VIOLET CUI had excitedly been planning her wedding before she was found chopped into seven pieces and cemented into a wall.

Ms Cui's fiance was due to arrive in Australia from Shanghai in two days and the couple were going to have their marriage registered three days after that.

Dismembered...Violet Cui at her university graduation.

But by the time Lin Jin ''Violet'' Cui's boyfriend - known only as Mr Zhen - touched down at Brisbane Airport, police had already arrested her former husband Jiagen Pan, 43, of Woodridge, south of Brisbane, and charged him with murder.

A Sydney-based childhood friend of 32-year-old Ms Cui, who asked to be known only as Ms Wu, said on Friday the bride had been in high spirits when they last spoke on August 9.