The first thing I noticed was their adorable height difference! I immediately visualized angles that would be unique for Kevin and Lisa. Both of them were super cooperative following my excitement. Kevin rarely has the opportunity to feel shorter than Lisa so throughout the session I looked for ideas that would let Kevin experience what it feels like looking up at Lisa. I love how sweet and casual their expressions flow out in front of my camera. Lisa said she is more of an introvert than an extrovert. Well, I don’t sense one bit of an introvert during the shoot! Either that or Kevin did a really good job relaxing Lisa!

Lisa and Kevin contacted me a little less than 2 months ago for their wedding in March 2013. Looking at my calendar I can safely say that they are going to be my first 2013 wedding since their wedding is so early! We all had an abstract schedule and we ended up having breakfast at MacDonalds early in the morning for consultation. This might be my first consultation in the morning! Very rare as most people prefer to sleep in or are working. It was very casual. It felt a little bit like a blind double date except that I didn’t bring a date!  Alright, I know that was a weird analogy but I love how I get to eat!

We chatted about the most random things, especially how Kevin explained why the newest Canadian bills for $100 and $50 are plastic! He stated that one of the reasons was actually to prevent criminals and illegal transections from dumping money into the sea and erasing proofs (he studied criminology!) Although I still dislike the new bills as it is extremely hard to count and feels weird, I will complain less!

One of my favourite pictures that Lisa and Kevin allowed me to capture. No! It didn’t stink! I love the colors!

“Hey Andrew, Cally! Go lie down!”

“I’m gonna climb up that tree!” and Arnold immediately started to climb the tree to get to higher ground after I asked Cally and Andrew to lie down, haha, it was epic how we pushed Arnold up and down. He injured and scratched himself a bit but hey! Photographers would do anything for a beautiful photo :)

With excitement we started off our wedding day (okay, there were some getting ready shots too but this part got both Arnold and I very excited!). It was insanely hot that day and it was difficult to search for a shade that works. Luckily Queen Elizabeth Park is full of trees (and other bride and photographer and tourist and students…) but we were able to find a spot of our own and enjoy a good solid 20 mins of our time there taking photos.

Most impressive thing about Cally’s wedding? Cally’s mom sewed Cally’s Chinese dress and her sister April’s dress as well as the flower girls dress all by herself! I was blown away because they look so well made that I was certain it was purchased elsewhere!

When we arrived we had (or we thought we had) a lot of time to take pictures of details so we grabbed Cally’s beautiful dress and gave a 20 minute portrait session of just the dress. It was my first time to ever pay so much attention on giving a wedding dress portrait session so it was fresh and new! We are usually only given 5~10 minute to take pictures of the dress before it is worn but we were given time to be creative.

We started off having tea ceremony then gave Cally’s dress a portrait session and finally we decided we made Cally’s dress as beautiful as it possibly could that we decided to return the dress to Cally. She happily started to put on her dress and immediately felt like super model and Arnold and I gave her paparazzi session. For an asian, she was brave. I’ve been asked to leave when capturing Asian (Chinese) bride getting ready too many times. Cally was good and relaxed and full of expression! Which i really enjoyed seeing!

Beautiful Swarovski necklace!

Brian & Mandy’s wedding was a collision between classic + Asian cuteness. Miya and I enjoyed how they brought the Asian, Hello Kitty pink theme into the classic manor which has definitely changed our perspective of Hycroft since our stylized shoot. It’s ironic but it was my first time capturing a wedding at Hycroft Manor and I have to say, I really loved capturing both weddings and pre weddings there! Their wedding day was short (5 hours in total) and compacted with happiness. At times it was very chill, at times it was insanely rushed. To me, their photo session (both their engagement and wedding portraits) would be my most memorable ones up until now. I had about less than 15 minutes to capture their wedding portrait as things became really rushed at the end. It was amazing how Brian and Mandy coordinated so well and my mind was visualizing all possible angles and poses during the shoot. What usually takes me 5~10 min (think, compose, instruct, trial and error) only took me 30 seconds. I was in god mode/speed! Yes, I am kind of proud of myself, and of course I couldn’t have done it without Brian and Mandy’s synchronization!

“We are not ready yet! And, girls only!” So we got kicked out and 20 mins after that Miya snuck in and captured a few shots. Getting ready is my favorite part of wedding, I am kind of sad that I missed it…but Miya snuck in to capture it while I was capturing the other details so it’s all good!

Beautiful flowers by Flower Factory. I think I just fell in love with pink since their wedding yesterday! Ohhh details!

