There’s just so much to love about this wedding. I am absolutely thrilled whenever I walk into a wedding and see lots of delicious details that beg to be photographed. Add to that equation two really talented, arty and creative people – Nora & Along, and also all of Nora’s friends who were from Parsons School of Design, New York, (especially those who contributed so much to the wedding day)… everything turned out just perfect. Tears flowed freely during the dinner reception. It was really obvious that Nora & Along are deeply loved by their family and friends.
Some time back, Johan photographed Nora & Along’s engagement ceremony, and a few months later, we were there to photograph their wedding day. Thank you, Nora & Along, for this opportunity to document important moments on your wedding day.
To start off the post, I’d like to point out these lovely invitation cards that were designed by the talented Emma K, who is also Nora’s sister.
It pays to have designer friends. Nora’s nikah gown was designed by her friend Sapto. Gorgeous details!
Look at the details at the back!
Looking at someone’s room can tell you so much about that person. I love Nora’s little wall, filled with important little things. And Along’s toys are cute!
Just to add some sugary cuteness to your day, here are some photos from Alan, Alicia and Ava’s family portrait session recently. At the start of every family portrait session, I always tell parents that the outcome of the photography shoot will always depend on your baby’s mood. It’s really difficult to predict how babies will really react, but some tips that I give to families are:
1. Make sure your child has enough rest the night before / afternoon before the shoot. If I don’t get enough sleep, I’d be grumpy too.
2. If your child has never been to the park before and you want to do a shoot in the park, I really don’t know how he/she’ll react once he sees grass. Might be a good idea to visit the park as a family a few weeks before the shoot so that you can introduce the little one to grass. (and possibly bugs too!)
3. Bring some snacks in case your child gets hungry. (or if the parents get hungry!)
4. Expect to sweat. Malaysian weather can be unforgiving at times… so dress comfortably!
5. Just play with your child during the photo session. Don’t get upset if things don’t go the way you expect it to. You can never force kids to look into the camera when they don’t feel like it, or haven’t warmed up to the photographer. The more flustered you get, the more likely you won’t get the type of photos you’ve been hoping for.
When I first ventured into the photography business 3 years ago, I was a do-it-all-myself person. I did everything from the marketing, shooting, photo editing, album design, to delivery (courier service). Though I had fun multi-tasking (I loved juggling the different roles), it was really taxing and after some time, I found I could not cope. My days grew longer and eye bags larger. Work hours started at 9am and ended about midnight on most days.
It came to a point in my life when I decided that I needed to hire somebody to help with the workflow. It wasn’t an easy decision to make because that meant I had to give up a bit of control and train someone else to see things the way I do. After all, editing images can be quite personal… hours spent meticulously poring over each image… “you mean you don’t notice there’s a tinge of green on that face?”
But giving up control and hiring a Digital Artist was one of the best decisions I made for the business.
Years have gone by and different people have come through our doors (you guys know who you are, thank you for all your contributions!)… but right now, I’d like to introduce you to Weiming.
One of the greatest pillars supporting the Stories team is the magic touch from our Digital Artist, Weiming. Almost every wedding image that you see on this website (the past 8 months) has gone through his critical eye.
After every wedding, I go through the images and select the final collection that would be passed on to Weiming. He would begin by editing the colours to make it pop and balancing exposure between the different shots taken by various cameras. As some of you know, Mark and I are Canon shooters and Johan is a Nikon user (on the verge of switching, maybe? He bought some Canon gear recently). If you have spent hours looking at photos taken by these two brands, you’ll know that the colours can NEVER match completely.
And to that, I take my hat off to Weiming. He spends countless hours editing these images. No, wait, let me correct myself… days! On average we spend about three to four 8 hour days editing a 10 hour wedding!
Shooting in raw helps a lot with the editing, but still, the sheer number of hours we spend on each wedding is incredible. We don’t even do things like arm size or tummy reduction, skin retouching… those are specific image enhancements which are chargeable and only a few ask for it.
If we didn’t have Weiming on the team working so tirelessly on each image, our backlog would be super duper crazy. Currently, we target to deliver the full set of wedding images within 1-1.5 months of the wedding date. After the delivery of the DVD, we’ll proceed to design the album layout. And then the client needs to approve the images in the layout, then the album will be sent for printing, and finally delivered. Phew…
I hope this post helps you to understand the process we go through after each wedding. A photographer’s job doesn’t end the moment the guests say goodbye after the dinner reception. In fact, only 50% of the work has been done by then.
By the way, Weiming is also multi-talented – he is a photographer, a drummer, a kick-ass futsal player! Thank you, Weiming for doing such an excellent job! You are important to the Stories team!
Image on the left before post processing (directly from camera), image on the right after post processing.
Photographers: Grace & Weiming
Videographers: Alex & Monica
Wedding Gown: DUMC wedding ministry
Groom’s Suit: Alex’s suit
Make up & hair: Grace Wang (bride) & Katy K’ng (bridesmaids)
On the 19th of July, Alex and I received a phone call from Pastor Margaret of our church. It was a call for help. Two Myanmar refugees, Zwe and Stellar were about to start their new lives as husband and wife, and they needed some help with the wedding.
If you did not read the background story as to how Alex and I got involved with this wedding, you’ll need to do that in order to fully comprehend this post.
So at 10.30pm on the 20th of July, Alex and I drove to church for the wedding ceremony. I was elated to see the bride looking so radiant in a white bridal gown, provided by DUMC’s wedding ministry. Amazingly, some months ago, someone had donated a handful of second hand wedding gowns to DUMC. Considering Stellar is a really petite girl (about my size, 5 feet!), it was miraculous that she managed to find a gown that fit her perfectly (ok maybe it is a tad bit long). Now if only my wedding gown was not in a box somewhere, I could have loaned Stellar my gown and the length would have been perfect.
If Zwe had chosen to wear Alex’s wedding suit, that would have been pretty weird, to see someone else in my gown and in Alex’s wedding suit! (not that I would have minded).
But Zwe chose one of Alex’s beige suits instead, and I think he looked smashing in it!
Did you know that in Myanmar, 55 million people speak a variety of 111 languages, but majority of them speak the Myanmar language.(source: myanmar.net). The Myanmar script draws its source from the Brahmi script.
Translated into English, the bible passage featured below talks about love:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. (1 Corinthians 13:4)
Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their work:
If one falls down,
his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls
and has no one to help him up!
Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
If you ever get to know Han How & Lydia, you’ll know that this is one relationship that is strong. It’s strong not just because of the bond of love that glues them together, but because Christ is in the centre of all they do. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
Han How and Lydia’s wedding was filled with lots of love, laughter and warmth. The worship session in church was so uplifting and spirit filled, I could not help but sing along as I pressed the shutter button on my camera. Even Johan said that there was something different about this church wedding.
Han How & Lydia, I am so blessed to have been there at your wedding, photographing the both of you. I am always happy to be photographing weddings, but more so when the couple are personal friends of mine. Keep this strand strong between the both of you and God. All the best for the future!
Here are a selection of my favourite images from their wedding.
The heng tais looking pweetty.
They had to go to a coffee shop near Lydia’s home and ask strangers to stick little heart-shaped stickers on their faces…
