WEDDING DO’S & DON’Ts 101

I’ve been shooting weddings since 2006 and as a wedding photographer, I’ve witnessed some weddings that were very well planned and organized and weddings that were quite, how should I put it, ‘chaotic’. During assignments, I’m always by the couple’s side from the wee early morning till the end of the reception and I’ve learned quite a number of things that one should and should not do during their wedding day. I may not be a wedding planner or a professional event planner, but what I’m about to share here could benefit you if you’re planning to have a wedding.

GETTING READY
- VENUE ADDS TO THE MOOD
If possible, get ready at a nice venue like a hotel room or so. Hotel rooms usually have big windows (good source of light), nice decors and furniture. This may provide photographers more opportunities to take nicer photos.

- A MESSY ROOM IS A MESSY ROOM
If you’re getting ready from home, try to keep your room as neat as possible. You may not want your undergarments as background in your photos.

- LIGHT IS IMPORTANT
Choose a room with good source of light for your make up. Look out for windows and lamps. If you’re not sure, ask your photographer

- HAVE YOUR MAKE UP ARTIST OVER
It’s always better to have your make up artist over your place. It’s harder to take photos when you’re queuing up with other brides while we fight with other photographers for a perfect spot. Furthermore, if it’s during peak season, you might end up late for your wedding if other brides turn up way earlier than you did (6am was the earliest I’ve shot!)

- ALLOCATE SUFFICIENT TIME AFTER MAKE UP
Some photographers like myself need at least 20-30 mins to take photos of you, dolled up and looking all pretty in your wedding gown after your make up and hair-do. Don’t forget, we need to take photos of you and your family too!

- GET YOUR FRIENDS OVER
If you’re a nervous wreck, have some close friends or family over. Not too many though! We can’t work in a tight and crowded room.

WEDDING CEREMONY
For Traditional Chinese Weddings

- DOOR BREAKING GAMES
Choose a place to bully those pitiful groom’s men with sufficient space and good source of light. The front porch, garden or the living hall is recommended for torture.

- NO CAMEARAS DURING DOOR BREAKING GAMES
That’s why you hire photographers! Your groom’s men or bride’s maids can concentrate humiliating or being humiliated while we photographers get all the best angles capturing those moments. We don’t want to fight with your groom’s men or bride’s maids for angles, especially when you already have 10 bride’s maids and 10 groom’s men crowding in a small confined area.

- BE A SPORT
If you’re one of the unfortunate groom’s men, be a sport and just try to do whatever the bride’s maids ask for. If you’re constantly negotiating your way out, then there’s really nothing much to take photos of.

- KEEP TRACK OF TIME
Some bride’s maids may get overzealous and forget that it’s time for tea ceremony. Assign a time-keeper.

- TEA CEREMONY
Prepare a list of your relatives that you’re serving tea to. Your parents may think that they know their own family at the back of their palms but weddings can make some parents get overly excited or nervous. You don’t want to end up wasting time trying to figure out who’s next to serve tea.

For civil or Christian ceremony

- MAKE THE NECESSARY ANNOUNCEMENT
Ask your wedding officiant or emcee to inform your guests to turn off their cell phone and take photos only from where they are seated at. Otherwise, we might give your uncle or aunty the death stare if they are in our way. >:(

- MIC STANDS
Officiants love it, photographers hate it. Mic stands can be a distracting foreground/background. Who wants to see a picture of a metal rod crossing over your shoulders or head? Ask for a wireless mic or have the officiant hold the mic for you as you say your vows.

- KEEP A DISTANCE
Keep a comfortable distance say 10 feet apart from your bridal party during march-in. You don’t want the person in front to block you.

- FLAUNT THE ROCK
When you put on the wedding ring, angle it towards the guests and don’t let your fingers hide the shinny rock that you’ve spent your entire salary on.

- KISS HER LIKE YOU REALLY MEAN IT
When you are given the green light to kiss the bride, please KISS the bride. No matter how great or experienced the photographer is, a peck that lasts a few milliseconds is not an easy task to capture.

- SMILE
If the officiant gets boring during the ceremony and you’re starting to doze off, please don’t. Keep smiling to each other or I have to sneak up in front of you and remind you to do so.

- PREPARE A LIST OF GROUP PHOTOS
Make sure someone is calling out the groups so that everyone is there for their group photos and not loitering around the cocktail area

THE RECEPTION
- THE RECEPTION MARCH-IN
Same ‘Keep a distance” rule applies during the march-in. Remember to smile as you walk in and if you’re planning to have rose petals or confetti, pop/throw it only after you’ve walked past and not before. You don’t want to get the rose petals or confetti blocking your face and getting on your hair.

- WALK AROUND AND MINGLE
There isn’t much for us to take photos of when everyone is eating. A mouth stuffed with food is not a pretty picture. Walk around and mingle.

- FEED YOUR PHOTOGRAPHERS
Ask of your photographer if he/she needs food. One can get very hungry and tired after doing 6 hours of hard labor.

- HAVE A WEDDING AND NOT RUN ONE
Hire a wedding planner or assign someone to co-ordinate your wedding. I’ve seen brides running around with their cell phone stuck on her face the entire day trying to co-ordinate the entire event herself. Sigh…

If you have any tips to add or share, please comment below. If you find this tips useful, please share it with your friends. : )

Away with “Yawn” Weddings – Make your wedding “YOU”!

