Sorry to hear that you had such a poor experience.

I had also inquired about the refund as my wedding was called off 7 months before the wedding date. In the contact it had stated clearly that there will be no refund but I was able to negotiate a change of date. However the condition is to pay the difference in pricing as the cost of the wedding day photo shoot goes up in price every year. I had signed the contract in 2008 but since the wedding is now moved to 2011, I had to pay a bit extra as the pricing for 2011 photo shoot is more than when I first signed the contract. I think this is fair and I can understand why they have a no refund policy. What I’d be interested in knowing is whether you’d be able to use the deposit you paid as credits for something else (like other photo shoot) if you do cancel the wedding or have decided to go with another studio.

Thank you for sharing your experience with us. As I’ve stated in a comment in this post, if you have any concerns, be sure to have the vendor clear it up before making any commitments. I’m sure your experience will raise questions and concerns for a lot of people who are researching on HN Wedding. Hopefully having those questions answered by HN will help them decide whether this studio is right for them or not.

This is until my fiance and I took the wedding photos, were unhappy with the quality, and Vivian, the owner (she pretends she’s just an employee to manipulate her clients and push any difficult decisions to “Sorry, my boss says ‘No’” when she’s THE BOSS) would not let us retake our photos NO MATTER WHAT. She does this trick where she will find out, “What is it about the photo that you don’t like?” And most often than not, it is lighting. If you complain about the facial expression due to poor artistic directions, then she will blame that “That’s your face and that’s how you are. How can I change that?” And if it’s lighting, she blames it on the weather as opposed to the photographer and the assistant’s poor abilities to do lighting…

During the photoshoot, the photographer told me to walk through some rose bushes. My wedding dress got caught in the thorns but we did not realize until a bit later that I had actually caused a little torn. No. Instead of taking responsibility, they blamed ME and said that I was not careful. Consequently, they asked me to pay $500 on top of the $6000 package I had already signed up for, to pay for a new train.

To make matter worse, the makeup artist changed my style during the photoshoot. But I had no mirror. So I didn’t know that she had made my hair into a crow’s nest – yes – it WAS THAT BAD! I had no say in my own style b/c I was never given the mirror. And so that whole set of shots went down to the toilet ON TOP of the set with the POOR LIGHTING (which they blamed on the weather / and the lack of sunlight – b/c I had taken my pictures in the winter).

NOW. GET THIS! My engagement was later called off. At this point, I had already put in $2000. Remember, we were already not happy with our photos but were MADE to pay the $2000. No retakes. No refunds. We decided to leave the situation b/c my fiance and I were both having cold feet and we didn’t have the energy to deal with this. So the engagement was called off. And I told Vivian. Instead of being helpful, she told me that “by contract, you still owe us another $4000!). “But the wedding is off!!! And I’ve already paid $2000 for one day of shooting and you haven’t even given me ANYTHING!” “It doesn’t matter. It’s on the contract. If you don’t pay, we’ll take you to court.”

So there you go. Do you really want to deal with this company? They may have nice dresses and Vivian may seem nice. But TRUST ME, that’s how I got suckered in too until things did not turn out the way it was promised…

When I went to Lisage (http://www.bridalvancouver.com/index.html) to inquire about wedding photos, the sales lady there told me they also rent out gowns for bridesmaids so maybe you can check with them? Aside from that I’m not sure where else since my bridesmaid got their gowns from Hong Kong.

As for restaurants, I’d suggest finding ones that can accommodate your number of guests first, then maybe go and have dinner there to sample their food. Some restaurants have the “double happiness” and the last names of the couple as decoration (the rest of the decoration is really up to you). Also most restaurants will have table numbers so you don’t need bring your own (unless of you don’t like the table number holder they are have). My personal preference is Gingeri at Lansdowne Mall and Kirin (New Westminster location).

As for photographer, maybe an engagement photo shoot would be better for you than prewedding? I know most prewedding photo shoot involves the bride-to-be in a wedding gown but engagement ones are more casual (at least from the ones I’ve seen). I didn’t do any research in this area so I can’t recommend a photographer but you could start off asking the studio if they would take prewedding photos in only evening gowns or casual clothing (usually the package includes both evening and wedding gowns in the photo shoot). Other than that maybe you can look for other photographers (I’m sure you will be able to find alot from Google) that specialize in engagement photography.

As for my own wedding we’re planning to have it in 2011. The date is not set yet. I do events planning as a part of my job so maybe that’s why it seems like I have experience. ^_^

PS: Since you mentioned that you will be buying your own wedding gown, if you do get a prewedding photo package (say at studios such as HN which I know the prewedding photo package includes wedding gown rental for the day of the wedding), see if you can negotiate down the price a bit.

I have to move my wedding to next year (hopefully!) but we have put a deposit for Victoria Chinese Restaurant in downtown. Since we have a lot of time left to plan the wedding and our guest list seemed to be growing with no end in sight we are also looking at the Kirin Restaurant in New Westminster. Do you need suggestions for wedding photo studios? I’ve posted a few in the blog (such as Lovely Wedding, Wedding Story, Lisage) but this year I might spend some time visiting Bello and iWed Wedding World.