HN Wedding Photography Studio, Vancouver - Review

Posted by Jan

July 7, 2008

Located on Alexandra Road, Richmond, HN Wedding photo studio is one of the many Taiwanese photography studios in town. As with Wedding Story, Al and I had reviewed the website before visiting the studio in person.

When we went into HN Weddings, the receptionist is helping another couple finalize their photo album (they were choosing pictures for printing) so we took a seat at one of the two glass tables (the chairs have white chair covers which looked really nice). Jackson, the lead photographer, showed us a few albums, explaining the technique they use such as maximizing the use of natural lighting to create shadows and the composure of the picture. I really enjoyed listening on Jackson’s interpretations because it explains more than what my eyes were telling me.

Vivian, the receptionist, greeted us after the other couple left and she began by showing us some photos on her computer. They were the pre-wedding photos taken of the couples in the printed albums we saw. We also saw the pictures the previous couple had took. It was nice to compare how they look in real life to their photos. I’m glad to see that the makeup was light yet still able to make the bride really pretty. I’m not a fan of makeups so the less they use, the happier I’ll be. Vivian also showed us some wedding day photos. She pointed out stuff such as colour contrast, shadow/highlights as well as the conditions of wedding day and how the photographers managed to make the pictures look very natural. For example, it was raining for one of the weddings, so the bride and groom took photos at the restaurant (Seasons in the Park at Queen Elizabeth Park) instead. However they had decorated the restaurants with candles and soft lighting so it’s actually pretty dark indoors.The photographers were able to still take beautiful pictures utilizing the natural lighting of the candles instead of relying on flash, which sometimes make the photos turn out too bright (white).

HN Wedding offers something that I didn’t see in any other studios and that is night photo shoot. Evening, such as sun-set photos, are included in the regular photo packages. Night photos are a separate add-ons you can include in the photo package of your choice. Usually night photo shoot take place in the evening around 7 - 8pm, when the sky is completely dark. It’ll probably be later in the summer as day time is longer. I’ve seen a few stunning photos of night photo shoots but as Vivian pointed out, it is quite tiresome. In order to have the dark sky as the background, you have to stay until really late at night. Most people do the photo shoot in one day (if you do it on a separate day there’ll be added cost) so you’ll be standing for about 12 hours or more.

After looking at the many photos, Vivian presented us with several photography packages for pre-wedding which range from $2,000 - $5,000. Each package includes an album (they are of different size), signing scroll, thank you cards, enlargement with frame of a certain size and a set number of gown rentals. All package includes gown rental for the day of the wedding also. For wedding day photography, HN Wedding only have one package. It has an unlimited coverage time with two photographers and includes all the negatives plus an in-store credit you can use for printing photos.

I have requested to see their studio area as well as the dresses they have. As there were a couple of girls trying out dresses for a shoot, Vivian had to ask if they were alright with having us visit the studio area. After we got the OK from the ladies, we head upstairs to the dressing and studio room. There were racks of dresses and a very nice lounge chair/sofa with two fitting rooms. There were less wedding gowns to choose from when compared to Wedding Story but they do have more evening gowns. The other end of the studio are set up with props for in-door photos. The room has big, almost floor to ceiling windows to allow for a lot of natural lighting.

Both Al and I found that HN Wedding photography style is one of the best we’ve seen. The makeup, lighting and the composition are all very natural, unlike those which I call “high school grad photo” like shots found in other studios. Before we visited HN Wedding, I had heard that their dresses were out of date. However, when I saw the racks of gowns myself, I found that their dresses are more “out there”. It’s definitely not the ones you’d see at a prom. Vivian had pointed out that they try to have a selection of dresses for brides who wish to look more sexy or different for her wedding photos. I can understand why. You probably won’t fork out a few thousands dollars to take some fashion photos. At least I wouldn’t. There is this black gown that I have my eyes on, as well as a white wedding dress that has a flowery design sewn on with black thread. It really stood out and considering black is a taboo colour for a Chinese wedding, I’m tempted to use it in the wedding photos.

