Ashley Liu & Martin Ma
Couple’s Names
Ashley Liu & Martin Ma
Wedding Date
8 March 2023
Wedding Location
Shenzhen, China
Your love story
We met through mutual friends in Shenzhen in 2015. It wasn't dramatic the way films are; it was steady. We are both practical people, and what we recognised in each other early on was that we wanted to build the same kind of life: one that's calm, honest, and not performed for anyone else.
There wasn't a grand proposal with a hidden camera. We talked about it, the way we talk about everything, and one day the decision was simply made. Looking back, that feels exactly right for us. Our engagement was a conversation, not a production.
Which Catherine Deane gown / separates and accessories did you choose?
I chose separates rather than a gown - the Peyton Blazer with the Alexis Trousers, in bone white. A double-breasted crepe blazer with soft shoulders, and high-waisted wide-leg trousers with box pleats and, quietly, real French pockets.
I never longed for a dress. A suit felt like me - paired-back, composed, the kind of thing you can sign your name in. And separates don't end at the wedding: the blazer turns up at dinners, the trousers stay in my life for years. Nothing worn once and folded away.
What does it mean to you to be a Catherine Deane Bride / why did you fall in love with the brand?
This is the part of our story I love most. My mother has spent her working life in garment manufacturing, in an atelier that produces for Catherine Deane. I grew up around fabric, patterns, and the quiet, exacting work that happens long before a dress ever reaches a bride.
So I didn't discover this brand in a boutique. I knew it from the inside. From the hands that sew the seams and finish the linings. I knew the standard before I knew the label.
When I put on the suit for our marriage registration, I was wearing the work of the world my mother has given her life to. That's not a marketing story for us - it's our actual family.
To be a Catherine Deane bride meant being dressed by both the brand and my own mother's craft at the same time. I don't think many brides get that.
I also love that this is a brand that believes clothes should be worn again, not sealed in a box. That way of thinking matches how we live.
Tell us about your bridal accessories
I didn't want anything bought just for the photos, so I kept it to pieces that meant something.
For shoes, I wore the Sam Edelman 'Jaina', a pointed-toe kitten heel - that in-between height, too much for a flat, not as much as a stiletto, the pair you actually reach for season after season. That was the point: something I could stand and sign and walk in comfortably, and keep wearing to work and dinners long after. Not a shoe for one hour.
The same thinking carried to my wrist, where I wore a jade bracelet and a gold bangle, and on my finger, a ring, all from Hong Kong houses - Chow Tai Fook and TSL. For a Chinese bride, these aren't really "accessories." Jade is worn against the skin to guard you and to warm to you over the years, and the gold bangle is an elder's blessing for a marriage meant to last. So I walked in already wearing something older than the day itself.
My earrings were diamond studs, a little more Western, and they sat perfectly against the suit. That was the balance I loved: the jade and gold carrying the Chinese meaning, the diamonds and the Catherine Deane lines keeping it clean and modern - East and West in the same photo, neither one trying too hard.
For fragrance, I wore Maison Margiela 'Whispers in the Library', built around the scent of old books and waxed wood. Pepper, benzoin and vanilla over cedarwood, the smell of hours spent reading at a wooden desk. I never wanted to smell like a bouquet. I wanted the day to smell like the quiet, close, everyday life we were actually signing up for - warm, a little bookish, ours. More honest than anything floral.
The thread running through all of it: nothing bought only for the photographs.
Did you have a specific theme or colour palette?
Not a theme, exactly, but a mood. Ivory, warm neutrals, natural light. We didn't decorate anything. The palette was whatever the room and the daylight gave us. If I had to name it, I'd call it quiet.
How did you decide your venue was the one?
We didn't have a venue in the traditional sense. We chose the marriage registry in Shenzhen, and that was a deliberate choice rather than a compromise. We asked ourselves honestly what the day was for. The answer was: to become each other's family, on paper and in fact. Everything else would have been for other people.
So the venue was a plain government office with fluorescent lighting and a queue, and the suit in that room is one of my favourite contrasts of my whole life. Something extraordinary in a completely ordinary place. That's rather how marriage works, I think.
Advice for future bride?
Decide what the day is actually for before you spend anything. If the answer is "for us," then you're allowed to skip the parts that exist only for an audience. We skipped almost all of them, and I've never once regretted it.
And buy what you'll want to look at in twenty years, not what's everywhere this season. Choose something you could genuinely wear again – that is a better test than almost any other.
Most memorable moment.
Signing the register, which also happened to be on my birthday. My hand and his, the same red booklet, and me in the suit. No music, no audience, no photographer directing us. Just the two of us and a stranger stamping a document that changed our lives.
