Another update!
Went to view our album layout and 2nd fitting yesterday. I guess yesterday was the first time we didn't really felt please with them. I went in to the studio first while FH went to park the car. Stepped in, Ms R caught a glimpsed and smiled. Then followed by a greeting from our PG. Photo editor Z saw me and immediately asked me to look at the layout. I told him my FH is still not here yet so I waited and yeah, was left waiting. Seems like it was a busy time? There were about 3 couples in the small studio. I guess it was pretty messy at that time. 2 couples were selecting gowns for their TW BS while one was waiting to head for outdoor PS. Customer service was almost 0 down here.
Album layout wise, seems still alright. Of course quite a number of amendments. Some photos don't seem well edited. I had to zoom in big enough to check. One of the photos was over-edited till I almost became flat chested. I thought that was a major NO-NO? FH's pocket flap had to be emphasized again (we did told PG to edit the flap during photo selection and he assured us it will be edited). Seems like not much communication between PG and Z. Or rather they don't remember who's coming down or who's having what appointment everyday. We're looking foward to view the 2nd draft on this Thursday evening. Hopefully no further amendments.
Next was gown fitting for AD. This time was kind of a disappointment. Lily was not around to help as she went TW for BS. The other lady who helped me this time was Lina. Both FH and I both felt very strongly that she's kind of lazy to help us pick gowns. I told her I had 4 gowns including tea dress for AD but she didn't buy it. Ended up the MUA for my outdoor shoot had to intercept. Then FH suggested if we can try the tea dress first since there isn't much selection, she just directed us to choose the white gown first and she just told me that I can pick gowns from the racks from outside to inside. Just go look and pick myself. I was kinda annoyed that I told her directly I didn't even have to look at racks for more than 5 mins when I came for fitting for BS. Lily picked for me and it was within 5 tries, I selected 2 gowns. She then led us outside to show me a gown totally not of my liking and told me it's cute! FH even had to ask her to recommend before she start to pick out 1 - 2 gowns for me to see. Managed to select a few and ended up trying about 5-6 gowns just for the AD white gown. Ms R herself came in with one gown for me to try. FH found it nice, felt kinda old european style to me but I didn't like it. Besides, it wasn't white. It was off white (like yellowish) and when asked, Ms R said it's supposed to be this color. We gave up trying those that were recommended by Lina and went to look piece by piece off the racks outside on our own and managed to find one that fit. We missed out the racks of white gowns inside which was something I had regretted now as I was already feeling very tired trying and looking up at so many gowns yesterday. I even strained a muscle just trying to look at the gowns. Lina recommended me a green fluffy gown for my evening gown! It was a total mis-match in terms of color and my liking and she still could tell me that it'll fit me well enough.
In the end, I went back to one of my BS gown as my evening gown as I loved it very much.
After the evening gown, it was the selection of my ROM dress which she also didn't help much. She just ask us to pick from the corner of short dresses. It's like, AGAIN go help yourselves. Only when we were almost finished with selecting then she came to see if we manage to find any. The colors of the short dresses were kind of limited. Some really looked old. The one we selected was abit old-looking and it seems like they have to do a fair bit of touching up and sewing at the bottom. I kept asking her about the touching up of the bottom as I was really unsure but she kept saying yes, yes, they will amend it. I'm not too sure how the turn out will be like. Kinda worried about this. Then to the tea dress... She openly 'hinted' that I won't fit into a Qi Pao, which I didn't want to wear anyway. I just told her I'm going for a Kua direct. There was no selection for us. She just picked according to the size only like they don't have any selection for that. Her instructions on wearing the bottom wasn't clear so I just tried it on anyhow. It was pretty obvious that the top was a bit too small for me. The zipper should be nicely hidden for the top but for me, the zipper was exposed. It was already obvious enough that it's too small. But she kept saying that it fits just nice and wasn't really keen to get me another size. Finally when she did, she got me one OVER sized Kua which was about 2 sizes bigger. I couldn't help but felt she was just trying to brush me off with the sizes. I just wore it and walked out showing everyone that it's really way too big. It felt like I was wearing a men's top. C'mon? If you don't have the right size, then let us know, give us some other alternatives/suggestions!? Finally because we had to come back for another fitting session and layout review she decided to get us to wait for my AD MUA, coincidentally, Lily, to help me look for a better fit size on my next trip down after the alteration for the other gowns. I saw one very beautifully embroided Kua which was reserved didn't manage to ask if they have that design for my size cause she was too busy with my FH's fitting.
Oddly, my FH was not able to find any blazors/pants of the right fit. The sizes she picked for him were abit too small/tight. FH told her that he won't be able to stretch but she just kept saying that it fits perfectly. Which is totally not! So the trip yesterday was kind of wasted for him if we need not view the album layout. They couldn't find the ones FH wore for our photoshoot either! Again, Lina suggested to wait for Lily to come back for FH's fitting. Well, the regret and finally set in during FH's fitting. We saw one white gown similar to the one I've picked for my AD except that this one has baby pink finishes and flower petals. I like it so much and FH asked me to try it since he's still not done. Lina wasn't keen to let me try at all. I do not know why. The only explanations I can find is either she's lazy or perhaps it's dinner time and she's famished? She emphasized a couple of times before we left that we're done for the day and we can go grab food. Food was not in our mind at all! FH helped himself and took down the gown for me to try. Another lady came in to help me with the gown since Lina wasn't 'available' to help. That gown fits me as kinda perfectly like the one I've selected! I was actually very happy and was thinking to change but the MUA for my outdoor shoot somewhat 'reminded' us that, it's more appropriate to pick full white gown for AD morning. FH then later thought of the veil too and we decided to let go of it. But I just can't take it off my mind the entire night even till now.
Anyway, I couldn't sleep the whole night as my mind was occupied by some queries on the album. It wasn't exactly made very clear to us on the pages that we had in our package and the ones we had topped up for. No matter how I calculated, it seems that either we were short changed or they gave us lots of FOC pages (which is not likely). Managed to convinced FH to make a trip down to the studio just now despite me having a swollen eye this morning. Our heart almost stopped beating when our PG said our album was another design (vertical) according to what his invoice had written! He refused to look at our package invoice initially till I told him that he was the one who confirmed with us the album design we were entitled to (horizontal). He even said the sales person was very nice to give us this album design (no idea why) then. Ended up we confirmed on that it was the right design and clarified on the pages and stuff. They had given us 1 flip FOC and 1 flip is almost equivelent to about 2 pages of horizontal page which they count as 4 pages. That's the reason why we just can't seem to get the numbers right. :S
FH and I tried our luck with Ms R today on negotiating to have one more extra gown for my AD (the white/pink one I've tried ytd). On the account that we had gowns and jackets for parents (both fathers), maid of honour and best man in our package and we only needed 1 jacket for FH's father, and looking at the amount we spent on the top up of photos and album, Ms R was totally not giving in to us. The lady who help me fitted the gown and the MUA were also aware that I really loved that gown so much I wanted to wear it for my first march in only. It was still a NO from Ms R. The best she could offer was to top up $150 as the dry cleaning fee only. Well, we told her we would consider and left disappointed. If it wasn't to match the veil in the morning, I probably would have go with the pink one instead. FH commented last night, even before today's disappointment that he'll only rate them about 65 out of 100. Perhaps their after full payment follow-up services could have been better?
Will be back there on Thursday evening to view my revised album layout. Appreciate Z's effort on editing our photos with such tight timeline. Hopefully all that we wanted to amend will be in place by then for them to proceed with printing. Will be back with updates after my 3rd fitting 2 weeks later!