Ananda and Joe met on a blind date and a few years later, they brought 110 people to a cliffside in Phuket for a wedding Ananda had quietly picked out before Joe ever got down on one knee. The styling came from ME Events, who took a brief about modern minimalism and the Andaman Sea and ran it all the way to a giant paper art piece floating over the dance floor. Salt Atelier, inRomance Photography and Tichakorn Cinematography shot the whole thing, from a morning tea ceremony to an Afro house sunset.
Location: Phuket, Thailand
Style: Monochrome, Сandlelit, Aquatic
Time of planning: 2 years
Number of guests: 110
Setting: Cliffside Resort
Season: Fall
Here is how it actually started. A mutual friend set them up on a blind date, and Ananda walked into a restaurant with the right name but the wrong location, sat there a while, and decided Joe had bailed. Joe, parked at the correct branch, had come to the same conclusion about her. Once they sorted out the mix up and finally landed in the same room, they could not stop talking, and at the end of the night Joe skipped the goodbye kiss Ananda was braced for and went in for a friendly hug instead, which is either restraint or strategy depending on who you ask.
That friendly hug turned into three years of long distance and a corgi they raised together, and then Joe proposed on a beach in Mexico at sunset. He had scouted the exact spot the night before for maximum privacy, not clocking that the big day landed on a Mexican public holiday, so the quiet moment he planned ended up shared with a whole beach of families ringing in the new year. Ananda, for the record, already knew where she wanted to get married long before any of this happened, she just had not mentioned it to him yet.
Bride's Morning & Fashion
Getting ready happened in the villa with the bridesmaids in matching ivory slips, draped across a white bed with the bay sitting in the windows behind them, and at one point Ananda is holding two orange cocktails up to her face like the celebration already kicked off. Tracey Truong kept the makeup soft and skin first, a flushed lip and a clean lash, while Peera left the hair loose and undone so nothing read overworked.
The ceremony gown is Jane Hill, an Australian label that tracks given how much of the guest list flew in from Sydney and beyond, cut as a strapless sweetheart A line in clean satin with a high slit and a cathedral veil trailing behind. On her feet were custom lace Jimmy Choo, and her bouquet leaned into orchids, the Thai flower Ananda specifically wanted as a nod to her heritage, mixed with white roses. Later she changed into a beaded mini from GP Creatives, the Sydney label built around exactly this kind of second look, which is how you handle a reception when you actually plan to move.
Groom’s Fashion
Joe went with a linen suit from Suitsupply in a sandy tone, collar open, no tie, brown leather on his feet. It is the right call for a wedding where the afternoon heat was no joke, and the relaxed cut meant he looked comfortable instead of starched while standing in the sun trading vows.
Ceremony
The ceremony sat outdoors on a deck above the Andaman Sea, with limestone islands and a few boats parked on the water behind the arch like scenery nobody had to build. ME Events framed the couple with white roses, orchids and hydrangeas and otherwise kept things spare, letting the sea hold the back of every wide shot. Ananda had wanted exactly this, a setting that honored her Thai heritage while handing everyone who flew in a proper holiday after the COVID years, and she had locked the location in her head before Joe even proposed.
It got genuinely hot by the afternoon, so a lot of the guests sat under paper parasols. White petals ran the length of the aisle and the florals stayed low and tonal, all of it keeping the eye on the water and the two people in front of it.
The couple said their vows with the ocean glittering behind them, and by their own account the vows plus the sight of everyone who had flown across the world to be there was the part that stuck. Guests fed back that the styling and the whole experience landed, heat and all. That first touch from the morning earned its keep too, since the walk down the aisle read calm rather than nervous.
Moments Together
Between the ceremony and dinner the couple slipped off for portraits while the light went gold, including a dip kiss in front of a wall of white flowers and a seated shot with the sea behind them.
There was a champagne tower built from coupe glasses, each one finished with a tiny white satin bow, the same bow detail fashion has been obsessed with for a few seasons now turning up on glassware.
Reception
Dinner moved downstairs into a ballroom that still looked straight out at the water, and the thing everyone walked in under is a giant paper installation suspended over the dance floor.
It hangs there like a gallery piece, a cumulus of oversized white forms that turns the ceiling into the main event, the sort of surreal oversized object a fashion house would drop in the runway. Paired with the teal beaded chandeliers and all the white floral work, the room quietly echoes the sea outside, the teal standing in for water and the white for foam.
The head table is where ME Events and ME Props went all in, with cascading florals, banks of candles and chandeliers overhead, while the long guest tables run on the same formula of low white blooms and a spine of taper candles. ME Props builds a lot of its furniture and decor by hand, which is part of why the room feels cohesive rather than rented, every piece pulling toward the same modern white look.
The entrance is the two of them sprinting onto the floor hand in hand at a flat run, with the film team at Tichakorn Cinematography catching the dash. Their first dance was an acoustic version of John Summit’s Where You Are, which then flipped into the full track as the floor opened, and from there the night ran on at least three hours of nonstop music.
Ananda’s childhood friends from Thailand and Australia ran the mic as MCs, speeches came from the maid of honor, the best man and both sets of parents, and the dance floor shots switch to direct flash and black and white, that slightly harsh disposable camera look that reads like a memory you are already half forgetting. It closes on sparklers, which is about as clean an ending as a night like this gets.
Advice from the couple:
• Don’t overthink the day. Savour every moment, as it flies by very quick and just focus on each other while being surrounded by your loved ones!
EVENT DESIGN & STYLING ME Events | PHOTOGRAPHY Salt Atelier, inRomance Photography | CINEMATOGRAPHY Tichakorn Cinematography | VENUE Sri Panwa | HAIR Peera | MAKEUP Tracey Truong | BRIDE’S GOWN Jane Hill | RECEPTION GOWN GP Creatives | BRIDE’S SHOES Jimmy Choo | GROOM’S ATTIRE Suitsupply | DECOR & FURNITURE RENTALS ME Props | DJ Jono Toscano | CONTENT CREATOR btswithyou
