The Yellow Encounter - Albert & Sharon Wedding Day at Ritz Carlton

Albert & Sharon had their gate crash carried out in Ritz Carlton Residence, with lots of sunflowers. The theme of the day is yellow, I guess the reason why Sharon wanted sunflower because it signifies happiness. The color yellow does goes well with the colour red. It was a day I finally capture their wedding day after our laughable pre-wedding session in Melbourne. And again, gangnam style gate crash. I couldn't recall how many times I have shot a gate crash with gangnam style already. During the dinner, my second shooter (Ivan) came to me and asked, why this couple used Sunflower as their wedding theme, I replied that mainly because when we were young, many people had an imagination with sunflowers, and most people dreamed to see a sunflower farm. Including me, I really wanted to see one someday. It made me wonder what kind of flowers shall I be using for my own wedding, there are a few that I love like Lily, Iris, Peony and Tulips. I love sunflowers but this flower is really huge for me. Thanks to Albert and Sharon, your family were so sweet and kind hearted. Really enjoyed this wedding day of yours.

The Red Encounter - JC & June Wedding Day

After the pre-wedding session earlier with JC & June, today it's the big day for them. Totally different from their pre-wedding theme, where JC & June had a very traditional Chinese wedding ceremony where most of the stuff inside June's house were all in red. Actually am really honoured to capture this couple because June's family actually is the owner of my favourite BBQ pork outlet New Wing Heong (新永香). Before that I did not know there is a difference between the New Wing Heong and the Wing Heong, after my mom told me about their story. Therefore, whenever I use the word Wing Heong, June will immediately correct me where I should use the word New in front because they are two different families. The history of this old BBQ porl outlet is long and complicated as my mom had described but I understand one thing about this family. As some family culture honour those prosperous moments, they will take this opportunity to make it look as prosperous as possible, and most of the crowd were very noisy, talk out loud, filled with joy and laughters and they expresses many good words on that day, those kind of family will hardly be poor, because of the culture they had expressed and anyone that got influenced by these cultures will inflict a very joyous attitude, which in turn, influences the success of their business. This is so true and that was the deepest impression they gave me and I had learned a lot from this family. The tea ceremony went very well, everyone really gave their blessings to one another. 

As JC is also my friend, I opt not to capture their wedding dinner because I wanted to join my group of friends to witness their joyous moment. To be honest, for wedding photographers like us, we hardly had the chance to sit down and enjoy a wedding dinner, and tonight I got it. Thanks to JC and June.  

Colors of Life - Alex & Pinko Trash The Dress Pre-Wedding Portrait

One day Pinko called me up and said that she need my help to capture her pre-wedding in a hurry because she is pregnant. So we met up very quick and spoke about the shoot, and we discussed about the Trash The Dress idea and they immediately up for it. I asked if it is okay to have paint on her body since she was pregnant and she said it is okay. As both of them related to the colourland paint (family business), they brought over a few bucket of paint together with them. We first finished off the formal session in our studio, and head to the abandoned rail road for some shots. And we had paint all over the area and it ended with lots of fun and laughters. It is a pretty interesting idea and especially Trash The Dress is one of my favourite session. When we spoke about Trash The Dress, it is a style of wedding photography session where the bride will be trashing her dress in order to signify loving the one and only one, expressing love as in all loyal, never married or fall in love with another one ever again. It is a way to express the significant value of a marriage. For the past I have covered a couple of Trash The Dress, and loving it since then. As in the industry we have seen many Trash The Dress session and most are simply a reflection of art but seldom able to reflect the true values of the session. Many thanks to Alex and Pinko, wish to see both of you some day again. :)

Life is like a box of chocolate, a Wedding is like a day of Christmas

You might be surprised to see this post here, for your information, both pictures above were not captured by us, we grab it through the internet in order to give a good comparison. Definately do not want to use our own client's picture because it might offended them haha. 

First of all, why we believe that a wedding is like a day of Christmas, well it comes from long experience. In this industry we meet new people everyday, shoot different couple in every assignment, of couse you can agree with me that we see many positive things but on the other hand, we also see something which we considered a negative trend. And simply a facebook post will not be sufficient to described what we feel. Thats why we write a blog. Hoping that we are able to do a little changes, because we love every couple, and your wedding is a once in a lifetime thingy.

