Bridal Studio - Post Evaluation
Now that the wedding is over, i can freely post about our experience with the Bridal studio & our wedding photoshoot...
If you've followed our wedding journey, you would have remembered that we went through a long and tedious process to choose our bridal studio... but i suppose since we signed the contract last year, the service we got has simply depreciated.
This is our Bridal Package (for those who wanna refer)
$3988
For the Actual Wedding
- 1 X Wedding Gown (made to measure)
- 1 X Evening Gown
- 2 X Groom's Suit
- 1 X Tea-dress / Kua
- 1 X Tea-dress / Jiemei Dress
- 2 X Groom's Jacket
- 1 Big Photo Album (hotpress - means u cannot see the folding lines in the centre of the book when u flip / continous picture)
--> 34 poses (NOT pictures), all returned in soft copy in 5R size (except 5 pictures which will be maximum size)
- 1 Smal picture album 5R size (22 poses)
- 1 Big Portrait photo frame
- 1 8R Tabletop photo frame
- 1 Hand Bouquet + Groom's Corsage + 4 Parent's Corsage
- 1 Bridal car decoration (no car provided)
- 2 Make up (day & night - excluding face empoule & fake eyelash)
For the Photoshoot
- 3 More gowns for photoshoot (of which, only 1 can be brought for outdoor shoot)
- 2 More matching groom's suit
- 1 Make up (excluding face ampoule + fake eyelash)
- 2 outdoor locations
And because we signed up at the wedding fair, we had the option to change the evening gown to MTM, which we did.
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One thing to note about the wedding package is the bride's makeup (face ampoule & fake eyelash). we were told that it was included for the actual day, but on the actual day, we were told to top up... ($15 for eyelash + $25 for ampoule), so if u calculate, that's $120 of added cost (once for photoshoot, once for morning of actual day and once for dinner make up).
the MUA (make up artist) was also "clever" to ask the groom if he wanted to apply the ampoule to make his make up last and charged him another $25. she asked him during our photoshoot while i was taking my individual shots... so sneaky right... and for those who have used the ampoules before, you would know that one tube of ampoule is more that enough for 2 people...
ok fine, enough said about the face ampoules & fake eyelash... don't even get me started on how she asked my MIL if she wanted both (again while we are not around) and knocked ANOTHER $40.
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ok, shall not digress, lets talk about the bridal studio... I guess when we signed the package, there was a lot of sales talk and over promises and when the time came to fulfil the promises, there was a under-deliverance...
we had signed our package in July (or August) 2008. and the date they gave us for our photoshoot was in END JUNE 2009 citing reasons that they were very packed. Our initial plan is to finish the shoot by June and collect our photos by August (so that we have one item less to worry about nearer the wedding), but they promised that they would deliver the album by August so we went ahead with their plan...
and after we had our photoshoot (26th June 2009) , we were given a date ONE MONTH (20th July 2009) later to select the photos that we wanted. keeping in mind that we are going to select the RAW, UNEDITED photos.
after selecting the photos, we were told that we can only see the edited photos & the layout in a month! now this was really pushing the limit cos we wanted the album by end August. and we can forsee that the selecting of photo layout will take more that one session. and when we asked the bridal studio, we were chided for taking the photos so late an not giving them enough time to edit our pictures!
like WTF? we had booked our package a whole year in advance and now we get blamed for trying to rush the work.
ok, so fine, since we couldn't get the photos out by August, we settled for Sept
and after selecting those 34 photos, we were given another date 3 weeks (17th Aug 2009) later to see the edited photos and the photo layout for the album and thankfully we only had minor changes to edit and the next date to see the finalized picture was the following week (22nd August 2009)
with the photos layout confirmed, they sent it for printing and we only collected the album on the 13th Sept 2009 (just one and a half weeks before the wedding)... and disaster struck...
when we collected the album, the pictures were not printed in the order that we wanted. We had sat down with one of the photogs to make the photos flow in a nice sequence, so imagine our displeasure when the photos were printed in a jumbled manner... and it so happens that the guy we sat down with was on leave, so their head photographer came out and made a big fuss saying that we didn't tell him that we wanted the photos printed in a particular order, UNTIL he took out our order form and saw the remarks.
this is where the blame game started; where he started saying that usually couples don't select the sequence to print the photos and the printer will print accordingly. and how the other photographer didn't leave clear instructions before he went on leave, so no one knew our "special order", and then saying that the photo album costs a few hundred to print, who's going to bear the costs etc...
honestly, if their service was good from the start, we would have just let it go and take the album as it is, but because he made such a big fuss implying that we are very fussy customers (and its their fault), we insisted that we wanted a reprint. and luckily he knew that in the end, its their mistake and had to redo it for us.
and true to our worries, we only collected the album the night before the wedding...
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Another issue that we were unhappy about is the wedding gowns & groom's suit.
Since my wedding gown was a made to measure gown, we had to go down a few times for the discussion and the fitting. I suppose they had other things on their agenda, cos my gown always didn't seem to be complete... even right until the photoshoot, gathers of my gown were held up by SAFETY PINS... and luckily we checked the gown when we collected it, cos my ribbon was filmsily held to by gown with another safety pin...
the gowns that the bridal studio had to offer for outdoor shoot was really very limited. and oddly, they only had white gowns for us to select and funnily, they only allowed the grooms to choose a black suit... i guess i was lucky to have bought a second hand gown previously from another bridal studio so i could have a change of outfit in between...
you should have seen by now, that we are not ur average sized couple... so its not easy to find a gown that suits us body shape well... i'm thankful that i opted for the MTM option... but Jason was not so lucky. He had to make do with what they had to offer, even though they could alter to fit him...
and with all the wedding preps, it took a toll on both of us and we each lost some weight. as my gown was mtm and constantly needed fitting, my gown fitted me well, but for Jason, they couldn't even bother with his fitting, until we asked for it. and sure enough, it needed even more alteration. and again, this was only completed 2 days before our actual wedding.
there are still a lot more grouses that i can go on, but since its over, i can only warn friends of this bridal studio...
I guess their initial service (last year) is good, and maybe their business is too good, that they comprehend that as much as we are couple number XXX, it is our first time getting married, and we are looking forward to a good experience.
because of them, we lost the feeling of "wow, we're trying our wedding gowns" and "yay, photoshoot!"... what was supposed to be an experience of a lifetime turn out to be JUST ANOTHER business transaction for them.
oh well, they won't be getting any referrals from us, thats for sure...
up next: Our Photoshoot