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Grace Tan
In Chinese Weddings, Musings, Outdoor Weddings, Tips + Ideas, Weddings

Garden ROM at The Club, Saujana: Jonathan & Jacinda

I’ve grown to love this beautiful location. It’s a small little green patch of grass overlooking a lake, but given the right time of day when the sun is setting in the distance, you have gorgeous sunlight falling over this area, which makes for amazing back light. Ok, if you didn’t quite understand this photographer’s rambling, the location looks like this:

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And this is the amazing back light (or hair light) I am talking about.

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One of the wonderful things about small weddings is that you have lots of time for portraits. I enjoy creating images of the couple with their families and also close friends in a gorgeous setting. I photographed Jon and Jac a few months back when we did their Mad Men themed pre-wedding shoot. It was easy to connect with this couple, and from that moment on, I knew photographing them would be a breeze. The week after, Jon and Jac had their Chinese wedding ceremony (photos in the slideshow at the end of this post).

For this post, I thought I’d write a few tips on what I think would make a great garden wedding (from a photographer’s perspective):

1. Choose the time of day well

Considering we live in tropical Malaysia, the best time for an outdoor wedding would be before 10am and after 5pm. The sun is lower in the horizon which makes it more flattering for people photos. Have you ever taken a photo outdoors at 12pm, and seen lots of raccoon eyes (dark shadows under the eyes) staring back at you? Yup, that’s the effect of the sun as it is directly above you. So if you’d like more flattering images of yourself outdoors, opt to have your ceremony start at the timing suggested.

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Grace Tan
In Portraits,

Shanghai Love: Yee Jenn & Kristin

Photographer: Grace
Make Up & Hair: Michelle Touche
Cheongsam: Emerald Brilliant
Wedding Gown: Pretty in White

Last year, I traveled to Egypt with my husband Alex, his sister, Sarah and her good friend Kristin. Though I have known Kristin for quite a few years, it was only during this trip that I got to know her a lot better. That’s when I discovered that Kristin does not really like to be outdoors, and that she must have chocolates everyday. Like EVERYDAY. We had fun during our trip, and this year, I had the pleasure of shooting her pre-wedding photos, and soon, wedding as well.

Yee Jenn loves photography and he was really excited about the shoot. I was thrilled when they came up with the idea of shooting in an old cafe with a Shanghai theme! This famous cafe, called Yut Kee Coffee Shop, belonged to Kristin’s uncle, so permission granted, we headed over to the heart of KL for a fun time. On a normal working day, you would have a hard time finding a table to sit at, but the entire shop was closed that day so we had the whole space to ourselves!

Kristin has watched many, many episodes of America’s Next Top Model, so she knew exactly what she had to do to come up with a great pose! And boy, did they pose! The both of them look so good together!

Do you know the kaya rolls here are the best? It’s just sooooo delicious! Needless to say, we ate the props after the shoot!

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Grace Tan
In International, Life, Musings

Adventures in Holland

The past one week has been a whirlwind of an experience. From the moment I touched down in Amsterdam on the 4th of August till the wedding day, I’ve been running on adrenaline. After spending 2 days in Amsterdam, I came down with a full blown fever and flu on the third day. It was a really challenging time for me since I was by myself and having to lug heavy equipment and bags all over Holland while blowing my nose at the same time is not something I was looking forward to do.

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Some sights around Amsterdam.

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But I had to muster whatever strength I had and travel about an hour away by train to meet Christina and Chee Su at Zwijndrecht. That evening itself we were supposed to have our pre-wedding shoot but since I was not feeling too well we decided to postpone the main part of it till the next day. Instead we went to a nearby river for some quick shots.

The next day, we went to Kinderdijk, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. The place is covered with mindmills and the landscape is absolutely stunning! We spent about 2 hours there and I even had time to climb up one windmill (as a 10 minute touristy thing). That afternoon, I crashed for 4 hours since I was still weak from the flu. Later in the evening we came back for more photos! Christina and Chee Su braved their fears and went out onto the water in a really unstable row boat. Thank God it didn’t overturn! Here are some teaser shots from the shoot.

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Grace Tan
In 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’.

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