The Pre-Wedding Photo-shoot

The day starts with a quick breakfast, of course, this being rural China, the breakfast is still considered to be one of the major meals and therefore even a quick breakfast is relatively hearty when compared to something you might find on most English breakfast tables.

My future (at the time) sister-in-law gave us a lift to the photography studio in Xiangfen.

I-DO PHOTOGRAPHY (CHINA)

Pre-wedding photography is a huge business in China, so if you’re looking for a photo shoot inside China, then you’re probably going to find a couple of options and be able to make your decision based on price.

In my limited experience of this, I’d suggest you’re going to get a top-quality experience regardless of who you chose as the competition is so stiff, they’re going to give you a great experience and a pretty low (by western standards) bill for what will probably be a full day's work.

Regardless of what I’ve just said, I do believe in rewarding good experiences. The company we used is called I-Do. If I can push a couple more customers their way, I’d be happy to do that, not least because I’m happy with the results, but also because I think you’ll have an equally good experience.

Once at the I-Do studio in Xiangfen, a taxi collected us and took us to a larger studio in Linfen. This larger studio was the base for the remainder of the day, it had hundreds of different costumes for all shapes and sizes, a team of photographers, grafters, and makeup artists, a factory if you like.

COSTUME 1; LOCATION – SHANXI MOUNTAINS

What I didn’t realize when this day started was just how long the day was going to be. This was a 6 costume, 12 hour, multi-location photo shoot. It included lunch midway through, but I was sure glad that those Chinese-style breakfasts are much heartier than the average UK breakfast.

We got married in December, and Northern China in December is a cold, cold place. This was fun, it was beautiful and it was unbelievably cold.

COSTUME 2; LOCATION – LINFEN PARK

We briefly returned to the Linfen photographic studio, where we changed, Xiao had another session with the hair & makeup team, before being driven out to a beautiful park in Linfen for the next set of photos.

COSTUME 3; LOCATION – LINFEN PHOTO STUDIO (INSIDE)

After returning from the park and breaking for a brief lunch, we returned to the dressing rooms for our third costume, this was probably the closest to a formal European-style wedding.

COSTUME 6; LOCATION – LINFEN PHOTO STUDIO (OUTSIDE)

For the final costume, we headed back outside, we’re pushing on 12 hours at this point, I was starting to feel pretty tired, I was still enjoying it, but it was a long day.

By now the sun had set and the night sky added the final elements to our photo shoot.

The effects on one of these final images, with all the light behind us, well this was just fantastic. Essentially crouched behind us was one of the grafters who had what was essentially a firework stuck to a chain, he proceeded to spin this around as fast as he could while the main photographer kept the lens open for a few seconds to ensure the best possible effect.