This is one of the most exciting things happening and keep me sooo looking forward due to all the raves I saw on Korean Wedding Photoshoot!
Wedding samples courtesy of Wedding Ritz
So pretty right?
A year ago, was toying with the options of having our pre-wedding photoshoot locally, in Taiwan or Korea.
NB made it clear that we shouldn't go Taiwan as it's getting too common, we would rather have it done locally. So next consideration was the price. Besides factoring the cost of photoshoot, to have it in Korea, we need the air tickets + lodging expenses! Would it be worth the moolahs spent?
Deciding on the Pre-wedding Shoot
So, we listed down the pros and cons of the korean shoot:
Pros:
- BEAUTIFUL
- Unique (as of now before the trend booms of course)
- Return of ALL raw photo copies
- No hidden costs (e.g. false lashies, ampoule)
- No hard-selling
Cons:
- Popular for indoor shoot (Pay so much just to shoot indoors?)
- communication breakdown? (there's a translator though)
- Expensive
- Need to get separate bridal studio for actual day package in Singapore
So we see that the Pros had more pointers and after hearing the horror stories of wedding studios (for both Singapore & Taiwan studios) who hard-sell and couples having to top up so much more!
I have a colleague who topped up till a whopping 10K for the photos. Other friends topped up another S$1-2K each
I could have gone Korea twice or joined Wong Wong for her Venice photoshoot. =/
I guess having that assurance that you will get all the raw photo copies is a huge deciding factor which means I had to go on to further research on the 3rd party companies managing these photoshoot for overseas couples like us!
Deciding on the company
I've looked at a couple companies:
- I-do Wedding (One of the more popular, trusted one as they have a Singapore rep but pricing is on the high side)
- Hanja Wedding (No local rep and pricing doesn't sit in my pockets)
- Ti-Amo (One of my 2 shortlisted company, prompt replies from them. They have offices in Asia like Hong Kong and nearby Malaysia. Some packages were cheaper than WeddingRitz but deciding factor was our final decision on the studio which WeddingRitz had a better pricing)
and of course...
- WeddingRitz (No local or nearby offices which made me quite paranoid but so far so good, they have been responding even after the deposit was placed and they were pretty patient with my endless emails =P, pricing was good and even managed to get videography for less than 1k!)
Deciding on the Photoshoot Style
Having read up on the Korean wedding photoshoot styles and asking the agents themselves what is best for us, it boiled down to a major decision:
To choose between an indoor shoot (in Seoul) or outdoor shoot (in Jeju).
Do you know that Korean photoshoot's main USP is it's indoor studios?
i.e. Koreans (even celebrities) love the korean Pre-weddings cause of the beautiful studio settings they have. Although some images may look like it was taken outdoor, they are actually taken indoor within the studio! The last time I asked the Korean rep from Ido, she said if the Koreans like Cherry blossoms in the pictures, they don't have to wait for Spring in April, they simply build it in the studio and tah-dah! you have it!
 |
| Credits to Ido-Weddings |
So it was an inner battle for us whether to go all the way to Korea only to take indoor shots =P
So I weighed the benefits and decided to go with an outdoor shoot in Jeju cause...
...the last time we were at Jeju, I fell in love with this place, Seopjikoji!
I realise there wasn't a picture I have that justified the beauty of the place so it's just the image above =P
Go Google and you can find a lot of nice pictures of the place! ;)
The studio did warned of the limited gowns as compared to Seoul studios and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that in 2 days time, I'm able to select my dream gown(s) there. ;)
Having the videographer there to capture the precious moments of our photoshoot in Korea means a lot too! Just hope I don't look too BIG on screen! Prays!
Till my next update of the photoshoot, ciao! ;)
