My Wedding Qi Pao
After about a month my qipao is finally here. It looked better than I thought. The pattern I had chosen not only has dragon and phoenix embroidered on to it, but also have copper coin, fan, pair of fish and some other ones that I don’t recognized. It’s really colour full with the gold, orange, blue and purple thread. I didn’t get a chance to snap a picture with me in the dress but it fits perfectly. Now I just need to find a pair of shoes and figure out what to do with my hair. Any suggestions? I would love to find shoes that I can wear again.
Here’s the store information again in case you missed it last time. I got my qipao at:
K.K. Boutique
154 E. Pender St.
Vancouver BC
Tel: 604-608-2778
Pre-Wedding Photoshoot with HN Wedding
Our pre-wedding photoshoot session with HN Wedding was actually pretty fun. I was quite nervous the night before and yes, to my horror, a blemish decided to pop up! Gotta love the EFFACLAR A.I. - Targeted Breakout Corrector by La Roach-Posay for getting rid of it. Anyways there were a few things we need to prepare for ourselves before going into the studio at 10am for the shoot, here’s a rough list of items we need to bring:
Groom Items:
- dress socks - 1 pair each of blackand white
- shirts - any colour you want to make the dresses the bride had picked out for the shoot
- black dress shoes
- jeans - for casual shots (if taking)
- suit - Al brought his own for the evening gown shots
- black belt
Bride Items:
- strapless bra
- dress shoes - for the evening gown shots (I only bought one pair because for the most part you can’t see my feet)
- comfy shoes to wear for the out door shoot - I wore my flip flops
Other Items:
- contacts - if you wear glasses, try to wear contacts so there won’t be any reflection from the glasses
- snacks - i find juice boxes work well, since they come with a straw, we also brought Pocky
- items that are meaningful for the couple that you would like to include in the shoot - I borrowed the photographer’s dog (Ah Bu) to take photos with us. He’s so cute!
- big breakfast - there isn’t a lot of time to eat so make sure you start the day off with a full tummy
We started the say at about 10:15am. It took roughly 2.5 hours to do the make up and hair. Vivian, the makeup/hair artist is very experienced and detailed oriented. She even had this trick (which I don’t know about) that make my eye bigger by increasing the fold of the eye lids to make them look bigger. I didn’t have time to snap a photo of how I look with the hair and make up all done but I did manage to take one when I got home. Here’s how I look with the make up:
Excuse the T-shirt, I changed and just remembered I should take a photo before getting the makeup off my face. The hair is tied back because they had to remove all the accessories after the shoot and since I’m going home, there was no point in keeping the hair up. And just for comparison, here’s an picture of me without make up:
What do you think? Do I look very different?
The photoshoot took about 11 hours, from arriving at the studio to finishing all the shots. It was a very long day and I am glad I took the next day off to rest. One thing I found is that posing is a very difficult task, especially in the beginning. You have to keep your back super straight, some times bending at weird angles, to get the right look. It seem so natural in the photos but actually doing it was pretty challenging. I also found I had trouble smiling at first and my eyes seem to wonder all over the place (like it’s out of focus).
I want to thank Jackson, Vivian and Sandy for being very patient with us through out the shoot. We had enjoyed spending the day with them. I managed to ask them for a photo so here are the fun, energetic and knowledgeable staffs from HN Wedding (Vivian - makeup artist - took the shot for us):
Swiping Credit Cards as Wedding Gift?
Of the Chinese weddings I’ve been to, about 9/10 do not have gift registries as the couple prefer cash gifts to help off set the wedding cost. About a week ago I read an article on Reuters-”Do you take this credit card?”-where it said that in Jerusalem, wedding guests can swipe their credit card at the reception and enter an amount to give to the couple as gift.
I think this is a brilliant idea! Even thought it would look a bit funny to help people line up at the reception table signing the guest book while punching in their payment, it’d at least mean they won’t need to bring a lump of cash to the wedding. What do you think? Will this take off and become an necessary item at weddings down the road?
