Photos: Studio Wonkyu, Labelle Couture, Ideally Yours
Wedding bells will ring next January for the recently-crowned Project SuperStar 2014 champion Alfred Sim and local singer Tay Kewei. The two, who have known each other 10 years ago through a mutual friend, have been dating for nine years but their relationship only came to light when Kewei was seen cheering for her beau in the singing competition which ended last month.
The lovebirds told xinmsn in an interview last week that they never intended to hide the fact that they were together, but it was just because Alfred was not a public figure then.
Speaking of what attracted her to him, Kewei recalled, “He was imitating many singers’ voices when he sung [Jay Chou’s] ‘Happier’ at a friend’s concert and that caught my attention. We got together not long after,” adding that his sunshine-boy image was not what she looked for in her partner initially – someone who was lanky and musically-inclined.
Despite being away from each other for most of the time where they were both furthering their own careers, the distance never affected their relationship. Back then, Kewei was going on tours for as long as six years after being selected to be a back-up singer for Taiwanese singer David Tao while Alfred, who founded an athletic company Reactiv, often brought his Track and Field team overseas to compete.
“Although he looks ‘black-faced’, he is actually very sweet. We’ve grown together and he sings really well, so we often experiment [new stuff] together and I feel we complement each other,” Kewei quipped.
Kewei: The proposal was what I had always dreamt of
When asked to elaborate on the details of the proposal, Alfred, who decided to give Kewei the honour of revealing the surprise, shared that he took four months to prepare for the event at Dempsey which happened in May.
As both of them are wedding singers, the 33-year-old decided to make up a fake wedding event and “booked her for the day”. Little did she expect that he had invited up to 40 family and friends with a live band and photographer to share her joy in that moment.
“The screen was showing photos of us and when the black cloth dropped, our family members and friends were sitting behind. I then walked down from the slope from behind, playing the guitar and singing her song ‘So In Love’,” said the singer who specially learnt the guitar for that.
Touched by the perfect proposal, Kewei cried “because I’ve always wanted to be proposed to in front of a crowd and he did that”. But that was not the end of the surprise. After the proposal, Alfred told her to pack her bags for a morning flight to Japan that he arranged, something she had always dreamt of too.
“Whenever we go on trips, I’m the one planning our accommodation and itinerary all the time, but this time it was his turn. Our flight was at five in the morning but he had already arranged for photographers to reach there before us, with a wedding dress,” the 31-year-old beamed.
The two spent a week in Japan where they took their wedding photos and went mountain climbing. As for the wedding banquet which will be held next January, it will be “an indoor occasion” and “a fun one” but the couple left it at that to reserve the surprise element for their guests.
Baby-making not on the cards yet
Despite taking the first step towards starting a family, Alfred and Kewei will still place their focus on their careers and baby-making will take a back seat for now.
The former, who recently signed on with MediaCorp, is open to acting and hosting and hopes to become a multi-hyphenate in time to come.
Backing him up, Kewei praised, “He is really awesome, he can sing my songs with [Heavenly King] Andy Lau’s voice! [As for acting], I’m fine with him taking on ugly or fat roles, but I will be pretty upset though.”
The bride-to-be, who released her latest album Turn Back and Smile in September, will take promotional activities overseas after the wedding.
Having taken part in local musical Innamorati in July and expressed her interest in the genre, Kewei hopes to go further in that aspect as well. The proud singer also wrote the theme song for Channel 5’s revamp ‘Good To Be Home’ and is currently shooting the music video for it, which will be broadcast on January 1.