PS: We’ve chosen HN Weddings for our pre-wedding and wedding day photos. My friends who are getting married next year (who originally wanted to take the pre-wedding pictures in Taiwan) booked with HN Wedding after I recommended it to them (they have also checked out 2-3 other studios before making a decision). If you wish you can use me as a referral, send me an email or leave a comment.

Contact:

HN Wedding
8611 Alexandra Road, Richmond
Tel: (604) 207-9825 or (604) 518-1768
Email: hnwedding@hnwedding.com

Vancouver Vendors, Wedding Info, Wedding Photos

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Comments

Comment by xiaobee on July 8, 2008 @ 6:53 pm

Hey, what a long review! I love love love looking at pre-wedding photos and everything about those studios!! I too went to HN, but it was for their gown rentals. Some reminded me of Pronovias. I agree, their gowns are original.

When are you doing your shoot? Are you doing the night shooting? Will it be in pitch darkness?? They didn’t show me samples of that when I was there.

Comment by Jan on July 12, 2008 @ 7:47 pm

Hi Xiaobee,

I’ll be doing the photoshoot on July 25. I so excited especially now that I’ve picked out my dresses!

They currently don’t have any examples of the night shooting in their gallery so I can’t refer any photos for you to see. But basically for night shooting, they wait till it’s all dark outside (for summer time we’re probably looking at 8:30-9:00pm) before starting to take pictures so the background is all dark and not early evening/sunset time. It’s tiring because you’ve already been taking photos all day and if you are doing it at places like Gastown or downtown where there are a lot of cars, they have to sometimes wait till there are no traffic to take photos of the street.

I’ve seen an example of a couple taking a picture with the Burrard Street Bridge at night. It’s very pretty! There’s also one where they were using sparklers to draw a heart!

Comment by Brenda on July 28, 2008 @ 6:23 pm

Hi Jan,

My wedding is taking place around the same time as yours! It’ll be June 28th, 09. We, too, are currently looking for a wedding photographer. After visiting your site (which is a great help with loads of information, THANK YOU!), we have decided to check out HN and Wedding Story. We love the photo style at HN, especially when we saw the pics of the couple who had their wedding at The Seasons in the Park. I agree with you… Jackson is a master in maximizing natural light. We want to get pre-wedding and wedding days pics done at the same place. We are really attracted by the “metallic paper” used in their highest priced pre-wedding package, but to our surprise, there is no special rate or combined package if you book both the pre-wedding and wedding packages together. Also, they don’t have any package that includes videography… many of my friends who didn’t take videos for their weddings regret it so much! So, as a result, that brings us to quite a bit over our budget, so although we were really tempted to put a deposit, we’ve decided to wait and check out the other places too.

So we visited Wedding Story today. John greeted us and showed us his pics. He was very patient with us… and also showed us the videography department and the gowns. The one thing we LOVE about the Wedding Story is the VIDEO… the editing is done very professionally… and the audio capture and lighting was awesome. The pre-wedding pictures were not bad at all too. However, after having seen the wedding day pics at HN, we found that John’s (the chief photographer at Wedding Story) style for taking indoor pics when there isn’t enough light is not as natural. He relies more on flashlight… and it results in a lack of “warm” feeling to the picture.

So we are still debating about what we should do. We haven’t used your name as reference at HN… do you think that would perhaps help?

Comment by Jan on July 30, 2008 @ 8:47 am

Hi Brenda,

Thanks for dropping by and I’m glad the site was useful for you. For videography, my friend used Love Story Media (http://www.lovestorymedia.com) for her wedding. Their pricing is pretty reasonable so maybe this could be one of your option if the photo studio you chose does not provide videography.

As for HN, feel free to mention my name to Vivian, hopefully that’d help a bit. Did you also inquire about the custom pre-wedding photo package, where they are able to tailor the items in the package to fit your needs? For example, we didn’t need the thank you cards, which shred about ~$50-75 off the pricing. In total, I’ve been to HN three times before paying the deposit. I let them know that I’ve checked out other photo studios, what I really want for my package and how much I’m willing to pay for it.

