ladies,
back from my shoot. took out the entire good friday weekend to try and settle the shooting, without total success.
this will be a long field report, for the interests of the brides-to-be who are considerin them.
did the studio yesterday (saturday), but postponed outdoor, as it rained in the evening. will go in to do them end of this month.
for couples doin the studio shoot, prepare for an ENTIRE day. we started on saturday at 10.30am (makeup) and finished our last shoot (the kua costume) at about 7. delay sometime @ 4-5pm, as it rained, and the lightning took out one of the flashbulbs, and they spend a while tryin to rectify it, without success.
my wife-to-be knows some makeup, so she brought some of her colours in, and used in combination with what their makeup artist (jenny then) has. she also brought in her own false eyelashes, but took a while to curl, as it's plastic based. jenny's good in what she does. tho she looks fierce to me at times.
my makeup guy is called jay (if i didn't hear wrongly). a young apprentice. but once you warm up to him, he's easygoing. i clicked easily with him. he tried to salvage my hair, as my stylist in sg didn't do a good job (at least to my wife). i don't think my shots came out well, but my wife's ones have no problem. i don't think i can ever ask for a prettier bride. we were able to see the pics as they came out on the spot via a computer monitor in the studio. i saw most of them as they worked on my bride's solo shots.
photographer is kevin then (who's incidentally ivy's hubby). we didn't get to book kenneth, as he already got assignments.
we started the gown selection on friday afternoon (1.30pm) with plenty of problems, as my wife wanted somethin simple and elegant. what they proposed initially weren't well accepted (plenty of decor, frills etc). after about 10 white gowns later, the staff quickly figured her preferences, and the gowns started to fall in place. we had 7 gowns to choose from (we took the 3888 package). i think she probably fitted about 30 gowns or more. credit to the staff, as they patiently gave us time to get some idea of what will look good. i fear we probably overturned their entire wardrobe. i did most of the changing room assistance for the fitting (instead of jenny), to appease my impatient wife; she quickly got sick and tired of all the dressing and changing. jenny helped with some difficult areas tho.
we junked 1 traditional gown (only took the kua, as none of us wanted to look jap or korean), and took 3 evening gowns instead. but most of the evening gowns weren't in the style we have in mind. we liked most of the outdoor gowns tho, almost all qualified in our standards (by then the staff knew what to drag out for us to try).
the gown testing was one of the most tryin part for us, as my wife had to parade for her family, who were also there to help her decide (with plenty of opinions), and take family photo. think we took about 2 hours to get all 7 gowns finalised. all the gowns we took, were great stuff.
by the time we finished with the gown selection, and family photos, it was already evening. it didn't help that my wife is the petite kind, and plenty of altering had to be done (only 1 of the gowns fitted her proper, rest of them i had to hold the folded parts at the back). so shooting slated for saturday, as the staff raced through fri night to get the gowns prepared. credit to them with the sizing, one look and they knew her measurements. her gowns fit on our shooting on saturday.
makeup done in about an hour i think. shooting began. jay asked me what style we'd like to have, but we didn't have any in mind. i knew i want something warm and fun. by then they also knew we wanted somethin clean, nice and simple. and like what someone here said, kevin tends more to the modern side. our shots were done similar to one of the sample albums.
for my wife, she had 3 makeup sessions (white gown, evening gown, traditional), i had 2 (white gown, evening/traditional). we finished the white ones smoothly by about 1pm and broke off half an hour for lunch.
the white gowns were in very white colours, having our attire and bodies standing out from the background. some shots taken at the 2nd floor window display area, when the outside colours were nice, and we were like mannequins parading for them at the full glass panels.
the evening gowns were mainly shot in their 'victorian' or 'roman' colours, while the rose garden had vibrant colours. overall, we had a great time with kevin, as we went along with whatever he decided, and he got some really great shots.
pity the weather didn't hold up for us on saturday, and we had to fix the flashlight about 8-10 times (the fuse kept blewing after that lightning surge) or we'd probably wrap it all up by 6 odd.
interestingly tho, jay took our kua shots. kevin wasn't involved. very relaxed and fun mini-session with him (i even had one pose in 'wong fei hong' style). think there's about 10 odd pictures there he took voluntarily. and we played along with him.
lookin forward to the outdoor shoot on 28 apr (cross fingers no rain on that saturday evening, where the lighting will be at their best).
will try to put up some pics, when i get the draft via email from ivy (prob in may).