Concept Video, with accompanying Save The Date Video

Promotion: Sign up for a Concept Video by end of April 2012, and get a free Save The Date Video! 

When Yucui first met Aidan, she was terribly unimpressed. Watch Aidan & Yucui's concept video, which tells the story of a long-distance relationship that almost did NOT happen! 

 

Aside from their concept video, Aidan & Yucui also asked us to edit a Save The Date video. We thought it was a great idea to maximise their footage and create a video that would not just serve as a Save The Date video, but also show excerpts from their upcoming Concept Video! 

 

The Wedding Paparazzi
Facebook | Videos | Blog

Email: info@weddingpaparazzi.com
Tel: +65 6336-1693 

Concept Video, with accompanying Save The Date Video

Promotion: Sign up for a Concept Video by end of April 2012, and get a free Save The Date Video! 

When Yucui first met Aidan, she was terribly unimpressed. Watch Aidan & Yucui's concept video, which tells the story of a long-distance relationship that almost did NOT happen! 

 

Aside from their concept video, Aidan & Yucui also asked us to edit a Save The Date video. We thought it was a great idea to maximise their footage and create a video that would not just serve as a Save The Date video, but also show excerpts from their upcoming Concept Video! 

 

The Wedding Paparazzi
Facebook | Videos | Blog

Email: info@weddingpaparazzi.com
Tel: +65 6336-1693 

From Purvis to Waterloo… we’ve moved again!

When we first moved to our Purvis Street office, we were absolutely delighted. The 600 plus square feet of floor area was SO MUCH SPACE. You see, we had just moved out of a tiny HDB bedroom (where TWP was born) and it blew our tiny little minds to have so much space that you could take a step in any direction and NOT BUMP INTO THINGS.

The Wedding Paparazzi had three full-timers when we moved into the Purvis office. Big Red Button (our sister company that does corporate and broadcast jobs) had two. That’s five people max. Now, one year on, we’ve grown to the extent that we’re starting to feel like sardines again. Now, between the two companies, we share 10 people. TEN. It boggles my mind.

Really, it’s our sister Big Red Button that’s done the growing. On the wedding front, we got an intern to join us recently. She was a great girl, but she had to go back toschool. (Come back to us one day, Dorothy!)

Still it was time to expand. Also, because of the property boom in Singapore, our rent was going to go up 100% after our lease expires at the end of the year.

So the search began.

Around the same time, our friends at AV8 (they supply our video editing hardware and software and tell us cool stuff and sometimes have meals and watch movies with us), were looking for a new place too. They found a nice place at Waterloo Street that was loads cheaper and not too far from where they originally were (which is near where Purvis too). Excited, we asked if there were any vacancies we could check out. Shah (of AV8) told us to check out the HDB website where all the vacancies for lease were listed, but to our immense disappointment, there were none.

We figured we’d continue looking.

A few weeks of fruitless looking passed, and one day in absolute boredom, Wally decided to check out the website again. Lo and behold! HDB had listed a new unit for rent. We had no idea where in the building it was located, hadn’t seen it, and had no idea what it looked like. But Wally went ahead and put in a bid for it.

And a little counter on the website started ticking. In 10 minutes, we had won the bid to lease the unit. 0_0

The very next day, Wally and I took a trip down to the place and looked at it. We didn’t have the keys, but we saw it from outside.  From our calculations, it was HUGE. We started hyperventilating. And we looked across and saw that AV8’s unit was right across. We freaked out.

A few weeks later, we had the keys and saw the unit from the inside for the first time. It was even bigger than we had imagined, because it didn’t end where we thought and instead wrapped around an HDB stairwell. In total, it was 1,650 square feet. Almost 3 times the size of our Purvis office.

Well, to cut the story short, we’ve since moved out of the Purvis Street office and moved in to Waterloo. The renovations are all done, and the furniture almost all in. Wally and our interior designer Juliet did a great job with making it look great.

