WHEN IT ALL BEGINS
While sharing her thoughts on her wedding arrangements, Gabrielle Tan speaks of love as a way of complementing one another
While sharing her thoughts on her wedding arrangements, Gabrielle Tan speaks of love as a way of complementing one another
From the moment they first met in 2010, Gabrielle Tan and Michael Helfman have never stayed apart from each other. After two years of being together, they both invested in an apartment, which has been their home for the past couple of years. The next step was, naturally, only a matter of making it a more official arrangement.
For that matter, one casual evening four years into their relationship, Michael decided to ask Gabrielle to go out on a date in a romantic restaurant and then for a walk in KLCC Park. “He said he loved me and then all of a sudden he went down on one knee,” shares Gabrielle fondly while reliving that magical night. On that particular evening, the Petronas Towers were illuminated in a pink light, a signature of Estée Lauder Companies’ annual breast cancer campaign, and this created the right atmosphere for Michael to pop the question.
Gabrielle cheerfully reveals that she was completely unprepared for that moment. “I can usually tell when Michael is hiding something from me but this particular time, he actually played it smart and I did not suspect anything at all!”
She then proudly goes on to describe how her fiancé managed to organise the whole proposal without her realising it. Before asking Gabrielle to marry him, he had first asked her parents Datuk Seri Robert and Datin Seri Mei Tan, for permission to do so, keeping this hidden from her. Having done that, he cleverly and covertly made her try on different rings to get the right measurements for the engagement ring; and finally, he picked a date and a place so he could make the move.
Radiating with happiness from the recount of her engagement, she then talks about how they are now focusing their attention on working out the finer details of their wedding day. The wedding reception will take place in Penang in one of IGB Corporation’s upcoming hotels, and it will follow a theme, which, however, “cannot be revealed yet,” says Gabrielle mysteriously. Besides Penang, she and Michael will also host a small gathering in New York, where the groom was born and raised, in order to celebrate the big occasion in the company of his family, too.
“The wedding arrangements are coming up very well. I must say I am lucky enough to have found amazing wedding planners who are helping me out! It was actually a big thing for me not to take care of something that deeply involves me like my own wedding. Indeed, before letting someone else take care of the arrangements, Michael and I interviewed a few wedding planners and in the end we decided to work with The Occasions, as we both felt comfortable trusting them with our wedding preparations,” admits Gabrielle, who has had her fair share of organising and executing events in her capacity as the head of marketing at The Gardens Mall.
For the church wedding, Gabrielle will be wearing Pronovias, although she is secretive about the details of how it looks once she puts the dress on. She did reveal that she will be wearing a Celest Thoi creation for her Chinese tea ceremony. “I found the Pronovias gown I want to get married in at Designer Bridal Room in Pavilion. On the other hand, for the Chinese tea ceremony, I am going traditional by wearing a red cheongsam. Michael, however, will be wearing western clothes!” she continues with a laugh.
On describing her bridesmaids’ dresses, while trying not to reveal too much about the wedding theme, she explains: “The gowns will be designed by Celest Thoi, and they will be in different shades of blue while my ‘bridesman’ and very good friend Raymond Choon, will be wearing a suit that I’m still looking for.”
As Gabrielle talks about her love story, she explains that the two fundamental principles their relationship and marriage stand on are trust and honesty. “I try to always base my relationship with Michael on these principles. When you decide to spend the rest of your life with someone, it is fundamental that you have a connection with him or her. In order to have that, you must be entirely honest with each other to the point that your connection turns into a deep friendship. I believe having your partner as your best friend is important, and Michael and I are lucky enough to have this,” shares Gabrielle.
Currently, Michael owns and operates a New York-style pizza place in Bangsar and Gabrielle is busy attending to her duties at The Gardens Mall. Despite their busy schedules, they always manage to allocate time to spend with one another.
In fact, they recently organised a hiking trip to Nepal together. She says, “I think what makes Michael and I such a solid couple is mostly the fact that we complement each other. He is very adventurous and he likes outdoor activities whereas I prefer being indoors. For example, I love travelling, but definitively not in the way he likes to. However, this bonds us together as he pushes me to do things I never thought I would do and vice versa. He even managed to convince me to go hiking in extreme conditions in Nepal with him!”
When thinking about spending the rest of her life with Michael, Gabrielle sees this as the beginning of her own family. “I would love to have more than one child, and I want to build a family as big and united like my own. I have three sisters and one brother, so we are five siblings in total. We always have each other’s backs. Michael also comes from a pretty big family too!” From how she longingly relates this cherished dream of starting a family of her own to love and nurture, we can already tell that Gabrielle can’t wait for the moment when she and Michael embark on the next chapter of their lives together.
“When you decide to spend the rest of your life with someone, it is fundamental that you have a connection with him or her”