This is part 2 of my 2-part series sharing my engagement photos with Ken (Aug 2013). For more about our story, read: How I Found My Soulmate (series) and The Day of My Proposal.
- Part 1: My Engagement Shoot in Scotland, Glasgow (Kelvingrove Park, West End)
- Part 2: My Engagement Shoot in Scotland, Edinburgh (Tantallon Castle, Cramond Beach, Edinburgh City)
Part 2 features photos from our Edinburgh shoot, shot in iconic Edinburgh spots from Tantallon Castle, to Cramond Beach, to St Giles’ Cathedral, to Edinburgh city! :D
Our Edinburgh Shoot, feat: Tantallon Castle, Cramond Beach, and more!
For our Edinburgh shoot, we had the pleasure of engaging Orange Lemur: run by Joanna and Jan, a husband-wife team. Joanna and Jan are Polish but have been residing in Edinburgh for the past few years. They have been doing wedding photography for five years and know the shooting spots in Edinburgh inside out!
When I told them my ideal scenes for our shoot which include castle, garden, beach, and nature spots, Joanna went out of the way to include them in our four-hour shoot (over two days). She recommended specific shooting spots in Edinburgh which was extremely helpful since we were tourists with no clue on good shooting spots.
Joanna was thoroughly prompt and patient with my concerns, questions, and requests. Joanna and Jan even drove us to our shooting locations — some as far as a 40-minute drive away from Edinburgh City (Tantallon Castle) — at no extra cost!
Sneaking a quick shot during our Tantallon Castle shoot (A selfie taken by ourselves)
Joanna and Jan were very generous with the photographs: they shortlisted and sent us 220 photos from our two-day / four-hour shoot featuring various locations in and around Edinburgh City.
In the end, we shortlisted 29 photos for our wedding album. Like our Glasgow shots, I made some color adjustments, photographic refinements, and minor retouching, but full props definitely go to Joanna and Jan for the wonderful photos.
Here are the photos: :)
Hand in hand, at St Giles’ Cathedral. :) Really love the colors in the photo.
Gentle gaze
Feels like we were having our private moment and someone sneaked a shot of us :)
At the cathedral entrance
A gentle kiss
Walking on the streets of beautiful Edinburgh city. I love this shot a lot! Very candid, real, yet dream-like at the same time.
Lovers’ embrace. I really love this one, from the colors to the emotions captured. Oh, it was the Edinburgh Festival Fringe when we were in town, which is the largest arts festival in the world. That’s why there were so many people in the background! I love that because it adds to the vibrancy of the photo!
Shopping for a ring. (Or pretending to be. ;) We passed by this array of small shops and Joanna immediately saw a photo-moment right here. She’s awesome!!)
Chilling at a cafe
Kiss :)
Joking around, haha! I initially didn’t want to include this shot in our album as it looked so silly, but Ken said we should because it’s so natural and funny! Upon further thought, I think he’s right! I love the candidness of this photo; it reflects the frequent laughter and fun we have in our relationship.
Sweet and quiet moment in the garden. This was taken at Princes Street Gardens.
In the interior of Tantallon Castle (or what’s left of it). Tantallon Castle is a semi-ruined mid-14th-century fortress and it’s one of the castles in the care of Historic Scotland today.
While we may look really comfy and eased in the photos above, the whole photoshoot process was a mad rush in cold weather! About 10-14 degrees in summer wear (as you see in the photos) which was too cold for me. Ken had it better since he was in jeans/pants with long-sleeved tops, but he felt the chills too!
Since we engaged Joanna/Jan for only four hours over two days, we only had about 30 seconds to pose, look right, and shoot for each scene and had to rush quickly to the next spot after that. It was tricky, bearing the cold weather and hustling from one spot to the next. It was all good fun though. I was a little disappointed when we wrapped up after the two days!
At the top of Tantallon Castle
What a dramatic shot; we love this one!! This was taken atop the castle. Believe it or not, it was the wind blowing my hair! It was unbelievably windy (and cold) when we were there (August). Half the time I felt like my earrings were going to fly off! (Thankfully they didn’t.) But it was so fun despite the weather challenges!
A lazy day on the fields. :) Both of us love this photo because it reflects the sweet, relaxed, and mutual love in our relationship!
“Oh hello, my prince.”
At the top of the world. This is one of our favorite shots! That’s Tantallon Castle in the background amidst the wheat fields; it looks like it could have been ripped from an old European painting! We actually chanced by this spot by accident; Jan meant to drive us to a nearby beach to shoot us and the castle from afar but this spot proved to be so much better. We love it! :D
We really love this one too! This shot reminded me of The Notebook poster (though we were being ourselves and not trying to pose or mimic anyone/anything).
Easily our favorite in the Edinburgh series! This shot is gorgeous! The scenery, the pose, the look, and everything combined feels like it came right out of a movie set.
Oh, Ken actually went to buy the white-roses bouquet at the last minute (spending an hour to commute back and forth) because I felt that it would be nice to have a bouquet for our shoot. And it did! The roses topped off our shoot perfectly, though it would still have been great without them. Thank you GG. ♥ :)
Beautiful sunset at Cramond Beach. Magnificent location, moment, and shot! If it’s even possible, the sunset actually looked more beautiful in person than in the photo!