A funny little side story: Juliet was the same person who helped us design and renovate our Purvis office. Almost immediately after that project ended, she told us she was pregnant with her first child.

Renovations for the Waterloo office just ended last week. And she told us she’s expecting her second child! : )
She says it’s lucky our lease for this office ends only in 3 years, because she’ doesn’t think she’s quite ready for another kid too soon!

Anyway, the new office is great. It’s big - there’s enough space for everyone, with extra for new employees in the near future. There’s good food nearby, and
while we’re now a tad further from Bugis and City Hall MRT stations than Purvis Street was, we’re still within walking distance (10 mins max).

Pretty amazing we got the place, if you ask me! We really have to give thanks to God for helping us find the place!

We’ll be having an office warming and dedication soon, as soon as we have our nifty sign put up!

Making REAL memories

I hold to the idea that it’s not what you add to a wedding that makes it meaningful, but what you take out of it to make room for the things that count.

I just attended a friend’s wedding in KL over the weekend and thought I’d share something from the experience. I had a great time at the dinner, even though it was a relatively low-key event – there was nothing flashy at all about it. But there was one noteworthy thing – the fact that they didn’t go round taking table-to-table shots. You won’t believe what a big difference it made! The atmosphere was more relaxed, less stilted and the couple so much more accessible.

It wasn’t because they didn’t have an official photographer. It was because their guests weren’t being herded into groups to pose for photos. Instead, they created REAL memories by going round to tables to chat and hang out. They were there because they wanted the fellowship, and not because they had to take a token photograph with their guests. They didn’t even have an amateur photographer snapping group pictures – whoever wanted a shot took it.

I’m not saying to do away with a photographer entirely (my friends were very bold in not asking anyone to officially take pictures) – but I am saying to consider doing away with posed shots, or to keep them at a minimum.

I think the ‘tradition’ of taking table shots were from our grandparents’ time, when photographs were expensive and served to commemorate very special occasions. Photos were too expensive then for candid shots to be practical, so they had to get everyopne together to snap a picture. Now I think it counts for more that your photographer can catch the atmosphere and moments rather than ensure they document every single guest. The wedding photo album is supposed to be full of memories, not a pictorial attendence list! And if you think about it, you’re paying your talented photographer so much money, wouldn’t their time be better spent capturing true moments worth remembering?

I look at my wedding photographs relatively often, even a year after. And seriously? I don’t look at the table-to-table shots. They just don’t hold any memories for me. What I do like looking at are the candid ones the photographers snapped while we were chatting and toasting the guests. I only wish I had been thought of doing away with the posed shots – they took so much time that could have been better spent on actually spending time with people.

Wedding videography is a relatively ‘young’ medium and so suffers less tradition. It’s a good thing that nobody has asked us to videograph every single table as the photos are being taken. I can only imagine how it would slow down the pace of the video and how stilted it would look! We generally take a lot of shots in-between while the couple are talking to guests or walking about, and sometimes even work the photographer into the shot so there is some sort of context to the posing. But what we’d really rather do is get people to give their thoughts on their wedding and the couple, if time and noise-levels allow for it. And some of them really say the darnest stuff! Wouldn’t you much rather hear your friends’ best wishes than have a whole series of posed shots? When getting a videographer, consider asking them to go around interviewing friends and family. It will do so much to enhance your video!

~ Ami

 

Transplanted

The renovations are all done and the office looks fantastic. There’s some furniture and our nifty plasma TV and other items that’re still due, so the new office is not yet officially open. But… The Wedding Paparazzi has moved to the new office!

On Sunday and Monday we transported all the stuff we needed for our day-to-day operations, so if you called the office and got the voice mail, it was because we were all busy packing and lugging huge boxes out of the office.

It was very tiring – we carried stuff down 4 flights of stairs, loaded them into cabs and, when we got to Purvis Street, hauled them up again a really long flight of stairs! Still, it’s so satisfying to finally be able to operate out of the new place. It feels so big!