“Please don’t be a sunny day on July 20th! Please don’t  be sunny! Please don’t be sunny!!” That’s what we all wished for these past 2 months because Alex and Lisa’s ceremony was outdoors at 11:00am and my fear was ultra harsh sunlight. Their special day finally came and it ended up raining! We wished for the clouds to come so hard, but so many showed up that it began pouring rain at times. Fortunately, the rain stopped right before the ceremony was about to start so we were able to set up the ceremony just in time outside!  I love the rain, but not during an outdoor ceremony! Thankfully, it went pretty smoothly after that. Other than encountering crazy amount of photographers during the ceremony…

Alex wasn’t kidding when he said he has a lot of photographer friends (read about it here). I think I am safe in saying that there were at least 10 photographers excluding myself and John Bello. It was epic, hilarious, and 無為所難 (don’t know what to do in Chinese). The ceremony started and I literally had to push through all of the different photographers (ranging from 15~60+ years old) to capture the right moment during the ceremony. Regardless, I quite enjoyed the challenge and captured with my right hand  while I cleared the path with my left hand!

We then headed to Kirin Restaurant for the tea ceremony and reception. The food there was amazing! It was my first time going to the Kirin at New Westminster. I think I can safely say this Kirin is one of the best reception locations for Chinese wedding receptions! The color was golden and the space was really wide. It has always been tough to work with the traditional red wall and red table cloths as red light reflections are not pleasant on skin. This was a fantastic  choice! I loved their ceiling!

These crazy lights? Ask John about it, I thought I knew how to do it but he could do it 10 times better than me! Also, special thanks to my friend Alex Law for introducing me to Alex and Lisa!!

Two models met at a week long Sport Check campaign, and their eyes caught each other for across the room. Not long after that, 7 years have passed and now they are under the same roof! Charlie works on the other side of Canada (Montreal was it?) and flies back once every 2 weeks while Emily is an international model that travels all over the world. To me Emily & Charlie are living a dream in style! I would loveeee to fly around the world doing what I love! My dream is to become a destination wedding photographer that travels capturing moments. I was browsing Emily’s facebook pictures and envy all her travel photos with Charlie too! So nice!

It was quite funny when capturing their engagement session.  Emily often brings out her “model expression” in the middle of the shoot but my style is more cheerful and happy so I would try to do something goofy or act funny so they would laugh. A few seconds later, Emily would go back to her model expression and concentrate on posing. I love both sides of them, the sexy style as well as the cheerful laughs. They were ultra sweet with each other when I asked them to talk about their honeymoon or their previous trips. The moment they finished talking the silence came and I could hear the ticking in Emily’s mind, thinking of how to pose next!

That’s Goldie! A super cute, fluffy puppy that was curious with just about everything during the whole shoot. We gave Goldie lots of love throughout the shoot, and that’s one of my fav from the session!

Extremely hot, that’s how I felt like the whole day. It was ironic that Jennifer sent me an email 2 days before the wedding and asked me jokingly, “what if it rains?! Like the day of our engagement?!” I checked the weather report the night before their wedding and realized there is a thunder storm for the 13th and a thunder storm arriving on the 15th, but leaving July 14th (their wedding date) with sun shine. I felt very fortunate as I find my own photography really shine when there is sunshine. Ironically we all found the day way too hot and was unbearable for some people. It was funny as I kept telling all the guys to have their hands in their pocket and having to repeat more than 20 times to remind them. It was later on that I found out their hands were burning and sweating like crazy due to the heat.

July 14th, 2012, was the date that Alex and Jennifer got married. They knew each other for less than a year and got engaged 2 months ago. Yes, that’s right; they planned their wedding in less than 2 months! They spent their life traveling together most of the time and found each other to be the most unbelievably perfect with one another. “Life like watching a movie” is what they describe their relationship. I feel fortunate to watch 3 of their stories in person; 2 engagement sessions as well as their big day. They were all movie like and magical.

Their day started off getting ready at Delta Vancouver Airport Hotel with Elena Tsang doing the make-up and flowers from Lisa; who are both two of my good friends that I always plan my stylized shoots with. I went upstairs to take pictures of Jennifer’s dress then I went to visit her for more getting ready photos where she offered me some food before we left. Actually, I think I offered myself to some of the leftovers casually and asked after I had already reached for the food! Oops!

We then had the ceremony at Our Saviour Lutheran Church where Arnoldalready arrived with groomsman waiting for our arrival. It was my first time shooting at Our Saviour Lutheran Church so it was pretty unique. I was fascinated by the skylight that shined right on Jennifer & Alex (although I think they were all burning like crazy due to heat but I think they were too happy to care about the heat!)

We went to Minoru Park for bridal portrait and Jennifer immediately mentioned to me before the photo session that they WANT to have some pictures done at a Starbucks! It totally reminded me a video that I saw couple months of years ago on a Starbucks wedding. It was pretty awesome to see that the cashier treated both Jennifer and Alex free drinks and I bounced into my friend Cindy and her boyfriend Andrew. That might have been the first time ever that I met a friend when I’m capturing a wedding!

