Rookie solicitors share romantic story
A loved up pair of newly married City lawyers have taken to national press to share their fairy tale romance and New Years Eve wedding with the world.
Herbert Smith Freehills’ Yuji Huang, 28, and Stephen Newby, 35, announced their union in The Times newspaper’s ‘Marriages and Engagements’ section over the weekend, just a week before Valentine’s Day.
The couple took readers on a journey through their whirlwind romance, recounting their first meeting at the firm’s Singapore office in 2012. And it wasn’t quite love at first sight. Newby — then a senior associate — recalls that he thought his now wife came across as “quite patronising” when they first met, though “well intentioned”.
Huang — described by the paper as “the fiery one” compared to her “more reserved” University of Manchester law grad hubby — and Newby really hit it off at an office outing, which he organised to celebrate Independence Day.
But the course of true love never did run smooth. The couple recall a tough time in their relationship, when life as a highflying commercial lawyer threatened to tear them apart. In the summer of 2014, Newby — an investment funds specialist — and corporate lawyer Huang found themselves on different sides of the world when Newby took up a new job in Dubai, while Huang was posted to London. “It was really hard,” she told the press.
They pushed through, and a loved up Newby popped the question in February 2015. Huang admits that she went into Bridezilla mode when it came to wedding planning. “I was being pretty crazy,” she remembered.
Perhaps not quite the sunny paparazzi showdown enjoyed by human rights lawyer Amal Clooney and her Hollywood husband George in Venice, the City lawyers — who now work in the same office — enjoyed a rainy wedding on New Years Eve in Banking Hall, in London’s Square Mile. The Times pictured the newly weds walking hand in hand down a very wet London street — with Huang wearing Jimmy Choo heels and a Phillip Lim dress.
Breaking away from the stuffy corporate lawyer stereotype, the wedding was far from a dull affair. Huang told the newspaper that her wedding guests were “aggressively dancing” on the dance floor, and that the wedding gifts provided for guests by the couple were hangover kits.
Legal Cheek wishes the happy couple all the best.