For those of you who know Manda quite well, you may well be wondering how it is that she got married. She's very grateful to all her friends who, on being told of Ben and Manda's engagement, didn't say things like "About time!" or "Told you you'd change your mind".
Where should the story start? We figure that if you got this far, you probably already know who we are and what happened....
	Well okay, maybe you only know one of us or haven't seen us in ages. Ben has just finished studying architecture and Manda is a software engineer for an Australian company in North Sydney. Ben works for a small office, also in North Sydney, and we live in Homebush West. Ben is interested in architecture (of course), skiing and travel. (That picture of him was taken at a Le Corbusier building in Marseille. While on the topic, the two photos with both Ben and Manda were taken by Ben's sister Anna.) Manda is also interested in travel, and swimming.
Manda has twin brothers, Tom and Mark, and Ben actually got to know them before he met Manda. He did not even know they had a sister and had never noticed Manda despite going to the same church (the Chinese Presbyterian Church in Surry Hills) as her. Ben claims he only became aware of Manda at the wedding of mutual friends on the 11th May 1996. After they were introduced, Manda noticed Ben continue to stick close and hover around for the rest of the afternoon. The next day at church Ben spent an inordinate amount of time chatting with Manda, who by this time was wondering what was going on. As Manda was heading for her car to go home, she heard her name being called from behind her. It was Ben, running across the road. When he caught up, he breathlessly blurted out, "You work in North Sydney don't you? Do you want to have lunch?" And they took it from there, until the day two years later when Ben had an equally attractive offer. This time Ben and Manda were standing in (what was then exclusively) her living room. In his best low-key way, Ben asked, "Do you want to get married?" So there you go!