A Chic and Stylish Destination Wedding at Alia Villas Uluwatu in Bali, Indonesia

Jessica Xu and Andrew Hung crossed paths three times over the course of nearly ten years before they started dating. “The first time we met in college, Jessica was a volunteer tutor in one of my classes and I was her lucky student – even though I was already a sophomore and she was still a freshman,” Andrew recalls. “The second time we met was two years later. I spent my junior year and most of my senior year abroad; but right when I returned, we ran into each other one evening on campus. We spent some time together in the same circle of friends and there was some mutual attraction, but we were both dating other people at the time.”

After Andrew graduated, the two fell out of touch again – that is, until they reconnected via social media. “I was on a month-long business trip to Asia when Jessica liked one of my photos on Facebook,” Andrew explains. “Since we hadn’t talked in three years, this immediately sparked my interest and I messaged her directly. Jessica was in LA and I was living in San Francisco, but we started to talk more and more. This grew into a long-distance relationship.”

Further down the road, Andrew woke Jessica up at 3 a.m. while on vacation in Maui, and the couple drove up to Haleakala Volcano to watch the sun rise. Envisioning a romantic moment, Andrew didn’t foresee the freezing temperatures of the summit. While Jessica was bundled in blankets from the hotel, three hours of waiting for the sun to rise led to Andrew’s hands shaking from cold as he dropped to one knee and proposed. “We were congratulated by many friendly strangers, including an incredibly generous person who had visited Haleakala five years earlier and buried a bottle of wine under a large boulder,” he adds. “He ran off and dug up the bottle of wine for us to celebrate the engagement.”

Having visited numerous California venues during their wedding planning process, Jessica decided none of them felt quite right. Browsing online one day, she came across several gorgeous photos of Bali, where she spontaneously decided she wanted to get married. Although Andrew was reluctant at first, he obliged, and plans were soon in the works for a destination wedding in Bali – even though neither of them had ever been there. After signing the venue, the couple made an “emergency trip” over to Bali, where they instantly fell in love with Balinese cuisine and the beautiful scenery.

While planning a destination wedding was difficult, Kristi from Details Details worked around the clock to make sure it was everything Jessica and Andrew wanted it to be. Despite some tropical showers during the wedding ceremony, the rest of the celebration went by smoothly.

“The food was delicious, we had amazing music from a live band and DJ, we had some fun fireworks, and we were able to celebrate with family and friends,” describes the groom. “At the end of the night, the celebrations had become so intense that half the wedding party ended up jumping in the pool. This is just a couple hours after we were stressed over a little rain.”