Our Pre-wedding photoshoot with France Taipei

As I've mentioned in previous post, we signed the pre-wedding photo shoot with France Taipei early last year during one of their road show in Sibu. It was an unexpected decision because we only wanted to do some survey initially but somehow we ended up signing the deal on the spot. At the first booth that we sat down at. So much for research, pfft.

Anyway we both really laid back in regards to wedding stuff so we had no special request and dream wedding. In fact, we just want to get it over with. After we signed the contract and told our friends, we received mix feedback from them and started to get worry. Apparently the review online for France Taipei is not good either. But the deal is done and we thought that we got a pretty good one actually. 

Since we had no wedding date fixed when we signed the deal, France Taipei been calling me every few months to remind us to book a slot early with them to avoid date clashing with other clients. Luckily when we gave them short notice on our wedding date, they managed to slot us in. 

Our schedule for the photo shoot was very packed as we need to do outdoor and indoor photo shoot all in one day. I was told to pick makeup look that I fancied and any locations that I wanted but seriously I had no idea what look to go for. So, I left everything up for them to decide. I think I am their favourite kind of client because I was so fuss free. 

Make up and hair do took the most time out of everything

The only part where I really put my thoughts into were during choosing my wedding dress and gowns. We came the day before the photo shoot to their place to pick my dresses. The choices were endless but not much up to my liking.

One advice for the ladies that soon will do dress fitting for their wedding dress, wear a nice undergarment because the assistant will strip you off and will see everything. I ended up choosing this for my actual day.

I really like this one but it is designer dress.

Those that I tried on and really liked ended being the designer dresses which meant that we had to top up from RM600-RM1800 per dress if I want the dress. What a rip off la but I understand this is how they did their business. So I had to refrain myself and settled for whatever our package include. Before we came in for the dress fitting, both my husband and I had a talk about how much we were willing to add on to our budget for the photo shoot. We agreed that these money are better spent elsewhere then on dresses that never gonna belong to me. I think my husband married the right woman la, hahahha!

In the end I chose according to my package which includes 9 outfits which 4 wedding dresses, 3 evening gowns and 2 traditional outfits. I ended up 4 wedding dresses (3 for photo shoot and 1 for actual day), 2 wedding gowns and 2 traditional outfit of Chinese and Korean but we omitted the Korean in the end because I don't like it.

One of my evening dress was an upgrade and we paid RM600 for it. So die die must wear it till we got our ROI. It is also my evening dress on my actual wedding day. 

Location, location, location!

En route to our first location, Carmelite Chapel

For our outdoor photo shoot. my only request was to have one done in a church. My photographer suggested Carmelite Chapel because it gave the European church vibe that suits us. I have never been that chapel before. Although it is small but it suits us.

I'm wearing my favorite wedding dress here. Too bad I'm too short because I would have choose this for my actual wedding day. 

When it came to outdoor photo shoot, we have been so lucky that the weather was so good. It had been raining a lot that week almost everyday except on the day of our photo shoot. It was a hot day but at least we could get everything done despite sweating so much. I'll take hot day over rainy day anytime for this matter.

Make up and hair do changes on the go

At the state library

We spent around 3 hours doing outdoor photo shoot and rushing from 3 location. Carmelite Chapel -> Museum (yeah, the classic wedding photo shoot venue in Kuching) and State Library. We only wanted anywhere nearby so, beach/green field were out of the question.

The studio photo shoot turned out to be very easy because we're indoor. But still tough because we both were tired and very sleepy by the end of the day. The husband even managed to nap while waiting for my make up and hair done. Because we both were exhausted, we started to pose nonchalantly and very very close to cancel the traditional outfits because we could no longer posing for the camera.

This dress was an upgrade

Our photographer, Patrick is awesome and it was so easy to work with him because he sure know how to crack jokes to lighten us up. It was him to persuade us to take the traditional outfits. Even if we don't like the outcome, we can still omit it from our selection.

Very fake la our pose but we still keep this one. And the Korean outfit one really cannot make it la.

Getting our pre-wedding photo shoot done was quite an experience, I'm glad we did it but I'd never want to do it all over again because it was really tiring to pose and smile whole day while you're sweating under the scorching sun and aching feet. I wonder how those models did it. And my thought of France Taipei, it is actually not as bad as everyone said. I guess they have improved a lot.They  are really accommodating us with our short notice and did not try hard to push us to upgrade our package or maybe we're just too kiam that it was impossible to make us do it.