Vivian Hui Weddings Featured on Style Me Pretty!

How excited am I that Ann and Damian's wedding was featured on Style Me Pretty today? Very! I write about the weddings I photograph on this blog all the time but it's such an honour to read someone else's description of your work. I love that they create a style guide and colour palette based on the images for even more wedding inspiration. Adding to that excitement, a perfectly sweet testimonial from the beautiful bride and I'm a happy girl today.

I may or may not have been skipping around the house this morning...

One of my brides said to me today that she loves my job because I've got such an exciting and meaningful one. I cannot agree more. I feel very lucky and I am inspired everyday by the people I get to meet and work with to capture their most intimate moments.

Here is a part of Ann's write up for the Style Me Pretty post:

We set out for a small, intimate, simple, classic and elegant wedding and it was more than what we could ever have imagined it to be. Bringing friends and family from various countries was a big deal, since it doesn’t happen very often. This made it even more important to keep the day simple, so we could interact with each and every one of our guests. The ceremony was my favourite part of the day – it was funny, emotional, intense and special – all rolled into one. The bridal photo session was a lot of fun. Vivian and her 2nd photographer Chan-Ra did such a FANTASTIC job on the photo’s and the highlights video, capturing a small, intimate, simple, classic and elegant wedding – simply priceless. We look back and think “Wow, we enjoyed every single minute of the special day with our closest friends and family there. We couldn’t ask for anything more” and it’s all thanks to Helen Lai for her attention to detail, personable personality and professionalism and Vivian for capturing the most beautiful pictures that we can look back on for the rest of our lives.

You can read Ann and Damian's behind-the-scenes (really cute) story of how they met and tied the knot; then lose yourself in their romantic summer wedding gallery here.

Nate the Great and Other Studio Stories

I always get excited when it's time to present final products to my clients. Just watching the looks on their faces as they flip through the pages of their photo book, smiling as they relive the moments from their session, make it all worth it. You may remember the newborn and family session we did with Nathan not too long ago. If you missed it, you can read about it here. Because I love my clients so much, I also like to put together a bonus highlights video for them as a little surprise when they receive their images. You can watch the video from Nathan's newborn session here.

When Nathan was born, his mommy told me they also called him Nate which immediately reminded me of a favourite childhood book series of mine, Nate the Great. Of course, I had to make sure this book made it to Nathan's bedtime story list. If there is one thing I love more than making beautiful images for families, it is sharing a favourite book with them.

Here is a picture of the collection that was made just for mommy and daddy.


I spend a lot of time thinking about how my photography collections are presented so that I can share who I am as an artist and what photography means to me. My goal was something that was meaningful and pretty to look at, with an overall modern-rustic aesthetic to it. I wanted something for my clients that was just as delightful to open as the contents awaiting them inside.




I hope this gives you a little insight on a part of my creative process!

Want to know more about the different kinds of products and collections our studio can create for you? Start by sharing your vision of the perfect family portrait session with me at vivian@vivianhui.com.

Spring Engagement - What to Wear

**Hi there lovelies! We've moved. You can find our newest posts at http://sundaykindoflove.com/blog. Hope to see you there!

For wedding and engagement related information, please visit: http://sundaykindoflove.com/weddings

Spring weather is finally here! Tonight I'm on Polyvore putting together some engagement outfit ideas for Linh and Sam's engagement shoot based on Linh's Pinterest inspiration board for this session.

Before each engagement session, I talk to the couple to find out what kind of backgrounds they are drawn to, what kind of activities they like to do as a couple and try to get a sense of their personal styles. Linh was looking for more outdoor nature scenes over buildings and architecture so for the location we decided on the Evergreen Brickworks location.

I also encourage all the brides to choose a colour palette with 3-4 matching colours so that we can plan their outfits around those colours. Although Linh had pinned a lot of white's and bright turqouise colours to her board, when I chatted with her about what to wear for engagement pictures she mentioned that a lot of her wardrobe consisted of black items. I decided to still take those bright colours that she was inspired by, but looked for outfits that were muted versions of those colours so that she'd still be comfortable wearing them. I ended up with colours like a pale seabreeze, cream and lilac-grey. Here's the style guide that I'll be sending her:

Sources

I love presenting outfit ideas like this for my clients as they are a great springboard to get them thinking about pairing different patterns and solids together based around a colour palette. It's a much more natural and modern look compared to the classic, same colour tops, matchy-matchy look of engagement sessions from the past - don't you think? It's also a great excuse for online window shopping!

The Offbeat Bride Photoshoot

More photos in Bridal Shoot Set.

This, definitely, is not your everyday bride. A little behind the scenes from our Bridal Photoshoot at the Evergreen Brick Works...

Our model actually found her funky bride's dress at a thrift store and bought it figuring it'd be useful one day (she was right!). And oh what a dress, it's so eighties-retro-awful that it's awesome! I mean, check out the 'wings' on the shoulder! For this shoot, we decided to go with some crazy make up and hair - to match the dress of course.

The hair being built, one strand at a time.


Close up of the hair creation - yes, those are feathers.


There's Sora, working on Roxane.


And here's Jen, doing some touch up on location.


That's me! Thanks, Jen, for taking this pic.


My two favourite hair and make up girls.

Oh and going with the thrift theme here, unless you are doing a magazine photoshoot with budget of a few thousand dollars, you'd obviously want to try to keep the expenses low. Especially when doing TFCD shoots. Don't underestimate the Dollarama! For this shoot, those black beads you see in the model's hair and around her bouquet (I think she also wears it as a necklace in some shots) were found in the Hallowe'en section - 3 for $1.00. The dried up flowers, also $1.00. The ribbon around the bouquet were leftover from some X'mas supplies and the pack of feathers, another dollar. So, that's the Photoshoot-on-a-budget tip of the day - visit a dollar store. Lol. Just make sure you choose "tasteful" items and props that don't actually look like you paid a dollar for them. Finally, once you start shooting, if you find that the props aren't quite working out as you envisioned, do yourself a favour and toss it. Hey, it was only a dollar!

That's it for the behind the scenes. Don't forget to check out the final photos on my Flickr page here. Also, if you haven't already, find me on Facebook and become a fan to keep updated with my latest shoots! See ya.