Jan-chan’s Tidbits

The much anticipated pre-wedding photoshoot took place yesterday with HN Wedding. I didn’t quite believe Vivian when she said it takes two hours for hair and makeup but it’s true! It was fun to watch (another) Vivian, the makeup artist, use a special trick with tape to make my eyes look bigger. After she’s finished with my face and hair, Sandy helped me in the red “Moulin Rouge” dress. I still don’t feel all too comfortable in it because it shows my legs. But both Al and Sandy said it looked good so hopefully they were right.

The first shoot was the evening gown in the studio. It was very difficult because both Al and I were very stiff since we’re not sure what to do. I think Jackson (the photographer) and the others mush had told us to “straighten up and stick out your chest” like 500 times through out the day. I think the first shoot was the hardest because I know my eyes were darting everywhere, so it looked like they were out of focus. I also don’t know how to do the faint smile so the photos must look very weird. Maybe I should’ve practice how to smile before going to the shoot.

Anyways, we rushed to Hycroft Mansion after the evening gown shots. We were about 30 minutes late because I had to change in to a wedding gown and redo my hair. The staff there was nice enough to let us still till closing time. We took a lot of photos in main living room, it’s very bright there with all the natural lighting. Both Sandy and Vivian loved the place. We also took pictures on the big stair case. It’s a bit dim there but it’s very nice. I think the only other staircase that look as nice is the one in Hotel Vancouver. After taking photos inside the house, we went outside to take some more shots in the back and the garden.

After changing quickly and setting a new hairstyle, we made our way to Gastown for the final outdoor shoot location. It’s already 5 when we found parking near the edge of Gastown. The location we wanted, Blood Alley, had been closed because of construction so we ended up taking some building/street shots. There were a lot of people starring as we walked down the street. We head back to the studio about an hour later.

Back at the studio, we did a make up retouch and a new hairstyle for the wedding gown studio shots. Taking pictures became easier and easier as the we know what we’re supposed to do. We ended the photoshoot session with a few pictures taken with Jackson’s dog Ah Bu. They even put a black bow tie on him and he looked adorable.

The funniest thing about the photoshoot is that all through the day Al had to carry phone books with him as “vertical enhancements”. During the first shoot in the evening gown, I was wearing my 2.5″ heels and so he needed about 4 phone books to look slightly taller than me. Even when I’m wearing my flip flops for the outdoor shoots, he still need about 2-3 phone books. So today, he went to measure my height and it turned out I’m close to 5’8″ instead of 5’7″, which was my height since highschool. It’d be pretty funny on the day of the wedding because he won’t have any “vertical enhancements” to help him. But I’ll be nice and just walk around in flip flops all day, except when I’m wearing the qi pao.

I can’t wait to see how the photos turn out.  Hopefully some of them will turnout alright. If they didn’t I can only blame my “smiling problem”. I managed to take a picture of me with makeup on at the end of the night and also with the HN Wedding staff. For the pictures and more information about the photoshoot, visit Jan’s Wedding Notebook: Pre-Wedding Photoshoot with HN Wedding.