The extraordinary details of Rebekah Yeoh Hess and Lucas Hess’ two-day Kuala Lumpur wedding celebration

“The four seasons of the Swiss Alps beautifully mirror the journey of marriage itself, a life that calls two people to walk through every season together,” Yeoh Hess explains. The ceremony space was anchored by a graceful willow tree adorned with white flowers (Yeoh’s favourite), flanked by a mountain structure draped in soft pink florals, a tribute to her late grandfather. Blue hydrangeas lined the aisle, evoking alpine springs, while stationery carried embossed motifs of edelweiss, roses to remember her late mother, and dandelions, a symbol from a family poem.

The first look with her father Tan Sri (Sir) Francis Yeoh was one of the morning’s most emotional moments. “Before I met my husband, [my father] was the man who had shaped the longest and most defining presence in my life,” she says. “Just as he was the first person to see me when I took my first breath in this world, it felt only right that he would be the first to see me in my wedding dress.”

The afternoon transitioned to a luncheon at Sentul Pavilion, where the theme shifted to Spring Pastels, a celebration of new beginnings. Wishing Tree had flooded the room with soft pink and green florals, whimsical umbrellas scattered throughout the space as both a nod to the morning’s unexpected rain and a symbol of blooms that only appear after it. Succulents that Yeoh Hess had personally grown at home were placed among the table decorations. “I wanted them to be part of the wedding because plants carry a quiet lesson: with care, patience, and love, they can endure and thrive for years.”

The menu was a fusion of Yeoh Hess and Hess’ two favourite cuisines, Italian and Japanese, curated by the chefs of Shook Restaurant, while cocktails by Bar Terumi blended Eastern and Western ingredients including ginseng, chrysanthemum, and aromatic teas. A one-metre buttercream wedding cake from Patisserie Rui topped with raspberries (the groom’s favourite fruit) anchored the dessert table. Wedding favours took the form of customised plates featuring the couple’s wedding mural, a nod to their shared love of interior design and homeware collecting.

Interactive stations kept the atmosphere playful: a live illustrator captured guests in keepsake portraits, a magazine-style photobooth invited guests to imagine their own cover moment, and a popcorn machine and ice cream cart added a warm, nostalgic charm.

The second day opened with the traditional gate-crashing and bridal fetching games before the family gathered for the tea ceremony, a ritual that held particular emotional weight for Yeoh Hess. Just before the ceremony began, she shared a private moment with her grandmother, who softly placed a flower from the bridal bouquet into her hair. “It was the simplest gesture, yet it carried the weight of all the wisdom she had given me over the years,” Yeoh Hess recalls. “She poured wisdom into my small tea cup, long before I knew how to even carry it. It was that very wisdom that led us here today.”

The evening dinner banquet, hosted at JW Marriott Hotel Kuala Lumpur, was the grand culmination of the celebrations, and arguably its most visually arresting chapter. The concept, executed by Within The Occasions and Moments, was rooted in a specific era: the golden age of Hong Kong cinema and the cultural intersection of East and West in the mid-twentieth century. Yeoh’s mother, the late Puan Sri Datin Paduka Rosaline Chan Yeoh Yee Hing had been an actress in Hong Kong during the 1970s, during the rise of TVB, and the dinner was conceived as a tribute to that world.

“We wanted our dinner to echo that harmony, transporting guests back to a time when post-war Western mercantile trade flourished in Asia, when jazz began weaving its way into the cultural fabric, and when fashion, cinema, and music reflected a graceful exchange between East and West,” Yeoh Hess explains.

Deep burgundy drapery hung from the ceiling while towering lamps coiled into lanterns cast the room in the glow of an old jazz club. A striking bar constructed from illuminated mahjong tiles sat at the room’s centre, its surrounding panels hand-painted with mahjong motifs. Classic Hong Kong films were projected across the walls—many featuring Yeoh Hess’ mother—while floral arrangements blended modern blooms with unexpected elements, including Venus flytraps. A large mural by Bangkok artist Jeep Kongdechakul depicted a photograph of the couple taken a year before their engagement, marking the moment they bought 240 bottles of Burgundy they already knew would become their wedding wine.

The menu was deliberately unconventional. The couple served her grandmother's famous Hainanese chicken rice alongside banana leaf rice. “Our idea was simple, to give people food they genuinely love to eat, the kind of dishes that bring comfort and joy, but that they would almost never expect to see served at a wedding,” Yeoh Hess says. Magician Patrick Kun added a layer of interactive wonder, transforming the room through shared astonishment and laughter.

Symbolism threaded quietly through every corner: a cow wearing a Swiss bell representing the West, a rickshaw for the Orient, and a small cha chaan teng food stall honouring her mother's Hong Kong heritage under the name ‘CHAN’, her mother’s maiden name.

The celebration gave way to the after-party, cheekily themed ‘Chalet Hess.’ The foyer became a winter wonderland: alpine projections, mountain structures, custom skis bearing the couple’s wedding insignia, and a flowing cheese fondue fountain as a playful Swiss substitute for the conventional chocolate option. Sumo fat suits, a mechanical cow ride, and a sledgehammer carnival game turned the night into something wonderfully uninhibited, while a Disney-themed kids' club ensured even the youngest guests had their own magical corner of the evening.

Across the two days, Yeoh Hess wore six main looks and two mini looks, a testament to the distinct character of each event. Her ceremony dress, from Galia Lahav via Trinity Bridal Hong Kong, was mermaid-cut and body-hugging, chosen because “I wanted it to feel like an exact sculpture and mould of who I was at that very moment in my life, like freezing time.” Subsequent looks included KHYA Bridal for the luncheon, a bespoke Shiatzy Chen piece for the dinner cocktails, and a bespoke Gabriella Vania gown for dinner, among others.

In the end, what distinguished the Yeoh-Hess wedding was not its scale or glamour—though both were considerable—but the extraordinary intentionality behind every choice. “The most timeless weddings are not the ones overflowing with decoration, but the ones where every detail carries quiet symbolism,” Yeoh Hess reflects. “Many brides had told me that on the wedding day itself, the small details you spent months obsessing over would fade into the background. But I found the opposite to be true. Every detail felt visible, appreciated, and meaningful precisely because of the love and symbolism behind it.”

“We truly feel that those two days were a quiet reflection of how God had carried us through every season of our lives. The love in the room was not something that could be manufactured—it was the natural result of the people He had placed around us over the years.”

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