Both Ting Jiang and Ian Chen are CEOs and founders—she started TheraBox, a self-care subscription box company, while he leads the party-planning app company Discotech—so they each know something about managing stress. Still, when Ian decided to propose three years after they met on Hinge in 2021, he went about it in the most nerve-wracking way possible. “I proposed to her at a comedy club, at the end of my first-ever standup routine,” says Ian. “Why the hell did I take two of the most stressful things and combine them?! It was a horrible idea. I’m so glad I did it.”
Such a declaration could also apply to the Los Angeles-based couple’s decision to combine wedding planning with a giant international vacation with 143 of their closest friends and family, but they’re glad they did that, too. Ahead, they explain how they carefully plotted a blowout celebration in Bali in May 2025, complete with multiple food stalls, chandeliers, water drums, holograms of guests, and more.
Choose a location that excites everyone
While Ting and Ian also considered marrying somewhere in Europe, they knew early on that Bali was the right place for them. Each had traveled to the Indonesian island a few times before they met, and it’s where they went on one of their first trips as a couple. “We were both like, yeah, this is totally somewhere we could see ourselves getting married,” Ting remembers. “I tinkered with some ideas, but I didn't really go that deep into it. We were pretty set on Bali.”
The prospect was super well-received by their guests. “There was just a lot of excitement to go to Bali. I think a lot of people have it on their bucket list,” Ian says. And although both were born on the east coast of the U.S. (Ian near Washington, DC, and Ting in New York), they had spent most of their lives in California, and the majority of their loved ones would be coming from the west coast—shaving off a few hours of flight time to Asia.
Join a dedicated Facebook group
Aside from sifting through images on Instagram and Pinterest, and reading through Google reviews of potential venues and vendors, Ting and Ian jumped into the several Facebook groups out there for couples getting married in Bali, or newlyweds happy to share advice from their experiences in the region. Real humans helped cut through the internet noise. “Bali has a thriving wedding industry, so there was just a lot of information,” Ting explains.
Their first step was finding a reputable wedding planner, and they chose Vara Weddings, for a few reasons: They catered to international couples, seemed adept at balancing multiple cultures, and their portfolio showed many huge Indian weddings. “We know how labor-intensive Indian weddings can be, so we felt, if they can handle Indian weddings, they can definitely handle our wedding,” Ting reasons. Plus, they found that most Bali event firms, including Vara, offered full service planning up through the wedding day, meaning there might be a team of a dozen or more planning staff on site the day of. “That really made things run so seamlessly,” the bride says.
Choose a venue based on views (and amenities)
The couple were torn between two wedding venues in Bali, and opted for the Ayana Resort Bali for myriad reasons. “Natural beauty was really big for us, and the Ayana was by a cliffside, surrounded by water,” says Ting. “Another was the level of hospitality. Everyone there was very welcoming, super friendly. During our one-week stay there, we had a great time,” she says.
At over 200 acres, the property was huge and had many event spaces to choose from for different events over the course of the weekend. There were also loads of activities on offer, including for kids, like arts and crafts, dress up in traditional Balinese clothes, and a kids’ pool with a water slide. “A lot of our friends were traveling with their families, and though we were a no-kids wedding, we encouraged them to bring their children if they needed to, and that childcare would be available at the resort,” she says. “They had amazing food, too. They just really ticked all the boxes.”
Once they’d already settled on the resort and put down their deposit, the couple visited Ayana in person to meet the catering team, taste and decide their potential menus, chat with vendors, and make other small decisions.
Choose a theme far from the typical beachy vibe
Inspired by the groom’s last name of Chen, and the bride’s first name of Ting, the couple dubbed their wedding hashtag #enChenTingwedding, and they leaned into an enchanted forest aesthetic across their three-day affair. The first day, they hosted a welcome dinner at Opia Bali, in which guests were encouraged to dress in all-white.
Both the ceremony (at Ayana Sky Amphitheater) and cocktail hour on the lower lawn were held during daylight hours, so the look was a bit more of a pastel garden party. After sunset, for dinner and dancing, the party moved into a tent on an upper lawn outfitted with chandeliers, hanging greenery, and custom donut-shaped tables with trees “growing” out of the center. “The color scheme for the reception was dark greens and whites to have more of that forest-y effect,” the bride says.
While their planners and Facebook groups helped the couple source vendors, finding a team capable of pulling off Ting’s vision was the most challenging aspect of wedding planning, she says. “We had to find vendors that could custom-construct the tables and everything, so it was really a process,” she says. The couple met and interviewed multiple teams of designers and decorators on their planning trip to Bali, and finally opted for the Bali-based company Frans Decor.
Just hop on a video call when you can
The couple’s chief executive brains ran up against a common complaint of destination-wedding planning: Few places are as intense about contracts as the United States. “Vendors in Bali are more like ‘island vibes,’ so they were more relaxed and contracts weren’t as detailed,” Ting says. “I would have to ask a lot of follow-up questions, and then request to put certain things in the contract to make sure we were on the same page.” Additionally, a lot of vendors communicated mainly through WhatsApp, and even though all parties were speaking English, the couple occasionally felt some things were being lost in translation. When in doubt, they’d try to hop on a Zoom to avoid miscommunication.
Host a tea ceremony
Ting is of Chinese descent, and Ian’s family is Taiwanese, so the couple decided to integrate a tea ceremony into the wedding day itself. In a nod to a key step in the Chinese wedding tradition, Ian went to Ting’s villa to escort her to the ceremony, then they bowed to their families and served them tea. It was an intimate ritual to which only their immediate families were invited.
It wasn’t the only spot in the day with nods to their heritages, though. While the cocktail hour and main dinner were threaded with Balinese flavors and fresh seafood, the after party offered a pan-Asian feast, with eight food stalls celebrating the food (read: carbs) of different countries across East and South Asia: Indonesian indomie noodles, Japanese tempura, pad thai, Peking duck, satay, and more.
Bring on all the music
Each stage of the wedding day featured a different musical set-up, as did the transitions between those stages: The Moira Ensembles of six violinists played during the guests’ entrances to the ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception, while at cocktail hour a three-piece band from Lucky Aces Entertainment played. Four more members joined for a more vibrant experience during dinner, and yet more members of their crew were added for the reception.
The tunes were just one of many over-the-top touches. They hired three watercolor artists from Bali Live Painting to paint every guest, in their outfits, during the party, and set up a hologram photo booth by Clarity Photobooth. “Once the pictures were printed, they had artisans making it into a moving, animated 3D hologram somehow,” Ting says. “We’ve never seen it anywhere except for Bali, and we knew, ‘Okay, we’re definitely getting that!’”
Later in the night came fireworks by Bali Pyro, and then DJ Rob Soundz took over the music, during which time the couple brought out electric water drums by Cloudy Percussion, which were outfitted in LED lights that changed colors. The newlyweds and their guests banged on the drums “just to get the party going,” says Ian. “My favorite moment was being done with all of the formality, and just being able to celebrate with family and friends.”