Hope this helps! I would love to hear back from you on your decision.

Comment by Brenda on August 3, 2008 @ 11:43 am

Hi Jan,

Thanks for your advice! We went back to HN a second time. This time we had already prepared ourselves to put a deposit. We had also made up our minds on the package… we were going to go with the smaller pre-wedding package without the “piano crystal” cover and metallic paper… cause it’s still really nice and $1000 less.

We talked with Sandy, who was really really helpful. We have worked out all the details with her.. to customize the package. She was more willing to tailor the package to our needs… like taking away the parents album and thank you cards, and substituting with more poses for the pre-wedding album (from 40 to 45 poses). She was also giving us an extra enlargement with a frame. In terms of the dresses, I was hoping she would include 1 bridesmade dress rental (since I only have 1), and the men’s tux if they don’t need alteration. In the end, she was willing to discount $30 (from $150 to $120) for the bridesmade’s rental.

Although that was still less than what we think she was able to do for us… we’ve decided that since it’s the picture quality and Jackson’s technique that we fell in love with… we were still going to go ahead. HOWEVER, just when we were about to say “go ahead”… Sandy mentioned something about VIP dresses. We were really surprised when she said that because Vivien told us we were able to use ALL the dresses upstairs for our pre wedding and wedding day rental. I questioned Sandy… then she said those dresses were only inclded for the most expensive package, not the one we were going with now. I told her that’s not what Vivien told us… she said no… if we were to wear the VIP dresses for wedding day, its $500 extra!!!

At that point.. both my fiance and I were felt really uncomfortable and lost our trust in the place. We immediately thought… what are the OTHER hidden costs? We have asked them so many times and they kept saying no hidden cost… You know, honestly, for a girl… if you saw a REALLY beautiful dress that you ABSOLUTELY LOVE on the day you pick your dress… you are kinda forced to pay the $500!! Cause at that time, all the other dresses would look ugly to you… and if you didn’t rent that dress that you love, you would for sure regret it!

I know I am a very picky person… and I know that would for sure happen to me! If they had been more up-front and just told us (like Bello that we inquired before) that certain dresses are extra cost, we would totally have no problem with it. We just feel so hesitant about the place now.

So I told Sandy the whole situation and asked her what the $500 was for. She said it’s for extra charge for the dry-cleaning and just in case someone damage those expensive dresses. So I said, to be fair, I am willing to pay the extra dry cleaning charge, be it $100, $200… and I am willing to pay $500 more DEPOSIT on the dress IF I happen to choose one that is VIP. I want myself to have the option of choosing a VIP dress if that’s the only dress I love. I think that is really reasonable.

She said no, we can’t do that because they have to make some money on the VIP dresses too. I think that kind of thinking is quite unacceptable. First of all, we were told that we could choose any dress we see upstairs. Secondly, that really seems like a scam in making extra few hundred bucks. And since we were given the wrong information, they should just not make that extra money off us if we chooses the VIP dress.

We argued with her for quite some time… she kept saying things that contradict what she said before… like she started saying that 1) even for the most expensive pre-wedding package, you need to add the extra $500 for the VIP dresses; 2) that not all VIP dresses are $500 extra… some are $600, others could be more… and what she could do for us was to put on the receipt that the charge on the VIP dress if we chose would be $500, not more. We were quite shocked! We really lost our trust and confidence in that place!

It is so unfortunate that the business practice there is so messed up. We absolutely LOVE the pictures, but we are not willing to be “robbed”. We want this to be a happy and joyful event… not one that we have to always worry about being taken advantage of. If the girls know more about what they are talking about… if we had felt confidence and professionalism…. we would have 100% gone ahead.

Anyway, we are probably going to get everything done at Wedding Story. We will just stop thinking about that horrible experience at HN and keep smiling!

Will keep you posted!