Wedding Shoot
Taking wedding photos in Taipei ended up becoming a 3-day affair, in a surreal SATC-esque photo shoot experience. I had no idea what to expect, but it was not this. I knew ahead of time that hair, makeup and wardrobe would be included but in my mind I was expecting a cheesy studio session in an equally cheesy wedding dress.
I had two wedding studios in mind; Julia Wedding News came highly recommended by a family friend and a co-worker had suggested Sophia Wedding. On the second day of our trip, we headed out to the general “wedding studio” area. Apparently all of the wedding studios are on this small stretch of street in the city. We stopped by Julia Wedding first and by chance they had an opening with Peter, one of their senior photographers. It would be a tight schedule but we would even be able to view our proofs to select our set in person before we left. After sitting in the lobby (and observing about 10 other brides busily planning their shoot) I realized that I had to immediately take this opportunity — it seems like brides typically book their wedding shoots weeks or even months in advance.
We browsed through their wedding books which showed the different photographer styles and once we signed the contract we went upstairs to their bridal gallery. They had about 20 beautiful wedding gowns behind glass and an obscure doorway which led to a warehouse full of hundreds more and a large, comfortable seating area. They asked me what type of dresses I liked and left to grab some dresses for me to try.
I tried maybe 10 dresses in all and have to admit I was glad to have gone through some sort of wedding-dress-try-on session since I didn’t get to for my actual wedding. (Eloped in Vegas!) There is just something about stepping into a ball gown that makes you feel like a little girl playing dress up. This simple tiered dress was the first I tried on. I thought it would make the cut but in the end it didn’t. I was supposed to choose 1 wedding dress and 2 evening gowns but it was so tough! I ended up narrowing it down to 4. (To pick the final 3 on the day of.)
I did get a harsh dose of reality though. I’m a solid size 6 yet the average size of girls in Taiwan was
somewhere between a 0 and… what’s smaller than a 0? Most of the dresses didn’t close in the back and had to be held up. It was hard choosing the right dresses without knowing exactly how they would fit but they assured me they would look flawless once they were altered. But, sadly, my self-esteem still took a hit as the dresses seemed to get smaller and smaller. I kept imagining my ribs cracking as they violently tugged on the corsets to try to fit me into the dresses.
After settling on the dresses we sat down with the photographer to talk through locations for the shoot. We knew we didn’t want to shoot by the beach since we live in Los Angeles and almost everybody has wedding pictures by the beach. If there were buildings, we wanted something which architectural character. We also didn’t want something overly floral so asked for a more forest-like setting (which I would regret later). Then I sat down with my makeup/hair artist to talk about the hair styles I wanted for each dress and what type of makeup I wanted. I had no idea (too many questions!) so we flipped through a couple of Asian bridal magazines together and I pointed out what I liked and didn’t like. I was excited to see how all of these little details would come together. When we were done we headed down the street to get hubby fitted for his tux.
The morning of our shoot I arrived at their makeup studio (next door) at 8am to get ready. They immediately put my hair in rollers and put about 5 layers of moisturizer on my face and neck before ushering me next door for a final dress fitting. The dresses were now in my size and they were right — the dresses fit perfectly. After I was done they applied body foundation on my neck, chest, back and arms to make my skin 5 shades lighter. I was a little offended since I was never asked if I wanted my skin to be so light (and hey, I worked hard on my tan!) but quickly realized it was the “norm” there. The hubby also got a light makeover — his hair and makeup took at least a good 30 min. ;)
When I returned they quickly fed me breakfast and then put on my makeup. I watched as my makeup artist put on primer, concealer, foundation, highlighting cream, loose powder, and highlighting powder and was shocked with the results. Is this how much makeup it takes to get the illusion of flawless skin? The only part I didn’t like was that she shaped my eyebrows with a razor but I have to admit they looked a lot neater than they ever have from waxing/plucking alone. After I was done with makeup, they suggested I use the bathroom and then had me put on my dress before finishing my hair. As a final touch another lady came out to quickly give me a manicure. The entire routine felt like it was planned with military precision. (Which made me wonder afterwards, how WOULD you go to the bathroom with a wedding dress on?)
The first shoot took us on a 45 minute drive to the mountains. We arrived at the botanical gardens at around 10am and it was FREEZING. Morning dew, muddy grounds from the recent rain, the cooler air in the higher altitudes, basically made the next hour complete hell for me (and the dress). After about 10 minutes I was just blindly following instructions to get through the pictures. My brain was numb, my fingers frozen and all I cared about was getting back in the car and turning up the heater!