And my favorite part of their wedding was at their reception at Richmond Country Club. Speeches are always great, especially humorous ones. Jennifer’s childhood friend played back A LOT of Jennifer’s childhood memories, thing she said when she was a child, and even several songs that Jennifer sang when little. It was hilarious to see Jennifer got “caught off guard” as the whole crowd laughed. I hope my parents didn’t record anything or any nonsense I said when I was a kid and play back during my wedding! I am sure I made a huge goof of myself when little (actually, I still make a fool of myself all the time even now!)

And another one of my fav session, dances. I LOVE DANCES! I don’t know how to dance but I LOVE capturing dances! I just learned how to capture low light condition two days ago so I was going wild that night flashing my camera everywhere. Oh, I forgot to mention, YES! I BOUGHT A 5D MK III! It costed me a fortune, but it was worth it! Jennifer & Alex was the first wedding that I captured with my new toy! Just thought I would chuck that out there.

That’s Alex and his mom! Both are unbelievable dancers! We were all blown away!

Two weeks ago Brian emailed me saying he is getting married in less than 1 month and looking for a photographer for his wedding. I had no idea he is a photographer himself and is circulated with bunch of photography friends! We sat down at bubble world and he introduced himself a little bit and I was blown away how well we got along together! We kept talking about our experience, our passion, and some business; and related our life as a photographer with each other. It was an awesome talk and he basically just told me what he needs for his wedding and it was a done deal.

Brian casually asked Mandy if she was fine with his decision and Mandy didn’t give any second thoughts and agreed. To me they are the type of couple that I can never imagine having conflict! They are just so synchronized! It was hilarious when he brought up how he was planning how to shoot his own wedding and his own engagement because I was thinking of the same thing!

We scheduled the engagement to last Wednesday and I was blown away by how prepared he was. He said, “Yeah, we got our outfit and we will get some balloons for our shoot. We want to shoot at Steveston, is that ok for you?” At first my mind was like, “mmm, ok, this shall be my 6th time shooting at Steveston in 3.5 months; but mmm alright. I guess I haven’t done a balloon shoot there yet, I wonder if I could come up with anything original…” On the day they brought A LOT of balloons and GIANT Hello Kitty and props I was BLOWN AWAY by their preparations! He is indeed a hardcore photographer! I guess I would have done the same if I were engaged! But GOSH it was fun! The weather turned out perfect again! It was just awesome sauce with awesome sauce! Yay!

So yeah! There we go! I’m quite pleased with the photos and it was fantastic that Brian and Mandy would synchronize with each other and pose perfectly. Brian had some specific poses and ideas he wanted to do, it was awesome as I could pay more attention to composition.

Flower from The Flower Factory

Their wedding is coming up in less than 2 weeks, it’s going to be my first time shooting a wedding at Hycroft so I am SUPER excited about their wedding! I am very close with Jennifer (manager for Hycroft) as well as their vendors after the Stylized Shoot that got featured on Wedluxe. So I am really looking forward to their wedding! Brian specifically told me he knows how it is to be a wedding photographer and he wants to make their photographer’s life as easy as possible. I am sorry Mandy that I didn’t get to know you as much I wish I could! But Mandy and Miya got along quite well with each other after the shoot as they realized they know a lot of the same people! Brian would call Mandy “Meow meow” and I would call Miya “Nyannyan” which basically means the same thing except that it’s Japanese way of saying meow meow.

Meanwhile, I usually don’t post pictures of us…but I just had to this time! Throughout the shoot Miya was more interested in the Hello Kitty balloon more than anything else, and she was several times happier than average I would say! Usually she concentrates too much on photography and talk very little and too serious, but she was smiling so much that day haha!

So i decided to join the photo session at some point of time as well

Alex & Kyla, the two of them just have so much story to tell! I can’t express how much thankfulI am that they chose to have me capturing their most amazing day of life. It was the first time in my life to capture a farm wedding, and my goodness I love it! For a nature freak (as in photography only) it was inspiration paradise. Every single moment and location was inspiring. Ideas kept popping in my mind as I couldn’t process all of them at once so I blanked out and sprinted around the whole farm instead. Especially during the ceremony, literally.

BIG HUGE SMILE! What more can we say for Alex and Kyla, they are having the best moment in life yet right there!

Few days before their wedding I asked if I could bring Miya along (because I really wanted to share my excitement with her) Alex and Kyla happily said yes. I walked in and I felt right at home with Kyla’s dad and sister and just about everyone came and asked, “are you hungry?” “are you thirsty?” “Do you want water? juice? or sparkling water?” When I walk in and greet everyone for the first time I would try to make everyone comfortable as most people are not used to having their pictures taken. Instead, I was welcomed like a family and they made me feel really comfortable. I might have been too comfortable at some point and just set down and chat and eat with them!

