The Family Photoshoot.

It was a doomed plan right from the start. We were already an hour late.

Dad gave up nav­i­gat­ing the 3rd-mile maze of four-storey shop­houses. All dressed in for­mal and in our very best, we were due to be at the My Wed­ding Col­lec­tion stu­dio for a pho­to­shoot appoint­ment at 4.30pm. Nobody knew exactly where was it, only a vague idea that it could be in 3rd-mile.

The clock ticked 5.30pm. Regret­ting he hadn’t made sure of its loca­tion before­hand, Dad rang up the studio.

“Hello? Is this My Wed­ding?”

Sis and I let out a chuckle.

“May I know where is your stu­dio located? Near Hung Hung Inn? Okay.”

Which is, of course, nowhere near 3rd-mile.

So we made it to Hung Hung Inn but the stu­dio was nowhere to be found. As if things couldn’t get any worse, it started rain­ing really heav­ily. The 5pm rush hour traf­fic wasn’t of much help either. So we cir­cled the area scan­ning every nook and canny for the stu­dio while Mum tried fran­ti­cally to call the stu­dio to reaf­firm their exact location.

Des­per­ate, I used Dad’s phone to do a Google search on the studio’s address but found noth­ing but neg­a­tive reviews of My Wed­ding Col­lec­tion on a few dis­cus­sion boards. Lit­tle did I know I’m gonna write one myself.

Because, guess what, we must have called them a good 20 times or more but nobody both­ered to answer. Even the answer­ing machine got sick of try­ing to get the point across that nobody’s pick­ing up.

Frus­trated, with a good two hours after the appoint­ment time, tired, hun­gry and wor­ried with the neg­a­tive reviews of the studio’s ser­vice on the Net, we aborted the pho­to­shoot and headed back home. We never heard from My Wed­ding Col­lec­tion stu­dio ever since that day.


The set at the Hol­ly­wood Bridal studio.

The next day, Mum man­aged to arrange another appoint­ment. This time with the Hol­ly­wood Bridal stu­dio, who were good enough to update my mom on a free slot avail­able when they ear­lier said they were occu­pied for the rest of the week. My Wed­ding Col­lec­tion stu­dio didn’t even bother to con­tact us con­sid­er­ing we didn’t show up the day before. Go figure.

So for the sec­ond time in a week, we dressed up in for­mal and all. This time tak­ing no chances, know­ing fully well the loca­tion of the stu­dio and depart­ing well before the appoint­ment time.


Look at what my mum’s stand­ing on!

So screw My Wed­ding Collection.

The pho­tos turned out so good, we have only this to say to our expe­ri­ence the day before: Good riddance.


The Fam­ily.

A week later, the pho­tos were ready for col­lec­tion — two 8R prints, a 4R print and two 4R-sized soft copies.


The sis­ter and yours truly.

Damn, my sister’s catch­ing up with my height. Can’t..Lose. Gotta. Eat. More. Grow. Taller! =(

The prints were a night­mare to scan though, as they came with a bloody matte tex­tured sur­face. Pho­to­shop couldn’t be of much help.

That’s what you have to resort to when they charge a whop­ping 20 bucks each for a soft copy. =\

I’m so gonna run a photo stu­dio with that kind of moolah!

18 thoughts on “The Family Photoshoot.”

  6. teddY

    Oh screw that stu­pid stu­dio. I’ve never come across one that can be as bad as that. Even those tiny lit­tle photo stu­dios in my grandma’s vil­lage had the cour­tesy to mail them a map to their stu­dio a week before the appointment.

    I was pretty frus­trated with bad cus­tomer ser­vice (but not with stu­dios). I was plan­ning this last minute trip home for the Deep­avali hol­i­days and when I called the bus company’s ser­vice counter, the line was occu­pied — for THREE hours. I called every 10 min­utes or so. And I was des­per­ate to know whether they still have any tick­ets left. When I man­aged to rush my ass over there, this snooty lady was ON THE PHONE and she didn’t even both­ered to attend to me. When she finally ended her three-hour phone call (or mul­ti­ple long ones), she said that I couldn’t use my debit card to pay because the sys­tem was down.

