An Indonesian woman who lost her fiancé in the doomed Lion Air plane crash honored his memory by taking wedding photos of herself alone.
Intan Syari, a 26-year-old hospital staffer, was set to marry her middle school sweetheart Rio Nanda Pratama last Sunday.
Pratama was one of 189 people killed in the Lion Air flight bound for Pangkal Pinang that crashed soon after taking off from Jakarta on October 29. Pratama, a doctor who was away on a medical seminar, was on his way back home for the wedding.
While Syari is still grieving her loss, she decided to follow through with posing for their wedding by herself, wearing a gown and wedding ring. She also said that before Pratama left, he joked that if he wasn’t able to make it to their wedding on time, she should take photos of herself and send them to him.
“Even though I feel grief that I cannot describe, I still have to smile for you,” Syari wrote in a Monday Instagram post, translated by BBC. “I cannot be sad but should be strong like you always told me to be.”
Before the deadly crash into the Java Sea, a Lion Air pilot reported speed and altimeter problems minutes after takeoff in Jakarta. Airplane maker Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued warnings over the 737 Max 8 plane models in the wake of the crash.
Authorities said it could take months to figure out the cause of the crash that killed all 189 aboard.
Pratama was identified by his fingerprints and a funeral was held for him on Thursday.
The photographer from Syari’s shoot also uploaded a photo on Instagram and detailed the couple’s love story. They met in middle school and they planned their wedding outfits and photoshoot a few weeks before the crash.
“He told her that in case he didn’t come home, [Syari] should continue with the plan,” Sheila Pebriana, the couple’s wedding planner, told BBC. “We tried to talk and make jokes, like it’s just a normal day. But we tried so hard not to talk about the wedding, or about Rio. If any of us felt sad we hid our tears from [Syari].”
But when Syari called Pratama’s mother during the shoot, she couldn’t hold it together.
“She cried — all of us cried too,” Pebriana said. “[Syari] said: ‘We were supposed to do this together, there’s supposed to be Rio here.'”