We headed back to the studio for a dress change. For the red evening gown I opted to keep my hair down. They curled my hair with a 3/4″ curler which I thought at first would look like Shirley Temple with my thick hair but actually loosened up nicely. Instead of intensifying my eye makeup as originally planned, they slapped on a Gothic plastic necklace on my neck and sent me out to my second location. We headed to Danshui and shot outdoors at the Little White House (where it was also freezing cold as it was next to the water!).
We shot the red dress both outdoors and in their indoor studio and then I had a 20-minute break to eat dinner. The last dress of the night was going to be shot indoors so I relaxed a little knowing I didn’t have to go outside again.
A few days later we were called in to review the proofs. The photographer took 355 photos (about a 6 inch stack) that we had to sort through to pick out our top 30. It seemed like an impossible task but it went by quicker than I thought. We ended up narrowing it down to 42, adding an additional 12 photos to our package. They helped us lay out the pictures in the order we wanted for our album and then we went into the back to pick a custom frame for our large print. The pictures came out much more vibrant than I expected as it was such a gloomy day (it even rained at our second location). It was amazing to see how much the photographer captured in such short sessions.
We’re now going through digital proofs as they make the final edits to the photos. I can’t wait to share some of the final pictures with you once they’re done!
I had two wedding studios in mind; Julia Wedding News came highly recommended by a family friend and a co-worker had suggested Sophia Wedding. On the second day of our trip, we headed out to the general “wedding studio” area. Apparently all of the wedding studios are on this small stretch of street in the city. We stopped by Julia Wedding first and by chance they had an opening with Peter, one of their senior photographers. It would be a tight schedule but we would even be able to view our proofs to select our set in person before we left. After sitting in the lobby (and observing about 10 other brides busily planning their shoot) I realized that I had to immediately take this opportunity — it seems like brides typically book their wedding shoots weeks or even months in advance.
We browsed through their wedding books which showed the different photographer styles and once we signed the contract we went upstairs to their bridal gallery. They had about 20 beautiful wedding gowns behind glass and an obscure doorway which led to a warehouse full of hundreds more and a large, comfortable seating area. They asked me what type of dresses I liked and left to grab some dresses for me to try.
I tried maybe 10 dresses in all and have to admit I was glad to have gone through some sort of wedding-dress-try-on session since I didn’t get to for my actual wedding. (Eloped in Vegas!) There is just something about stepping into a ball gown that makes you feel like a little girl playing dress up. This simple tiered dress was the first I tried on. I thought it would make the cut but in the end it didn’t. I was supposed to choose 1 wedding dress and 2 evening gowns but it was so tough! I ended up narrowing it down to 4. (To pick the final 3 on the day of.)
somewhere between a 0 and… what’s smaller than a 0? Most of the dresses didn’t close in the back and had to be held up. It was hard choosing the right dresses without knowing exactly how they would fit but they assured me they would look flawless once they were altered. But, sadly, my self-esteem still took a hit as the dresses seemed to get smaller and smaller. I kept imagining my ribs cracking as they violently tugged on the corsets to try to fit me into the dresses.
After settling on the dresses we sat down with the photographer to talk through locations for the shoot. We knew we didn’t want to shoot by the beach since we live in Los Angeles and almost everybody has wedding pictures by the beach. If there were buildings, we wanted something which architectural character. We also didn’t want something overly floral so asked for a more forest-like setting (which I would regret later). Then I sat down with my makeup/hair artist to talk about the hair styles I wanted for each dress and what type of makeup I wanted. I had no idea (too many questions!) so we flipped through a couple of Asian bridal magazines together and I pointed out what I liked and didn’t like. I was excited to see how all of these little details would come together. When we were done we headed down the street to get hubby fitted for his tux.
We headed back to the studio for a dress change. For the red evening gown I opted to keep my hair down. They curled my hair with a 3/4″ curler which I thought at first would look like Shirley Temple with my thick hair but actually loosened up nicely. Instead of intensifying my eye makeup as originally planned, they slapped on a Gothic plastic necklace on my neck and sent me out to my second location. We headed to Danshui and shot outdoors at the Little White House (where it was also freezing cold as it was next to the water!).
We shot the red dress both outdoors and in their indoor studio and then I had a 20-minute break to eat dinner. The last dress of the night was going to be shot indoors so I relaxed a little knowing I didn’t have to go outside again.
This was my favorite dress out of the three and the most dramatic. She put my hair back up and added some netting and flowers. The necklace and earrings they threw on at the last minute were a little more traditional than I wanted (since the dress was almost avant-garde) but I was so tired at this point that I didn’t care. It took 3 people to help me walk downstairs with the dress — I swear I got an ab workout just standing up in it! We finally finished the entire thing at around 9pm, phew!
We’re now going through digital proofs as they make the final edits to the photos. I can’t wait to share some of the final pictures with you once they’re done!
