened?” the question can NEVER be answered in full or totally acceptable to me.

But that has changed

After having put my faith and trust in Jesus Christ… my heart and my mind is at peace because I have stop asking myself “why dot dot dot?” because “everything happen for a reason” or reasons that has already been set by Jesus Christ, after all he is “the way” and “the truth” and “the life”

How could I say that I trust you, Jesus… but to always doubt in him when anything bad happen or when things doesn’t happen the way I – expected – it to be.

By having faith and trusting him, I simply believe that anything that happened is for the greater good and that it was from his best interest in my well being.

I mean… to think about it how heavy it would be if I were to have the burden of carrying all of the problems (or I thought that it was the problems) and try to solve them (maybe it doesn’t even need to be solve in the first place)

The way we do anything is the way we do everything – another phrase that I do live my life by.

I give the same trust and faith that I have in Jesus to all those around me. When I said I trust in Jesus, I meant it and that I would not doubt his method of how my life would turn out because… I simply trust in him.

…

..

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But we all know that everyone is different and I guess I was wrong to assume that everyone would have the same mentality as I am, hence I create an expectation when someone said “I trust you.” I know that everyone is different because no matter how many reasons explained… it sound like excuses to them.

Elbert Hubbard once said “never explain – your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.”

I think he got the point.

But the point is really, why would you ever doubt the person you said, “I trust you” to?