One of my most cherished friendships is with a group of high school friends collectively named the Buggers. If you've followed this blog for long enough, you should have seen and recognized most of their faces cropping up in random posts here and there, including this post here.

If you clicked on that link above, it would have brought you to a time when my buddy Bugger Seah just got into a relationship with Celine. That post was written 5 years ago, back when they were still a fledgling couple just stepping out into the dating world. Fast forward to 5 years later today, it is with a heart full of gladness that I would like to congratulate my buddy, the Bugger Seah Wei Kit on his official engagement to Celine.

When Bugger Seah first broke the news that he wanted to propose, the four of us guys didn't know how to react. How would we, we're guys! But once the dust settled and the planning started, things began to fall into place. We were excited for sure. The first of our ragtag group of Buggers was going to get married; this was huge.

The place would be Langkawi, the Pearl of the Orient, on a #BuggersTravel trip we planned months in advance. The plan: just wing it. Seriously. I can tell you one thing about a group of guys who have to plan wedding proposals. We don't actually know what exactly needs to be done. So while Bugger Seah was fretting over his speech, the rest of us were desperately polishing up on our wedding proposal knowledge by watching a ton of Youtube videos, 95% of which we knew we would never be able to replicate.

Note: This does not work.

The weekend of the proposal arrived before we even knew it, and with every ticking second, every one of us was feeling the jitters. It's heart-stopping stuff to be keeping a secret as big as this, and even more insane when we had to prepare without letting Celine know. She and Bugger Seah were practically inseparable for the duration of the trip, breaking off from each other only to use the bathroom. We used those precious few seconds wisely to whisper our plans into place. I felt like a spy, for some weird reason.

Everything was lined up properly for the day. The proposal time had been pushed forward because of Bugger Seah's ever increasing nervousness, and that only served to further put the rest of us in a larger excitement. While we were waiting for the lady of the hour, The surprisers turned surprised when Celine took an alternative route and appeared behind the nervously waiting Bugger Seah. I've been in plenty of situations but this was definitely a first. The panic button was pushed and we quickly tried to salvage the situation. From the time Celine appeared to the time she said yes, I have absolutely no recollection of anything that happened other than through the video I (thankfully) continued shooting.

Note: This works.

I'm glad to have been there as a part of two of my closest friends' day, and I can honestly say that me, along with the rest of the Buggers; Bugger Jun, Bugger ECF and Bugger Marcus, that we're more than happy Bugger Seah is finally getting married. We're past the words of congratulations and everything already, now it's just time for us to step up to the brotherhood plate on his wedding day.

Our little Bugger family has grown smaller. Because now, two have become one.

You can watch the proposal video here:

 Photograph | Seah and Celine



 Cheerios!