2016: The year celebrities found love

SINGAPORE — Nope, it wasn’t just your imagination — there were plenty of dating and wedding announcements from celebrities here this year. We recap some of the more memorable ones which hit the headlines.

Felicia Chin and Jeffrey Xu

The Mediacorp princess and duke kept denying dating rumours even though they had already become an item in December last year. Yup, that whole “I like her but I need some time, we’ll see how it goes” display (complete with a shy smooch) at this year’s Star Awards was all for show — a show everyone fell for. Well-played, you two. It wasn’t until October this year when they came clean about their relationship, and boy did they do it in style with two sizzling magazine spreads. Chin, 32, explained to 8 DAYS that they “wanted to protect this (new) relationship”, but now that keeping things hush-hush is out of the way, she and her 28-year-old beau have — in the legendary lyrics of Frozen’s Elsa — let it go, posting wefie after wefie on their respective Instagram accounts and openly declaring their love for one another. It’s kind of adorable, actually.

Shane Pow and Kimberly Wang

Pow is another duke who found his duchess this year. The 26-year-old actor-host and his 987FM DJ girlfriend, 25, got close while preparing for the President’s Star Charity together in October last year, and officially became a couple this August. But unlike Chin and Xu, they were not exactly lying when they claimed they weren’t dating. “Back then, we were going out and getting to know each other better,” said Wang, referring to the time a sneakily-snapped photo of them hugging in a mall was published. The pair are also very open about their relationship on social media and at public events these days (albeit a little more toned down when it comes to the public displays of affection). They even starred in a commercial for a hair product together, where Pow was shown going gaga over Wang’s flawless tresses. Those computer-animated heart eyes may have been fake, but we are sure his admiration was very real indeed.

Jesseca Liu and Jeremy Chan

On the opposite end of the “wear your heart on your sleeve” spectrum are Liu and Chan, who are so notoriously tight-lipped about their romance that we sometimes wonder if their relationship confirmation was all a dream. Every attempt to probe for more details about their slightly controversial union is met with ambiguous responses or just straight-up rejection (we know, we have tried), except when they are clarifying that according to Chinese customs, they can’t marry anytime too soon as Chan’s grandmother recently passed away. Obviously, don’t even think about ever seeing them gush over each other on social media. In fact, we were taken by surprise when Chan, 35, shared a video of his lady love, 37, promoting her Hearts and Hugs episode, but of course, the attention was rightfully directed towards the beneficiaries of the charity programme.

Dai Xiang Yu and Chen Zi Han

The pair skipped the “are they dating?” speculation phase and went straight to dropping the “hey guys, we’re married” bombshell on their respective social media accounts in May this year. They were introduced to each other by their manager and dated for over a year before registering their marriage. Earlier this month, Little Nyonya star Dai, 31, and Chen, 38, walked down the aisle in the majestic Castell De Santa Florentina in Barcelona, Spain (where they also spent their honeymoon), before returning to Beijing to throw a makeup wedding banquet for friends and family who could not make it to Europe. We especially love how the newlyweds donated all their red packets to animal charities and visually-impaired orphans. Definitely a noteworthy way to make your big day even bigger than yourself! TOGGLE