“I can’t wait to see the bride. I wonder which designer she chose to do her gown?” Jacqueline Ling said to Oliver T’sien at the reception before the intimate wedding ceremony. Two hundred guests invited by the happy couple’s families milled about the Andalusian Cloister, enjoying cocktails and canapés while admiring the mesmerizing light installation created by artist James Turrell in the columned arcades surrounding the courtyard.
“Let’s make a bet,” Oliver ventured.
“The way you’re rolling in money these days, I’m not sure if I want to bet against you. Congratulations on your new commission in Abu Dhabi, by the way.”
“Thank you. It’s just one palace for now. The princess was so impressed by what we did here that she’s put me on an embarrassingly large retainer. Anyway, let’s make the bet for lunch at Daphne’s the next time we’re both in London, and my money’s on Giambattista Valli,” Oliver said.
“Okay, lunch at Daphne’s. Well, I wager that the bride’s gown will be designed by Alexis Mabille. I know how much she adores his work.”
The string quartet that had been playing suddenly stopped as the door at the far end of the courtyard opened to reveal a dashing young fellow in a tuxedo holding a violin to his chin.
“Oh look, it’s Charlie Siem! He’s popping up everywhere these days, isn’t he?” Oliver commented as the absurdly handsome virtuoso strolled along the arcade playing Elgar’s “Salut d’amour.” The doors at the other end of the arcade opened slowly, and Charlie strolled through, turning around to beckon the guests to follow him as he continued to play. Outside, a pathway lit with thousands of votive candles led from the rose garden past the stunning new saltwater swimming pool lined with thirteenth-century Moorish tiles into the wooded area of the estate.
Following the musician as he ambled along merrily playing his violin, the guests oohed and aahed when they reached the lily pond, where black wooden chairs had been arranged in a crescent along one side of the pond. Hundreds of pale pink lanterns hung from the trees, cascading down branches and mixing with thousands of hanging vines that had been festooned with white dendrobium orchids, peonies, and white jasmine. A beautiful arched bridge built just for the wedding extended from one side of the pond to the other, covered entirely in different-hued roses, making the whole bridge appear as if it had been painted with impressionistic brushstrokes like one of Monet’s bridges at Giverny.
After the guests had settled into their seats, four cellists placed in the direction of the four winds began to play Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G major as the wedding procession began. An adorable little flower girl dressed in a gossamer white Marie-Chantal gown scattered rose petals along the central aisle, followed by Cassian Teo, who ambled up the aisle in a white linen suit (but barefoot), focused intently on not dropping the velvet pillow bearing the wedding rings.
Next came Nick and Rachel walking arm in arm. Eleanor swelled up with pride as she watched Nick, dashing in his midnight blue Henry Poole tuxedo, escort Rachel, who Eleanor had to admit looked glowingly beautiful in a sublimely simple eggshell pink silk crepe gown designed by Narciso Rodriguez.
“Aiyah, it’s like their wedding all over again,” Eleanor sniffed to her husband, dabbing away a few tears.
“Minus your crazy helicopter invasion,” Philip quipped.
“It wasn’t crazy! I saved their marriage, those ungrateful kids!”
Nick and Rachel parted at the end of the aisle as they took their places as best man and matron of honor on opposite sides of the bridge. Suddenly, a grand piano became illuminated behind the bridge, giving the effect of floating in the middle of the pond. Sitting at the piano was a young man with slightly disheveled strawberry blond hair.
Irene Wu gasped out loud, “Alamak, it’s that Ed Saranwrap! I love his music!”
As Ed Sheeran began singing his wildly popular love ballad “Thinking Out Loud,” the groom, looking sharp in a bespoke tuxedo from Gieves and Hawkes, walked up to the middle of the bridge with the American pastor from Hong Kong’s Stratosphere Church. And then as a full band assembled at the far end of the pond emerged to accompany Ed in his song, the bride made her grand entrance at the foot of the pathway.
The guests rose from their seats in unison as the proud father of the bride, Goh Wye Mun, nervously escorted his daughter Peik Lin up the aisle. The bride wore a strapless gown with a fitted white bodice and a long train skirt of ruffles appliquéd with pale pink silk roses. Her hair was swept up into an elaborate braided bun and crowned with a vintage pearl-and-diamond tiara from G.Collins & Sons.
Jacqueline and Oliver looked at each other and said in unison, “McQueen!”
As Peik Lin glided past them, Jacqueline nodded approvingly. “Sublime. Sarah Burton does it again!”
“We both lose, but we can still have lunch at Daphne’s. Of course, you’re treating, Jac—you’ve got more fuck-you money than I do,” Oliver said with a wink.
Peik Lin walked up to the middle of the bridge, where she was met by the pastor, who looked a little too disturbingly like Chris Hemsworth, and the man she was about to marry—Alistair Cheng.
Nick and Rachel beamed joyously as the couple exchanged their handwritten vows, while Neena Goh, dressed in a gold-sequined Guo Pei gown with a plunging neckline, wept noisily. The Young sisters—Felicity, Catherine, Victoria, and Alix—glared at the mother of the bride with varying degrees of disapproval while shedding their own discreet tears.
“I can’t believe my baby Alistair is getting married,” Alix sniffed to her sisters. “It seemed like only yesterday he was crawling into my bed, too afraid to asleep in the dark, and look at him now.”
“Well, the boy was smart enough to marry a woman as capable as Peik Lin! I must admit I am quite impressed with what she and Alistair have done with Tyersall Park,” Felicity said.
“I’m impressed by what they all did!” Catherine interjected. After all, it was she who cast the tiebreaking vote between the sisters one year ago when Nick had come to them with a radical new proposal hours before they were about to sign the sales contract with Jack Bing.
The result of Nick’s proposal had now come to life as the just completed Tyersall Park Hotel and Museum, which preserved the main house as a historic landmark while breathing new life into it as an incomparably elegant new boutique hotel run by Colin Khoo and Araminta Lee. Set among nineteen acres of lush gardens in the immediate vicinity of the main house were forty guest villas exquisitely designed by Oliver T’sien in partnership with Axel Vervoordt. Beyond this rose Tyersall Village, a forty-five-acre community of sustainable housing specifically designed for artists and middle-income families, built by Goh Developments—the construction company owned by Peik Lin’s family.
“I think Father would be proud of Nicky. I don’t think he was ever truly comfortable coming home every night to this decadent palace, when he spent the whole day being a doctor to the poorest people on the island,” Alix said approvingly. From the row behind the sisters, Cassandra Shang leaned in and whispered, “I’m told every single house in Tyersall Village sold on the first day of offering, because for so long no one with less than ten million dollars has been able to afford a house with a garden in Singapore! But apparently the people living in those big houses along Gallop Road are furious that the hoi polloi are now moving in to this tony neighborhood!”
“I don’t mind what they did with Tyersall Village, but all those Buddha heads in the garden have got to go!” Victoria huffed. “I wonder if Peik Lin had anything to do with that. Those parents of hers look like they could be Buddhist.”
Felicity shook her head. “I don’t think Peik Lin was involved. I think the Buddhas belong to the secret investor who chipped three billion in to Nick’s venture. I just wish I knew who it was!”
When the ceremony had concluded, the guests proceeded to the wedding banquet at Alexander’s, the ravishing new restaurant in what was formerly the conservatory managed by Araminta Lee’s Sublime Hospitality Group. Su Yi’s prizewinning orchid hybrids commanded the space, but now they sprang out of handblown glass vessels suspended from the ceiling. Lit by candlelight, the hundreds of orchids seemed to dance in the air like celestial creatures over the long wooden seventeenth-century refectory tables.