I think you are able to agree with us that, if a couple are truly fall in love and decide to get married, if there is no social or parental influence, everything will go according your way, your wedding will be a celebration of both couple that decided to spend their life together. Every bit of the wedding are filled with genuiness. However, due to social influence, parents decision, and all the facinating wedding that you saw in facebook, your original mind got deviated in between. And in the end, your wedding is simply to satisfy your friends, your family, and to recognize ones status. How can that happened? We can try to provide some examples below.

In reality wedding pictures are meant to enjoyed by both couple but because we have friends, our original intention has been forgotten. Often times couple were stressed because they wanted pictures to satisfy other people's eye, but not for their own eyes. Thats why if I ever want to take wedding pictures for my own, I just want those pictures that me and my love ones can appreciate, because my friends will never going to appreciate 100% of those pictures because only me and my wife will be able to understand them. 

In reality a wedding is a celebration of both couple that decide to spend their life together. If there isn't a meaning of love that both eager to rejoice, why a wedding would take place? Just like how many people celebrate chrstmas in present world; if you bought a christmas tree without knowing the meaning of christmas, you are only celebrating the beauty of christmas day but not christmas itself. As for wedding, we do not want to eleborate more but we sure that you know what we trying to express. :) 

Therefore, to those wonderful couple that planning to celebrate your life together, we hope that you could look back the past, and recall those important memories of both of you, and think about the meaning of the wedding day, what both of you really want. Forget about the trend, facebook influences, your friend might have a very grand wedding but never let it affect your decision, your friend might went to Paris for their wedding shoot but you can still settle your portrait in your backyard, your friends might have gate crash session but you can still go without one, your friend might tell you that red or orange is the most trendy color of the year but you can still go for the color that connects you, your might be influenced a lot from the word "pose" but you can neglect to pose during your portrait session because you wanted to be authentic and real, .

Because it is your wedding, and you both should deserve a perfect decision that does not influenced by social trend (they always teach you bad things), family pressure (well sometimes you have to give in, no choice. But not all~ =P), peer pressure (don't care about them, just be yourself). Okie Dokie? Have a good one~ 

Regards,

Dennis Yap and Team.

Merry Christmas!!!

Two People - Kiat Hau & Shevia Wedding Day

The feeling of two person, side by side, uniting together as one. When Kiat Hau & Shevia met up with me a while ago, those are the elements that came across me. Kiat Hau is not a strange guy as we met each other during Joan's wedding, and for those that have seen Kiat Hau, he is a very polite person and he gave a lot of fun to Shevia. When Kiat Hau entered Shevia's room to receive her, I can see in his eyes that he was truly happy to see her, and Shevia was really happy to see him as well as I can see from her eyes while Kiat Hau trying to remove Shevia's veil. It was a sweet morning. And I was very happy to see Joan (my older couple) came for their wedding, and this time she was pregnant. :)

Cherishing Life - Jay & Nicol Wedding Day

Met up with Jay during a wedding fair and Jay and Nicol confirmed the assignment a while later. Jay and Nicol had many ideas about the wedding and wanted me to cover the wedding. It was only during the wedding day that I met up with Nicol and what I did was just shoot behind the scene for them. There are no poses and such, all of the shots were all candids and real moments. Except I had fun twisting the sign board to make it a little different, hehe. I was laughing when I made that one. Not sure if anyone had ever did that but I kind of like the idea. After reached Jay's home I found this nice little wall and we did a couple of shots there. And they exchanged their rings at the end of the day with all real moments. Its easy to carry out a short beloved session each time after the big ceremony. I know there are shooters carry out many kinds of ending shots but I prefer to make it a natural and authentic one, as real things are always has value for memories.

Daddy's Little Girl - Joshua & Sam Wedding Day

It was an emotional day, after our small little pre-wedding session we had earilier, today Sam finally ready to depart from her home to a place called a new life. It was a unique day, before Sam depart her home, her dad grabbed her arm telling her have to be happy, and began to fall with tears, everyone in the scene began to infected by her dad and tears of joy just dropped, one by one. And I almost cried during that moment. The wedding may not be in a gorgeous looking house, or grand looking dress, but those family values that embedded on Sam was strong, and those elements simply overtaken those outward beauty and made all of us embrace those inward joy within them. Thank you Joshua and Sam, it was nice to be part of your life.

