Last Sunday Gary and YL held their wedding ceremony in Tirtha Uluwatu, in the southern part of Bali. Gary (the CEO of Tudou) has become my best friend over the past years and I was honored to be his best man at the wedding. A bit unusual actually, because in China best men need to be single (not sure how this is in Europe actually), but I was happy when Gary asked me to do this. The wedding was planned only a few weeks ago, so there was not too much preparation time, but everything went very smoothly.

The wedding was held at Tirtha Uluwatu, an amazing location on a high cliff overlooking the ocean and Uluwatu beach. I was really impressed, this is a place that would fit exactly into a coffee table book with high-end luxury locations in Asia. The place consists of three nicely decorated suites for the the bride, groom and their helpers, a ultra-modern chapel (mainly made out of glass) with a view over the ocean, an infinity pool and a restaurant, all in a garden setting on top of a high cliff. Fantastic! The place is not open to the public, otherwise I would advise everybody to check it out on a next visit to Bali.

My wife and I arrived a bit earlier to help with the organization and assist Gary. When we got to Uluwatu about two hours before the ceremony would start Gary was already ready! He was wearing a new tailor-made tuxedo, which looked good on him. It was the first time ever that I saw him wearing a tuxedo, he always wears just jeans with a t-shirt or sweater – even when he appears in a TV show or when he pitches Tudou to VC’s. And only once before I have seen him wear a suit with tie, and that was at my own wedding two years ago. So this might be the one and only time that I will see him wear a tuxedo!

With the Tirtha Uluwatu wedding planner we went through the procedure, and then it was time to take some pictures of the couple. Yang Lei came out in her wedding dress and she looked fantastic. The pictures were mainly taken at the edge of the cliff, and I am sure they will turn out very good with the blue sky and blue ocean in the background.

Soon after the guests started to arrive, and we mingled with them. A lot of Gary’s family had flown in from the States, and of course also YL’s family was there. There were also several friends, most of whom I knew already (at least from Gary’s side). Several of them had been in involved with Tudou over the past years, either as advisor (Bryan from McKinsey who helped with our initial business plan 3 years ago) or investor (Sam from Jafco and Bill from General Catalyst).

The wedding ceremony started at 5 PM, and was in English. There was a small choir singing songs (it sounded great), and a Indonesian priest that performed the ceremony for them. Gary seemed to be a bit nervous when we walked in, which does not happen often (he always keeps very cool and is normally quite self-assured). Everything went well, after the vows I presented the rings and soon after the couple was officially married. Then pictures with family and friends were taken, followed by a drink on the cliff top just before sunset. The views were fantastic from our standpoint.

At 7 the dinner started, a Balinese rijsttafel – which is actually a Dutch word meaning ‘rice table’, a selection of different Indonesian foods with 3 different kinds of rice (white, yellow and red). Around 9 Gary showed a video that he had prepared about their youth, career (among others a young looking YL presenting a news program) and the highlights of his relationship with YL. Of course also our Tibet bike ride was included. After the film I gave the best man speech, in which I went over how I met Gary and later YL and how our relationship has developed from me thinking he was quite arrogant to becoming best friends. Of course some of our drinking binges were also part of it, although some of them I don’t remember clearly (one time we both had to be carried down from Tudou’s rooftop bar after a party sponsored by Absolut Vodka for example).

Then Gary gave his speech, but the many toasts we made during the dinner (we managed to down a bottle of tequila with some friends within less than 10 minutes – and Gary had most of it) made it quite difficult for him to concentrate on the story. It was a good speech though, and we all had to laugh a lot – both about the content and the way he presented it. After that several other speeches followed by friends, and we all learned a lot of new stories about Gary and YL.

The tossing of the bouquet was next, but YL threw the bouquet so far that it almost went of the cliff and nobody could catch it. Turn two was better, but now the bouquet disintegrated in the air and two girls were lucky to get part of the bouquet!

The party ended at the Ayodya resort where we had several more drinks before we made it back to our resort. A great night with lots of memories! YL and Gary, congratulations and all the best in your future married life!