When Uncle Roger said ‘Yam Seng’: Nigel Ng and Sabrina Ahmed’s whimsical Portugal wedding

Naturally, food played a starring role. “Nigel’s career made it necessary to have excellent Asian food at the wedding, and good food is also how he expresses love,” adds Sabrina.

Sabrina’s mother’s Bengali chicken rezala and pulao recipes graced the Sangeet menu, while Ng’s favourite midnight indulgence—a wok-tossed Indomie with fried egg, shallots and a drizzle of chilli crisp—was reimagined for guests. “It was so nostalgic for us, and felt like we were giving guests a window into the small moments of our life,” says Sabrina. 

A particularly delightful touch was the Portuguese egg tart (pasteis de nata), wrapped in a Chinoiserie box with a Chinese double happiness charm that served as a sweet memento for guests to take home.

The ceremonies themselves were a riot of heritage and playfulness, highlight the similarities between Ng’s and Sabrina’s Asian roots. “Bengali people and Chinese people both play “door” or “gate” games before weddings,” Sabrina says. “We wanted to highlight these similarities.”

During the gatecrashing games, Ng and his groomsmen faced bridesmaids in challenges that included 108 push-ups and serenading Sabrina with Shania Twain’s You’re Still the One.

Later, lion dancers—possibly the only troupe in all of Portugal—stormed the steps just before the couple cut their cake to Japanese city-pop classic Stay With Me by Miki Matsubara. “Nigel and I have really different taste in music, but one genre we both really agree on is Japanese City Pop,” recalls Sabrina fondly. “The guests were so stunned with the lion dance performance, most of them had never seen one before. Our Taiwanese and Malaysian guests joked that the ones in Asia are much better though!”

The aisle moment was equally cinematic. A lifelong fan of the Final Fantasy video game, Sabrina walked towards Ng to Faye Wong’s Eyes on Me, played live from a string quartet arrangement she had hunted down online. “I promised myself at 12 years old that I would walk down the aisle to that song, the main theme of Final Fantasy 8,” she says. 

The selection was perfect, as Ng also grew up listening to Faye Wong’s songs and enjoyed playing Final Fantasy as a child—a mutual interest that Ng and Sabrina discovered on their first date. Pop culture also played a role in the couple’s engagement shoot in Taipei in early 2025, inspired by Wong Kar Wai’s works.

Their wardrobes were as considered as their playlists. For the Sangeet ceremony, Sabrina’s Dolly J soft pink lehenga was complemented beautifully by Ng’s pink Shasha Gabba sherwani.    

Sabrina wore a Vivienne Westwood gown for the wedding ceremony and later a stunning red Banarasi silk saree for the reception—the same one worn by her mother at her own wedding in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 1987.

“I grew up in awe of my parents’ wedding photos which were displayed around my family home,” Sabrina says. “It was my father’s dream to see me get married but he sadly passed away in February 2021 before Nigel and I met. As an homage to his legacy and to them as wonderful parents, I wore my mother’s exact saree and blouse with all her original jewellery.”

See also: Nadine Jasmine & Haziq Farhan’s wedding was a joyful, personal celebration of Malaysian creatives

For the reception, Ng kept it classic with a Ralph Lauren tuxedo with a cream dinner jacket. “Much like his alter ego, Nigel likes to wear basically the same thing every day—usually a grey shirt with dark high waisted pants,” Sabrina quips.

“This man literally buys five of the same cotton shirt and pants so he can keep wearing it. For his tuxedo, he wanted a classic one that he could wear for the rest of his life, so he went for Ralph Lauren, known for its timeless cuts.”

In true international rom-com fashion, some of their accessories were couriered via KLIA, where a designer quite literally dropped items off at Uncle Roger’s restaurant in KLIA for Ng’s mother to collect on her flight over.

For the tea ceremony, Sabrina’s Renee Couture qipao was truly a work of art—the handiwork of renowned Indonesian designers Gisela Ekachristie and Melissa Anggono.

“I cannot speak more highly of Gisela and Melissa, who flew to Kuala Lumpur to take measurements, met us in Bali for the first fitting, and came back to Kuala Lumpur for the final fitting with their entire team,” Sabrina says. “We chose deep red to draw a parallel to my Bengali reception saree, visually joining the two cultures together. This is the longest train Renee Couture has ever made for a client, so it was truly an honour to wear it.”   

Ng’s Tang jacket, meanwhile, was custom-crafted for him by celebrity Indonesian tailor, Samuel Wongso, in shades that matched Sabrina’s qipao. 

As for the dance floor? Ng, more famous for skewering egg fried rice than performing a waltz, surprised everyone with a dramatic first dance to Jacky Cheung’s power ballad Ai Shi Yong Heng. 

Looking back, the bride admits pulling off three cultures’ worth of rituals abroad was daunting. “Planning a wedding in a country you don’t live in is as difficult as it sounds,” she says. “It was unimaginably harder trying to do three weddings in one while traveling to a different country every month. But it had the added benefit of allowing us to source décor and outfits from all of these different places. I think this led to the uniquely authentic details of our wedding.”

Says Ng of what he looks forward to most in this next chapter of his life: “I live in the present with her, we spend all our time together and she brings me peace—I want to keep doing that for as long as we are alive. Just talking about our days, sitting on the couch together, or eating out at our favourite restaurants, those things bring me so much joy in my day-to-day life.”

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