Grace Tan

Andre & Savitha

This has got to be the wedding of the year. The wedding celebrations took place over a few days and at various locations – including India and Malaysia. I got to know Dato’ Ravi Dharan through Jeffri Lim from Sunflower Paper Products (they have a shop at the Curve). Dato’ Ravi wanted to create a surprise video for his lovely daughter Savitha. Together with his wife, Latha, they organized Savitha’s childhood photos and after a few meetings, the Wedding Story team went over to Dato’ Ravi’s home to secretly interview him without his daughter’s knowledge.

I can tell from my encounters with Dato’ Ravi and Latha, that truly, Savitha is the limelight of their lives. The wedding at the Palace of the Golden Horses was so grand – they had the Hindu ceremony on the lake witnessed by guests through live video feed in the Grand Marquee. A few days later, a black tie dinner took place at the Imperial Hotel, where this video was played to an audience like Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim and ex-President of Indonesia – Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur).

Congratulations, Andre and Savitha, I wish you all the best in your marriage and am so glad that you enjoyed watching this specially crafted video.

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Grace Tan In Portraits, Pre-Wedding & Engagement Portraits

Pre-Wedding: Eugene & Stephanie

Eugene and Stephanie found out about Wedding Story during our Pre-Wedding Promotion period in October. Stephanie is from Malacca (hip hip hurray!) and Eugene is Straits born Chinese (baba for those who have heard of that term). So coming from Malacca as another straits born Chinese, I felt an instant connection to the both of them. The Wedding Story team had a blast of a time with the both of them, even though it drizzled a little while we were in Lake Gardens. The engagement video will be out soon (by Kee Sitt and Sharon) so look out for it!

Update: Check the pre-wedding video here

After Lake Gardens, we traipsed to Heritage Hotel at the old KTM station. Thanks to Mr Lloyd Gan, we were granted access into this beautiful old hotel and the rooftop of it. Did you know that a lot of the structures in this building is original, built years and years ago? Even the lift has the original hand crank in it (including a metal cage to hold it in!). The place is so rustic, and a lot of conservation needs to go into keeping the building ‘alive’.

Grace Tan In Chinese Weddings, Weddings

The Wedding of Jordan & Tammy

Tammy and I have been friends since we were in kindergarten. I knew Jordan too when I was about 5 and we all grew up in Malacca. It’s such an honour whenever I am hired to shoot a friend’s wedding. The job becomes more meaningful considering the long history we had together as friends. Tammy is the most photogenic bride I know. She’s really tall, model like and has a wonderful dazzling smile. Jordan is such a lucky man!

We had to travel a lot for this wedding. Alex, Kee Sitt, Sharon and I traveled to Malacca the day before the wedding. The games and tea ceremony was done in Malacca, and after lunch, we packed into the car, and went back north towards KL. I had to do the photo slideshow, but since there was not much time left (we left Malacca at 2pm, and had to be at the hotel in KL by 6pm!)…. I had to start off the slideshow in the car. Got my notebook, hard drive fired up, a sunshade on my head to block off the sun and did the work while we were in the car on the way up to KL. We even did a behind the scenes video of this… it’ll come up soon! Such a close call… when I arrived back in KL, I only had an hour to touch up the photos and then render the video while we were on the way to the next destination – Equatorial Hotel, KL. Below are some of the photos we took during the day.

These poor guys… they had to submit to the wishes of the chee muis.. these guys and girls have been friends since secondary school.. so there was absolutely no mercy for the guys!

Poor Ashish had to swallow a whole lump of wasabi!! That was so evil… I am sure that was like half a tube or something.

Then of course Jordan had to do some pumping… work for the woman!

The guys were so naughty – after wearing the disposable underwear, they tried to ‘surprise’ the girls by putting the undies on their heads!

Which I substituted for a long white veil later on… this was taken nearby Tammy’s home… at a so-called paddy field. I think it was more like an empty plot of land with lalang.

At night, Alex and I were off-duty as Tammy had hired someone else to cover the dinner photography. So it was really nice to be a guest for once!! Kee and Sharon had to work as they were doing the video, unfortunately… but that gave us the opportunity to catch some photos of them at work! We enjoyed ourselves tremendously as I caught up with old friends who had traveled from overseas to be at the dinner that night.

Can you see Sharon, right at the back of the room? Slightly blocked, unfortunately. This was taken during a small blessings ceremony before the dinner in Equatorial. Below… my friends doing silly things like balancing the wedding favours between their mouths and their noses.

Finally, a normal photo! If you’d like to view the slideshow that we created that day (express one!!) click on the video below…

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Grace Tan In Portraits, Pre-Wedding & Engagement Portraits

Pre-Wedding: Ken & Cynthia

Cynthia has been an old school friend of mine since I was like 3 feet high. (Ok not that it makes much difference, since I’m only 5 feet tall right now). We have been really good friends since school and have gone through so much together. I knew Ken when I came to KL to work – the first time I met him, I was in the Damansara Utama Methodist Church (DUMC) children’s church. He was there to volunteer. I remember him wearing a earring on one side, looking tough and macho, definitely not a person I’d imagine to have a soft heart for children. But ever since then, I’ve gotten to know him a lot better, and I can safely say that Ken is definitely a caring, thoughtful man. Perfect match for Cynthia, who’s always fun and exciting to be with.

So we headed back to Malacca (where Cyn and I are from) for this photo shoot. Ken is from Penang, but, sorry, it’s going to be a one-sided story for this pre-wedding shoot. We had loads of fun doing silly things together. Congratulations on your wedding, and am looking forward to shooting it this 8th of November!

When we were taking this shot below, a young-ish girl passed by us and said that her brother did the graffiti on the wall. She was a tour guide and along with her were a group of French tourists. Perhaps we should have told her that her brother spelt Malacca wrongly!

Ken trying to do the ‘Bruce’.

I absolutely love this little mini. Alex and I found it when we came to Malacca for a recce a few weeks ago, and were so delighted when we spotted it parked in the same location again on our shoot day!

Both Ken and Cyn love the water – a year back, Cyn surprised Ken underwater on a dive trip by unveiling a little banner that she had made for him. It was his birthday and boy, was he surprised!

Thanks for being silly with me!

Grace Tan In Outdoor Weddings, Weddings

Wedding of Jojo & Craig

This was the first wedding that I shot with Kee Sitt after the partnership between Wedding Story and Integricity Visuals was formed. It was held in Shangri-La’s beautiful Rasa Sayang Resort & Spa, Penang. I had never been to that resort before this, and I must say, my jaw dropped when I saw the beautiful gardens and beach. Craig and Jojo flew over from the States to hold their wedding ceremony here. Jojo was originally from Penang and the small intimate ceremony was mostly for family and close friends. Here are a few photos from their wedding. We had a wonderful team at this wedding – photos were taken by myself, Alex and Jonathan. Video by Kee Sitt and Sharon.