Grace Tan

Grace Tan In For Photographers, Musings, News, Running a Business

We’re Hiring!

We’re looking to expand our Stories family yet again! This time, we’re looking for a contract / full time videographer & editor to join our team. You do not need to have years and years of experience, but we do require someone who is familiar shooting with a Canon DSLR, has video editing skills on a mac platform, and a willing heart to learn. If you are able to create basic 2D animation using software like After Effects, that’s a plus point for us! You must obviously love the wedding industry and have a personable attitude.

Do send your resume and portfolio to me at grace.tan[at]stories.my stating why you’d be a great contribution to the team. We look forward to hearing from you!

Just because every post looks better with an image, I’ll put this one up – of our 2 fun-loving photographers, Johan and Weiming! Yup, we’re multi-talented people! (and no, you don’t need to know how to do a handstand before you can join us!)

Grace Tan In Chinese Weddings, Weddings

Purple craze: Wedding of Chris & Li Yen

We laughed till our sides ached. It was a day when creativity met madness, and when friends dared to show their true colours. Chris and Li Yen’s wedding happened some time back, but I can’t help but share these images with the rest of the world. It was Olympics season and some of the heng tai games had an element of sport to it… namely synchronized swimming! Totally unique, completely fun, and we even got a little wet from all that splashing in the pool!

You might have seen Chris and Li Yen’s pre-wedding photos here on the blog before, and probably got a sense of their personality through the images. You can tell that they are a really fun loving couple and don’t mind doing silly things in front of the camera. Li Yen has a spunky personality and tells me that till today, they dispute about who invited who out to dinner first, especially on their first date!

Chris and Li Yen, though it’s been a few months since your wedding, I still laugh when I look at these images. It brings back good memories for us. All the best for the future as you settle in Australia… and keep in touch!

Grace Tan In Chinese Weddings, Weddings

Mandarin Oriental Wedding: Colin & Kirsteen

She’s Malaysian and he’s Singaporean, but they met at school in Perth, Australia. Friendship blossomed and hours of conversation later, best friends became lovers. I truly believe that a relationship has a stronger foundation when it is built on friendship first. There’s just so much depth to it, especially since it started out with a love for mutual things. On the day of the wedding, everything felt really relaxed because this was their second event after their actual wedding ceremony in Perth about a week or so before.

Kirsteen gushed about her beautiful red evening gown that had her Iban heritage written all over it. In fact, it took her a long time to source for the right person in East Malaysia to weave the fabric and when it was completed, to find the right tailor for the job. Eventually, there wasn’t enough fabric to make the gown, so back to the weaving lady they went… and after much work, this gorgeous gown was made.

What struck me too was this really unique engagement ring that was heart shaped. I had never seen anything like that before. (I am sorely tempted to ask Alex to make one for me and propose all over again!). It was just gorgeous. It was then that I discovered that Colin’s mum is in the jewelry business and all the exquisite gems came from her.

There were so many rings, I had to ask Colin and Kirsteen which one was the wedding band!

We spent a few hours before the dinner reception just wandering around Mandarin Oriental for some portraits.

Grace Tan In Portraits, Pre-Wedding & Engagement Portraits, Testimonials

Pre-Wedding at Sekeping Tenggiri: Eu Jin & Elaine

Dear Grace and team,

We LOVED the photos..and we don’t know where to begin to thank you and your team for the amazing job.

Grace, thanks for guiding us throughout the whole photo shooting session, and not forgetting the jokes which made the session less tense, but more fun! Despite that you’re pregnant, you worked your best to capture every moment of that day.

Diane, Thanks for organizing everything for us and you have never failed to be there to answer my questions. And also setting up appointments with Grace and Skyping with Eu Jin when he was in Singapore.

We could never thank you enough and the DVD Slideshow is LOVELY. The song suits us very much.

Your work has exceeded our expectation and we would like to thank you and your team from the bottom of our hearts for capturing these beautiful photos for us. We hope to have more photo session with stories….Hmmm maybe maternity shoots…or baby shoots…hehheh

With Love,

Elaine + Eu Jin

Dear Elaine and Eu Jin,

The both of you have been really fun clients, and now I can pretty much say, friends! Despite the rain, we had heaps of fun during this pre-wedding shoot! I still remember meeting Elaine for the first time and you telling me how you wanted to have fun shots like ‘hitting’ Eu Jin on the head with your ballet slippers… :) We didn’t quite do that, but yeah, we did do a number of silly things including a pillow fight, a dance contest, running on the streets with your silly looking alien kite.. haha…

It’s people like you who make me feel young all the time… and smitten all at the same time, believing in the power of love!

Grace Tan In Chinese Weddings, Church Weddings, Weddings

Fuchsia Pink Wedding: Daniel & Keshia

In today’s society, getting married before the age of 25 is considered young.

“We need to save up enough money first” or “Let’s enjoy singlehood while we can!”

For Daniel and Keshia, these thoughts were never on their mind. They loved each other, ever since they were best friends at school, and they knew for a fact that they wanted to marry each other. Personally, I think it’s a great idea to get married young, especially when you know for sure that’s what you want. You have more years to build life together and you don’t keep each other waiting for too long!

Daniel and Keshia, we had an awesome time at your wedding. Thanks for sharing your lives with us. Loved the fact that you wanted us to ‘highlight’ your height differences… not to hide it, but to make it obvious! Haha… the both of you are absolutely fun loving people and I am sure you’ll build a great marriage together, with God in the centre.

For the people viewing this blog post, be warned, I am not very good at cutting down the number of images in one post! And if you still want to see more images, there’s a slideshow too at the end of the post!