Pre-wedding photo is not really common for people from most Western countries. But in a lot of Asian countries, pre-wedding photo is a very big thing and arguably more important than the photos from the actual wedding day. It’s very usual for the couple to pick a day (or even days) a couple of months before their wedding, dress up in their wedding dress, travel to various places and get their photographer to capture the most important, beautiful and memorable photos of their life. There are a few reasons for doing that, for example, the couple would then have their beautiful pre-wedding photo on display on their wedding day, another reason is Asian wedding customs normally involves a lot more things to do than a typcial Western style wedding, It’s not unusual for a wedding to start very early in the morning and not finish until or beyond mid night. The couple may not actually have any time to go and take any “formal” shots on their actual wedding day. So anyway, just a little while ago, I had the pleasure to do the pre-wedding photos for Apple and Johnny who came all the way from Hong Kong to do their pre-wedding photos here in the beautiful Aotearoa.

We decided to do the photoshoot on the Easter Friday. If you are an Aucklander, you probably aware of the fact that Easter weekend normally means wet and cold. So we were all quite worried about the weather, but luckily it turned out quite well and we saw a beautiful blue sky that morning when we stepped out from Langham hotel, where the couple were staying.

So the plan was to spend a few hours around central Auckland in the morning, then drive all the way to Piha and spend the afternoon there. And I was joking saying while normally I love having a beautiful blue sky, but I actually prefer a cloudy sky as i think a cloudy sky suits the moody Piha more.

And guess what? The blue sky soon turned into overcast and by the time we arrived Piha, we couldn’t see any blue sky anymore! Not only that, it even started drizzling soon after we start shooting at the beautiful Piha beach.
Luckily the drizzling didn’t turn into heavy rain but that didn’t mean we didn’t get wet!

For one of the photo, Apple, Johnny, me and my assistant photographer Kenneth were all standing at the edge of the beach, waiting for the wave to come and turns the beach into a smooth beautiful mirror like surface. So everyone were waiting for the wave, and the wave arrived. Suddenly I noticed something not quite right through my camera’s viewfinder! This wave was much bigger than the usual one! It quickly covered half of our feet and pushing us backwards and nearly knocked us down. It was lucky none of us fall down and I didn’t turn my camera into a submarine but we were still pretty wet! The good thing is, I managed to capture that exact moment when the wave arrived Apple and Johnny’s feet. I really love the facial expression on both Apple and Johnny’s face. That’s definitely my favourite photo from that day!

So we finished shooting at Piha just after sunset. We went back to Auckland and continue the photoshoot at Wynyard Quarter and didn’t finish until 9ish. It was quite a long day but it was lots of fun as well. Below are some more photos from that day. Hope you like the photos

Special thanks to Ivy and Jun for their wonderful makeup and photo service. You can contact Ivy and Jun by emailing Ivy: Ivy@sensed.co.nz