This photo was taken from a wedding in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Be creative! More often than ever, your wedding venues (Malaysian couples usually have their reception in ballroom of a hotel) would provide you with some basic decoration – table cloths in three or four color choices, limited floral arrangements choices and that’s it. Thus, you may have noticed this in most of the ballroom weddings you attended: the main colour of the event is confined to the typical maroon, gold, cream or white.

So, how can you break out of the conventional colour theme and have a totally unique and vibrant wedding reception? Here are some tips to get your creative juices flowing:

1) Visualize your dream wedding scene – make that into a specific reception theme!
2) Do you love culture? – if you like Japanese and Korean culture but do not fancy a traditional or full blown Japanese/Korean ceremony, just plan a cultural inspired wedding (i.e. performances, decors or venues with a touch of Japanese/Korean influence).
3) What are your passions? If you are an avid Salsa or ballroom dancer, why not use it to celebrate your big night? A dance-inspired theme can be one-of-a-kind!
4) What is your personality? If you are a romantic soul, plan an enchanting vintage wedding. If you pride yourself for being a glam diva, turn your wedding into a Hollywood-red-carpet affair. If you have a soft spot for nature, have fun with a green-theme wedding.
5) Fanatic about something? Celebrate your wedding with that! Go ahead – plan an Alice in Wonderland inspired wedding! The trick is not to go overboard on your theme, and make sure the theme is not outrageous or appalling to your guests. A wedding theme should be creative and unique, in a refreshing yet exciting way.

A fantastic wedding is a lot more than just choosing table cloth colors and flower arrangements. So, think about what makes your wedding YOU. Remember, the more you personalized your wedding, the more memorable and special it will be for you and your guests!

This article was written by our wedding planner, Li Yen. Please email her at liyen@whizarts.com if you wish to contact her or visit her website @ http://www.voilamademoiselle.com/.

Planning for a beach wedding

As we approach the popular months of wedding season, our in-house wedding planner Liyen is here to provide some tips on planning alternative and fun filled wedding. A beach enthusiast herself, Liyen loves the fun and care-freeness the beach + sun could offer!

- Avoid raining season!
- Tell your guests to dress “beach- formal”- that could mean black-tie with barefoot!
- Groom and bride should be in beach- formal attire too. High heels are totally not necessary for beach weddings. If the groom and bride ain’t having fun, the guests ain’t having fun too!
- Hire an emcee who can create a lively vibe. If your emcee’s style is formal, the event will likely to turn formal too.
- Hire a wedding live band that your guests enjoy dancing to. And since this is an outdoor wedding, make sure you hire good sound system.
- Use lively and vibrant deco / color theme (with your personal touch of course) to keep your guests excited.
- For outdoor ceremony, consider renting a floor and tent, to ease walking and seating. It ain’t fun to sit on chairs that keep sinking into the sand.
- Prepare bug spray for your guests.
- Keep your guest lists small.

Voila! Enjoy planning a fun and merry beach wedding party! For more ideas and advice, contact Liyen @ liyen@whizarts.com

Beautiful Penang

Penang has plenty of picturesque locations and venues for portraits and weddings. We have the beach, oriental & colonial buildings, international hotels & resorts, beautiful gardens… you name it, Penang truly has it all. On top of that, our delectable local cuisine and hawker food makes this tropical island an irresistible place to have your perfect destination wedding. Clients often ask me for suggestions on where to have their portraits taken at, so I’ve decided to list it down here today. Here is a list of just some of my favourite spots in Penang, in no particular order.

1) The beach at Batu Ferringhi

2) Khoo Kongsi [www.khookongsi.com.my]

Please click on title to continue viewing.

Selecting Photos For Your Album

Our Coffee Table Albums come standard with 20 pages and can averagely fit 80-100 images. I would classify my layout design as classy, clean and contemporary. I also like to keep my layouts simple, and free from unnecessary cheesy texts and motifs.

When it comes to designing albums, I usually allow my clients to select their favourite photos for their album. Lately, I’ve been receiving lots of “complaints”, saying that there are just too many awesome photos to choose from, and selecting just 110 images out of the hundreds is almost impossible.

Hence, here are some tips to reduce your ‘stress’:

1) Quantity vs Quality
I’ve been designing albums for years and I can confidently tell you that quantity does not mean that you’re getting the most out of your money. The keyword here is to strike a balance between quantity and quality. Through my experience, 80-100 images are usually sufficient for a typical wedding. Any more, you might end up with a cluttered and messy layouts with tiny images everywhere; and it won’t make your album look classy.

2) Include some backgrounds in your selection
Take a look at the layout below.

Most people tend to select images that has a face in it – it’s just human nature. You might want to include a background, scenery or even details so that it adds ambiance into your album. Won’t you agree that by looking at the layout above, makes you feel as if you were there?

3) You can’t have everyone in your album
Keep it simple and be reasonable. You can’t have every single person’s face in your album. Select only those who are important to you such as the bridal party and your immediate family. It’s your wedding album and the main focus should be on the both of you.

4) Choose ‘Story Telling’ images

You do not need to choose every photos to describe an activity from A to Z. Based on the layout above, you’ll roughly know that the groom was at the door, trying to claim his bride and we did it with no more than 6 images.

5) Sequential images
It may seem that selecting images that are somewhat similar is a waste of good space, but it doesn’t.

Sequential images help us match and balance colors, and to my opinion, it also gives your album a contemporary look. Here’s another sample below

If you do select sequential images, make sure you select a minimum of 3.

6) If you’re not sure, let the professionals do it
There are many other factors to be considered when designing an album. Apart from taking photographs, designing album is also an important service offered by Whizarts. If it seems difficult, let us choose your photos for you.