I was so blown away how they all follow my blogs and I have a feeling that EVERYONE read my post on visiting Kyla and Alex on Eagle Island. All of the sudden I felt like a celebrity! I was kinda embarrassed at many moments. Kyla would then comment and relate our chat with my recent Facebook status and my recent blogs. I was so moved!

The most surprising part of the day? I will have to say it was during the ceremony. Miya and I arrived about 15 mins earlier during the ceremony so we were scouting just a little bit more around the area and before we know it Kyla and her father started walking down the aisle. I SPRINTED across the farm and swapped my lens and kneeled down and started shooting.

Yes, I felt like I was at war or something! It was epic! Not to worry, I got the shots! Very soon after that I started sprinting around the ceremony looking for different angles and before I know it they started exchanging rings! That was about 5~6 minutes since the ceremony started!!!! I was like, holly! HOLD IT!! (no, i didn’t say that, but i screamed in my mind) I SPRINTED across again and swapped my lens and took a few snaps and then Alex and Kyla kissed, held hand, and walked down the aisle. The whole process took no more than 10 minute. To me, it felt like 5 min. That was the fastest ceremony I have experienced in my life, and most likely my past life and probably my next life (if such life exists)

I ran after them after they walked away and I said, “Wow! That was a REALLY fast ceremony!”

Alex and Kyla said, “Yeah! It was much faster than we thought it would be!”

I laughed and in my head I told myself, oh gosh, I think I have a good story to write about when I go home!

I am SO THANKFUL that it was sunny on July 7th, two 7s! Can’t go wrong! Dinner was so pleasant. I finally got to put down my “photographer” mode and enjoy their delicious food that is making my mouth extremely watery right now. Not just the food, the calm breeze in the shade and children and adults playing around with occasionally a cat and a dog coming by to sniff for food. It was great. I relaxed for a few minute then I went to explore the farm a bit more since the lighting changed.

I saw that, and my jaw dropped and ran after them! I don’t even know if that is allowed or if it is safe, but the child inside me became delighted and somewhere in me wished that i was on there too! Judging from the cart, I don’t think i can fit in!

The night ended with freshly picked strawberries. Kyla told me they prepared enough bags for 150 people and they just picked it this morning! I LOVE how I get to bring LOTS of food home every time I visit them! Last time were prawns :) So awesome! Served as breakfast the next morning!

Florist: Limelight Floral Design

I met Alex and Lisa just before I flew back to Taiwan and Alex talked about how he went through A LOT of wedding photographers and concluded that he wanted Kunio Photography and not considering anyone else to capture their wedding day. I was extremely flattered. When I came back from Taiwan to shoot their engagement he said, “We don’t have much preference in terms of location so we will follow your judgement, whatever you suggest will be great, it will be awesome, and I will leave it in your hands.” Again I was really flattered (but stressed due to extreme high expectation) and I went all out flipping through my folder of Vancouver locations to make sure I live up to their expectations!

The shoot was extremely pleasant as I started to notice Alex and Lisa’s response as I embedded ”what works” and “what doesn’t work as well” into my mind so I am ready for their wedding day on July 20, 2012. I love engagement sessions. It is the time when I can learn about the couple in how they react to my direction as well as how they react to each other. It’s different for everyone. Alex is the goofy one, he is so goofy (like myself) and would go “Hiyaaa! Waaahh!” with his kong fu at Lisa. Lisa on the other hand is the calm and the type that is slightly nervous, but she laughs and smiles beautifully when Alex does or say goofy things. It was a very warm engagement.

We laughed and joked during the shoot and Alex talked about how he made a lot of photographer friends due to taking a photography class in Langara. So he asked a lot of his friends for opinion when choosing his photographer. He jokingly said,

“You know when you ask a photographer what (this) photographer’s work are and they reply, ‘meh,’ ‘mmmm’ and ‘so so,’”

“Well, your photography had the least of ‘meh,’ ‘mmm’ and ‘so so’”

I don’t know if any of you understand what I mean…but by chance you do, yeah, it was pretty funny to hear that! Because being a photographer I used to also say ‘meh’ ‘mmm’ ‘so so’ to photographs that doesn’t suite my taste but shy to say “OH WOW! SO GOOD!” to the photographs that I like. Well, that was few years ago when I was too full of pride (hey! at least I am honest about it now!).

The sun came out quite nicely on the day as well, they were the first couple I shot since I came back from my vacation to Tawian. I was glad Vancouver gave me sunshine on the day of shoot. It became cloudy and then rained few hours after we finished. We totally lucked out choosing to shoot in the morning!! Thanksss for waking up early Alex and Lisa!

Oh and that’s Chewy, super duper cute dog that starts wimping afte Alex and Lisa leaves him for like 2 meters. Awww poor Chewy, I hope he got the attention he deserves after the shoot!