    And I had to rush all the way to an ATM machine, to miss the ear­lier evening bus (and to set­tle for the super late one at 9pm), only to rush back and realise that SHE WAS BACK ON THE PHONE. I didn’t know whether should I laugh, cry, or kick up a big fuss.

    Any­way, nice pho­tos! Sorry to hear about your expe­ri­ence with the crappy stu­dio. Be sure to check their reviews next time, heh!

    You’re so tall dammit. I’m like 100000 times shorter than you. Be happy! 😀

  7. ember Post author

    @Hans L., ごめんなさい!

    @Teddy, Mail a map a week before the appoint­ment? Wow I doubt if any of the stu­dios in Kuch­ing do that at all! Then again that’s prob­a­bly because we kinda did the book­ings last minute and all. Per­haps next time we should resort to those stu­dios in your granma’s vil­lage instead! They sound like they offer really good cus­tomer ser­vice. =D

    Woah, the nerve! I’d be boil­ing to the seems if I were in a sit­u­a­tion like yours. Heck, I’m already dis­turbed by merely read­ing your experience.

    If I were you, I’d cry then laugh THEN kick up a big fuss. =

    Expe­ri­ences like this often remind me never to take up a job in the cus­tomer ser­vice line. They all look like utterly mis­er­able souls and treat their cus­tomers like trash. Go fig­ure. >< I’ll surely be check­ing reviews next time! Actu­ally our ini­tial thought was how bad can a photo stu­dio be? You just go there, pose, and they snap and voila! But if you’d ask me that now, I’d give you a 10 minute rant. =P I’m not tall at all, Teddy. XD It’s a fam­ily of short­ies LOL! I’m sure we’ll mea­sure up pretty well side to side. =D

  9. Destiny

    It must be dread­ful to get that kind of ser­vice and to be lost for so long. I hate com­pa­nies like that, and it just makes you seem like they don’t want your busi­ness. Good thing your fam­ily was able to find another place to go to, this one was a bet­ter choice for sure. Every­thing hap­pens for a rea­son! Imag­ine if you had gone through with My Wed­ding and it came out as a big­ger dis­ap­point­ment, not only would you have to dress up for­mally once again, you would have to be dish­ing out the prices again. The pic­tures turned out great by the way! Cute siblings!

  11. ember Post author

    @Joycy you nut! If I were to stand on bricks and books, you’d be tip­ping over a freak­ing tower crane and even that wouldn’t be enough to place you tall enough if you were to take a photo next to me. HAH! =P

    Great! I’ll be try­ing to spot bricks and books at your feet when you post those pho­tos on your blog then. =D

    @Destiny, I can’t help but notice the sim­i­lar­ity between what you said and your nick — Des­tiny! XD But you’re absolutely right, it’s all des­tiny, like the story of the father who didn’t despair when his son fell off his horse and broke his leg.

    It’s a bless­ing in dis­guise! =D

    @wying, NOW you’re talk­ing. =P And for the mil­lionth time, I was stand­ing on noth­ing but my uh… san­dals! Pfffft. =(

  14. ember Post author

    @wying, Sorry but you’ve already focused on me! Bwa­ha­haha. And what hap­pened to ‘han ge ge’? =(

    @teddy, Indeed! My mom was once a head­mistress in an ultra rural school and boy the par­ents there were the best folks you’d ever meet! Apart from being cour­te­ous all the time, they’re also really gen­er­ous with gifts, respect and all!

    When my mom was trans­ferred back into a town school smack in the mid­dle of the city, it took some time for the change to set in. It was a switch between two wholly dif­fer­ent worlds.

    Hah! If you’d ask my mom, ‘almost as tall’ doesn’t suf­fice. She’d always say; you’re not even taller than you dad! He’s one of the short­est in his fam­ily you know? Blah blah blah.. Parents. 😉

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