Braving a typhoon for our PWS 😨

I logged in and saw that I’m now a “Rising star” who is sharing wedding-related tips 😅 I guess I will take the opportunity to share about our overseas PWS that we did in Taiwan last year!

We booked a full-day PWS package in Taichung, Taiwan. Tbh, we didn’t do much research and signed the package when pressured at a bridal fair 🙃 There was a bit of regrets that we didn’t negotiate to get a better deal. But oh well lessons learnt, and the outcome was quite ok so we move on from there.

What was in the package:

- 3 gowns for 👰‍♀️

- 2 suits for 🤵‍♂️

- One day photography

- Hair and makeup

- 30 edited pics

- 20 photos in a photo album

- 1 framed canvas photo

What we needed to top up $ for 💸💸💸

- upgrade suits to coloured suit (apparently what’s in the package is only black suit, which made 🤵‍♂️look like a waiter. But hmm they never mentioned it beforehand 🧐)

- Driver to bring us around to different locations

- Makeup artist to follow throughout the day (kinda lame that they didn’t include this in the package; they said that it would be foc if we drove back to the studio after each outfit change, which didn’t make sense logistically…)

- Ampoule for bridal makeup

- $50 per additional photo we choose (digital copy)

- Night photography (but they were kind enough to waive it off for us)

- Entrance fees to studios or any attractions, for yourselves and the whole crew

The whole process took around 2.5 days. Here’s what went on during each day.

☀️Day 1 ☀️

We went to the studio bright and early in the morning to meet the photographer. The photographer will ask you for your preferences in terms of photography style and the locations we want to shoot at. It’s good to do some prior research so that you will have a mood board to show them your preferences! For locations, we mentioned some keywords like “mountains”, “grassland”, “railroad”, “forest” and the photographer would show us potential locations we can shoot at. If we accepted it, he would plan the itinerary for us. This took around 1h+.

After the meeting with the photographer, it was time to pick our outfits. We started with the gowns first. I selected a few gowns that caught my eye, and then began the fittings. The staff were very helpful and also hyped us up by complimenting us on most outfits 😂 They also gave helpful inputs on which gowns would be more suitable for which location/backdrop, and how to choose gowns that are different from each other. After selecting 3 gowns, they took my measurements and started to tailor the gowns to my dimensions. They worked super fast and within 30 mins, I was able to do the final fittings to ensure that the fit was good! 👍🏻 The whole process of selection took 4 hours 😥

Next was the selection of suit and vest! We were ushered to another boutique with men’s selection. Then it was about mixing and matching suit, vest and pants with tie and bow tie. Honestly it was a bit harder than the gown because of the need to match the different components 😅 We also had to think about which outfits for 🤵‍♂️ would match the outfits that I selected, and match the various location backgrounds. This took much longer than expected haha! By the time we finished, it was 8+pm and the shop was closing already.

☀️ Day 2 ☀️

This is D-Day! Woke up bright and early to reach the studio at 8am. Started off with hair and makeup for me! I had saved some photos of the hairdos and makeup that I liked from Pinterest and IG, so I showed the MUA and she followed accordingly. I also had to pick the hair accessories and earrings to match the various outfits.

Then 🤵‍♂️ had light makeup and hairdo being done up while I was gowning up. We left the bridal studio at around 10am and started heading towards our first location. We mostly chose outdoor locations, so I brought along slip-on sandals to walk to the locations before changing into heels. The photoshoot was pretty chop-chop because we had many locations to cover. The photographer would give us different pose ideas and we would follow along. Some of the poses were quite awkward 😂

If memory serves me right, we went to these locations:

Forest -> Railroad -> Mountain -> Grassland -> Seaside -> Indoor studio -> outdoor city nightscape

Interestingly, the outfit changes and updating of my makeup and hairdo were done at random 7-11s/Family Marts that we encountered along the way 😂 This got us some curious stares from the locals haha!

It was super shag but quite a fun experience! The team was really nice and patient with us. But because it was quite rushed, we didn’t really manage to slowly enjoy the process and the scenery, it was rly focused on getting the shots and rushing to the next place. We had also wanted to capture more behind-the-scenes photos but there wasn’t enough time too 😪 We were also trying to outrun the storm clouds as it rained in the late afternoon. We ended up adding in the indoor studio shoot to avoid the inclement weather. Thankfully the rain stopped in time for us to still have our outdoor night shoot!

☀️ Day 3 ☀️

This is supposedly the day where couples would select the photos that they wanted to keep and the salespeople would try to pressure you to purchase more add-on photos 😅 But because we had an early bus to catch to the next city, we avoided this process. Instead, we had the photo selection back in Sg after our leisure trip around the rest of Taiwan 👍🏻 The lady at the Sg studio was chill and there was no pressuring at all, which was lucky for us :)

🤯 Fun-fact (to address the post-title): there was a typhoon the few days before our scheduled shoot, so we were really worried about our shoot being cancelled 🥶 Even on the gown-selection day, the winds were howling so hard and our windows were rattling through the night. We headed out to see many large fallen tree branches littered all over the pavements 😦 Thank goodness the weather was much better on our actual photoshoot day, although it was quite cloudy the whole day and rained a bit towards the evening.

💭 Reflections 💭

Overall, I think the experience was quite enjoyable and positive. We were thankful that the weather held us for us for the most part! The photos also came out really nice! The only “regret” per se was not negotiating for a better offer or for more photos to be included in the package. The add-on costs also inflated the overall package price, some of which we were not really made aware of at the beginning 🥲 So we didn’t get as good a deal as we were made to believe…

Some tips for overseas PWS based on our experience:

💡Do some prior research about the landscapes that you want to capture, and save them into a mood board so that you can show the photographer

💡If you’re doing outdoor shoots, be aware of the season that you’re planning your trip! Avoid rainy season for outdoor shoots (psst…avoid typhoon season too, to save yourself some anxiety)! If you want to capture fall landscape or flowering seasons, plan your trip accordingly!

💡For ladies, it’s good to have gone for some gown try-ons locally before your overseas PWS so that you have an idea of the type of gowns and silhouettes that you prefer. It can get stressful to pick out 3 gowns within 4 hours, one day before the shoot, if you don’t narrow down your choices beforehand.

💡Similarly, prepare moodboard of the hairdos and makeup that you like, so that you can show it to your MUA on the actual day. There won’t be time for a makeup trial for the PWS as you will be meeting the MUA on the same morning of the shoot (according to our experience at least)

💡Try to pick a variety of outfits (different colours and different styles) so that the photos will look more varied! And it depends on your preference whether you wanna pick outfits that are similar or different from your actual day outfit!

💡Purchase and bring along makeup ampoule if your studio allows it, you will save a ton of money! We regret not doing so, we were charged around $70 for 2 small bottles of ampoule 🥲

💡For ladies, bring along your stick-on bra, heels and comfortable slip-on sandals! For guys, bring along a white shirt, shoes and belt.

💡Try to plan for the shoot to be at least 2 days after you land, so that you have time to rest and “acclimatise” to the foreign country. Try not to eat oily foods before the shoot day. Sleep early before the shoot and hydrate well 😊

Wow, this ended up to be such a long post, hope that this was helpful those who are planning an overseas PWS! Like and save this post if it was helpful! ❤️ Share in the comments below about your own experiences or if you have more tips to add on! 😊

Read about our comparison with local PWS here:

We did 2 pre wedding shoots?!

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