The Unification - Jaya & Su Mei Church Wedding

This is one of a unique wedding where my assignment was in fact a gift from Su Mei's brother Soo Aun. There was one day Su Mei was looking at my pictures when told Soo Aun that it will be nice to have me for her wedding day, and Soo Aun contacted me personally over email and wanted to engage my service as a surprise gift to Su Mei. And during Su Mei's birthday, we created a small little 4R photo frame, saying congratulations, where Jaya and Su Mei will have a date with Dennis Yap on their wedding day. Jaya and Su Mei met up with me and I found that this couple is really very natural and just understood what I have to offer in their wedding day. During the day, we just being there to cover this unique day of theirs.

After a while after we delivered the pictures to Su Mei, one day, I received a hand written letter mailed over to our studio, and I found that it was by Su Mei herself. Inside her letter she described a lot about their relationship and those little things that they had gone through. For that moment I felt so touched to be able to be part of this special day in their life. And so I wrote back in email to Su Mei, unknowing what to say to Su Mei, and ended with a few words "Thank You". I guess that the best few sentence that I wanted to say, nothing much, but both of us had built a unique personal relationship with each other. That was one of the most rewarded assignment that I have ever received. Thank you Su Mei once again. 

Love Amber - Eugene & Joan Pre-Wedding in Kyoto, Japan

Met this two busy couple during a wedding fair sponsored by Canon Malaysia, I guess they are one of the most lucky couple ever, while engaging our services they got a free wedding day coordination sponsored by Marvellous by Jeff Weddings, later they won a free couple video shoot by Moments by Gary Ngui, I guess they got most free. It was a lovely sunny day, we managed to capture a beautiful sunrise over the zen looking lake in Kyoto. I still remember they had so much to discuss over the wedding shoot and Joan always contact me after 10pm after working hours lol. I believe this couple had a lot to express by looking at Eugene's eyes. A long term relationship that was long enough that words is simply unable to express by itself. During the pre-wedding shooting, Joan had a serius back pain issue which we tried our best to make the pre-wedding shoot as simply and natural as possible. During the make up session, we get to know that Eugene's father was actually my dad's school mate, and Eugene's dad sent a message in my dad's facebook about the coincidence. Well I guess the world is really small. Later Eugene and Joan engaged one of our photographer Kevin Tan for their wedding day. Awaiting us to show case our work that expresses their heart one by one. Thanks Eugene and Joan for your patience, it was a memorable journey. 

The Hidden Treasure - Jerry & Carmen Pre-Wedding in Kyoto, Japan

Jerry & Carmen is not stranger as Carmen actually had attended all of our photography workshops. And before that I actually met Carmen long time back during my assignment in Singapore. And one day Carmen had called me up and so we all met up in a small little cafe in Bangsar and in the end they booked us for all of their wedding occasion from pre-wedding to couple portrait in their high school and to wedding day, and I was honoured to secretly shot Jerry's personal picture for his proposal. To me, this couple is fantastic, they were very nice and sincere, it is very easy to mix around. They are one of the most considerate couples in the list. While getting to know them a little more, both Jerry and Carmen had actually gone through a long term relationship since high school, where Jerry used to deliver lunch box for Carmen in school. However, Carmen's background was also unique, with many stories to tell and many stories were known between me and them only, it is a very personal relationship. Since both of them had booked me for all occasions, I planned to make each session a different one with unique stories and concentrations. There are simply too many stories to tell and so I broken them up to a few pieces and this pre-wedding we had is one of them. For this pre-wedding session, I made it a little serene, not so much concentration on the Japanese theme itself but the ideals that inflicted within them during the shoot. Things that is balanced, equal and calming. Something for the future of their relationship and for many years to come. In Carmen's eyes, Jerry is a great gentleman with great patience and understanding, while in Jerry's perspective, Carmen is the one that he can give up anything for. 

Carmen was working in a foreign exchange company holding quite a high position and she was inspired by my vision and she had also quit her job and started her own wedding planning services, I was surprised and still could not believe that she made such a move but I guess she wanted to pursue a different venture.

A day before the shoot, we just hang around with each other, visited many places around Kyoto, just to have fun and enjoy the day, it was quite a relaxing day and they were very nice that they have taken care of us in many ways. Even during the shooting day, we all did not feel pressure at all, we just enjoy the nice weather just treat the day out the most memorable day ever. Too bad we did not intend to cover the red gates as Carmen said that it look very scary hehe. And now awaiting to cover their school day portrait soon, that was the place where everything started.