Despite the happiness and excitement of moving, there’s a tinge of sadness that we’re leaving the old place, my parents’ house in Jurong West. The Wedding Paparazzi operated out of a home office since its conception in 2003. It was unusual, sometimes impractical, especially when more people started working out of what used to be a bedroom. Blossom even had to contend with a lot of my personal effects around the office for a time before I got round to clearing them out! But it was a good, homely place (with lots of cats), and my mother really enjoyed our presence there even though I’m sure we encroached on her privacy.

There are things that we will no longer be able to enjoy at the new place. No more impromptu cat-petting sessions when one of them wanders in (we had 7 cats!), no more home-cooked meals, and no more playing ‘bumper cars’ when we roll about in our office chairs trying to reach something at the other end of the table. OK, maybe we won’t miss the last one.

It feels like the end of an era, but it also like the beginning of another very exciting one. I just wish I had more pictures of our old place so we will never forget where we came from.

~ Ami

Purvis Street, here we come!

So now that the lease is in black and white, I can announce the new address… The Wedding Paparazzi and sister company Big Red Button (which handles corporate videos) will be moving to Purvis Street this month! It’s a great location, smack in the middle of town, between Bugis MRT and City Hall MRT, right across the road from the National Library. Yup, its *that* central!

Having our own office now means we can do our presentations in our own environment. Just imagine; our own plasma screen, our own sofas, plush carpeting, and best of all – no noise from ice blenders like what we have to put up with when we meet clients at cafes!

We’ve just applied for our power, phone lines and internet access to be activated – those things should be up by the end of the week. Renovations are starting soon too, and we’ve already chosen some of the furniture and fixtures. All that’s left is to actually buy them and have them installed.

So! Things are looking good! We hope to move in by mid June, and have the presentation area ready by end of the month (that’s when the sofas will be delivered). Personally, I’m vibrating with enthusiasm. I’m really looking forward to The Wedding Paparazzi having a home of its own!

A place to call our own

Fantastic news! We just got word that we got the office space we’d been eyeing!

It’s central, roomy and located at a hip location. I can’t say more until things are in black and white, but you can look forward to meeting The Wedding Paparazzi at our location from 15 June 06 onwards.

We’ve finally got our own place, yay!

Making memories of your own

I encountered a very interesting question from a bride-to-be at the sg_weddings LJ community.

She asked whether it would be very tiring if she had all her wedding events on the same day. There were a lot of responses to her post – and quite a number of the responders shared that they’d be doing just that.

I’m all for practicality and efficiency, but when it comes to a wedding, I think the experience is paramount. If you’re the sort who takes things in their stride and can step back every few moments to smell the roses on your wedding, all well and good. But Singaporeans aren’t well-known for their ability to relax, are they?

One wedding couple I served some time ago called me a week after their wedding asking when their wedding video could be delivered – because the groom had been so caught up in the day that he had forgotten what had transpired! It made me laugh then, but it also made me think – is rushing through the day and not being able to savour the experience worth ‘getting it over and done with’?

And of course, having a good photographer and videographer on hand to capture the moments as they happen is a good idea too. It’s important to choose someone whose vision you trust – these people will be capturing moments you missed, and reinterpreting even the things you were there to see.

But beyond that, it’s of utmost importance to make a decision to consciously enjoy a moment. So stop in your tracks, take a deep breath and *really* look around. I did that at my wedding, and to this day I have memories that feel like snapshots. And my recollections are all the more vivid because I took the time to make those memories!

All grown out!

Looks like The Wedding Paparazzi and sister company Big Red Button are growing up and moving out! In the last few months, we’ve expanded a bit and outgrown the home office that we’re currently working out of. So myself and Big Red Button director Wally are now searching for a nice, conducive place of business.

It’s with some trepidation (will we ever find a place that will meet our expectations?) and sadness (no more office-visits from the house-cats!) that we face this next momentous step. But it’s all very exciting!