JonathanOng

Dealing with wedding images all the time can sometimes cause my head to be up in the clouds about love.

I’ve known Jolvin & Jolyn for a couple of years now. We attend the same church, and were in the same cell group last year. Shooting friends is always an interesting experience – because I’ve had time to do life with them and is a reminder to myself that love is not a constant fairytale experience. I think CS Lewis puts it best here:

“Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing.  There are many things below it, but there are also things above it.  You cannot make it the basis of a whole life.  It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling.  Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all.  Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feeling come and go.  And in fact, whatever people say, the state called “being in love’ usually does not last.  If the old fairy-tale ending “They lived happily ever after’ is taken to mean ‘They felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married’, then it says what probably never was nor ever would be true, and would be highly undesirable if it were.  Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years?  What would become of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friendships?  But, of course, ceasing to be ‘in love’ need not mean ceasing to love.  Love in this second sense – love as distinct from “being in love’ – is not merely a feeling.  It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God.  They can have this love for each other even at moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself.  They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be ‘in love’ with someone else.  ‘Being in love’ first moved them to promise fidelity:  this quieter love enables them to keep the promise.  It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run:  being in love was the explosion that started it.” – CS Lewis

Here’s to always loving above being in love.

Their engagement session was also featured on Whimsical Wonderland Weddings here. Jolyn is also the new studio manager at November Deer.

On a glorious summer’s day, we took a trip to Maidencastle to have a picnic.

I love being part of surprises. I think it’s the anticipation that something great is going to happen that excites me. And the wealth of honest emotions that come after that.

Scott surprised Alia with the proposal of all proposals. Their “day of adventure” planned by the lovely team at Georgeous consisted of a hand stitched map, meeting Alia’s favourite florist – Melanie from Cecilia Fox, the proposal on a row boat with a message in a bottle, and finally a picnic by the park to let the happy couple to soak it all in. There’s so much more to say but I’ll let the photos do the rest.

Scott & Alia do amazing work themselves – they run a studio in Adelaide called White Wall Photography & Design. You can see more of their work here. A big shout out to the team at Georgeous, who made everything pretty and gorgeous. See more of what they do here. And of course, the amazing Melanie from Cecilia Fox. If you haven’t seen what her magic hands can conjure up, do yourself a favour and drop by here. Congratulations Scott & Alia!