At the top of the cliff; at the top of the world
Ken keeping me warm :)
Hand in hand at the beach. I really like this one as it feels very sweet and innocent. ♥
Under the beautiful (almost full) moon. I thought this picture is so funny and cute at the same time because of how Joanna and Jan digitally magnified the moon to the point where it’s so big, akin to anime moons, haha! The actual scene was actually a LOT darker than in the picture too by the way: Joanna and Jan lightened it by quite a bit in their post-edits.
Final photo: Watching the sunset together — today, tomorrow, and every day, for the rest of our lives
(All clothes and accessories from ourselves. Photography partially sponsored by Orange Lemur. Check out more of their portfolio and photography services at OrangeLemur.com!)
My Thoughts Post-Shoot
Overall, our Edinburgh photos are different from our Glasgow shots in that they have a touch of drama and boldness, while our Glasgow ones bring out a more casual and down-to-earth quality of our relationship. These are probably reflective of the photographers’ personal styles too.
Well, we love them both. :D The pictures shared in part one and this part are our top favorites.
All in all, we feel both shoots captured the essence of what we want: authentic, candid shots which reflect our love, camaraderie, and the true nature of our relationship. The desire for authentic and artful photography is the precise reason we engaged Neil and Orange Lemur for our photoshoots. So we’re really happy that the end output turned out to be exactly what we were looking for! :D
We are also happy we shot with two different photographer teams because we got such a great variety in locations, mood, and styles. We definitely got the best of both worlds engaging Neil and Orange Lemur who have very distinct photography directions.
6 Tips To Achieve Your Best Engagement/Bridal Shoot!
If you are doing an engagement or bridal shoot soon, I have six tips to share:
- Research the photographers first by checking out their portfolios. Different photographers have different styles, and the best way to tell what their styles are and whether they match what you’re looking for is by seeing their body of work: not by hearing what they say. A picture tells a thousand words and that’s especially true here.
Many Singapore / Asian wedding photography services I looked up (prior to engaging Neil and Joanna/Jan) had very cheesy and posy portfolios, which weren’t what Ken and I were looking for. It turned out that the Scottish / European photography style is more in line with our preferences, so it all worked out well in the end.
- Look up reference photos as you brief your photographer(s). I scoured different photographers’ portfolios and the internet for reference poses and locations of what I wanted for our shoot. This helped me to directly convey to my photographers what I was looking for. Again, a picture tells a thousand words, especially when you’re working with photographers!!!
- Practice taking photos together with your partner before your shoot. If your shoot is anything like ours, you won’t have time to think nor check the output for each scene: you’re going to only have one to two minutes top to pose/look good/get a good shot for each scene, after which you’ll be zipping from one place to another (high heels and all if you’re female).
So, practice taking photos together as a couple first (if you don’t normally do that) and think about the poses you want to do: especially if you’re planning just one pre-wedding shoot! After our shoot with Neil in Glasgow, Ken and I immediately thought of poses we could have done but didn’t, after which we got them down in our Edinburgh shoot.
Can I stress that couple camaraderie is very important too in photo taking? I assume you would already have that or you wouldn’t be marrying each other! ;)
- Bring a pair of flats (for ladies) to easily move from one place to another. Otherwise you may get tired and sweaty from moving around in heels, which will surely show through in the photos!
- Do quick checks before each scene to ensure everything is in place. From jumbled earrings, to misaligned bangles, to rings getting out of place, to creases in clothes, to flyaway hairs, to makeup wearing off, anything is possible. Makeup can be fixed and so can hair, but the rest, not that much. There was one beautiful closeup shot of our ring which we couldn’t use because the ring was very misaligned; even the ring shot you see in our Glasgow shoot was salvaged after some reconstruction work by me. Make things easier for yourself by checking that everything is in place first!
- Be camera aware. My experience with video production (for my YouTube channel) and photo taking helped in that it made me more camera aware: I had a general idea of how to pose to get the best visibility and also to get the right look for the photo. I also helped to pose Ken as much as possible to achieve the same. These helped in that it gave us quite a wide selection of shots to choose from in the end.
While #3 is about building couple camaraderie in front of a camera, this tip is to about building your own camera awareness. Have someone take photos of yourself so you know how you look on photos in different angles/poses/expressions. Find your best angles/poses for your shoot and learn to convey the right expression for the right look in the shoot.
At the end of the day, a good photographer should makeup for gaps in #3, #5, and #6, but in case your photographer can’t fill these gaps (they may have their hands full with other things), be prepared! This is a once-in-a-lifetime shoot, so I want you to get the best out of it!
Update May 2014: We are now married! :D Details and photos here: My Wedding Day ♥
This is part 2 of my 2-part series sharing my engagement photos with Ken (Aug 2013). For more about our story, read: How I Found My Soulmate (series) and The Day of My Proposal.
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Hi Celes, you looks so stunning in those pictures and Ken looks handsome too :). You can tell just from the pictures alone that both of you are so in love! 祝你们白头到老, 永结同心!
Thank you Jennifer! :D You’re so sweet with your comments; I wish you the same with you and your husband too! :)
Hi Celes,
I love the Cramond Beach part the most. Hope you guys have a wonderful wedding in May Next year. Sounds exciting to be able to do it in Shangri-La Hotel. 100 ppl is a bit too less, 10 tables? So i guess your wedding dinner would be a very private occasion :) Wish i can be there to witness the moment :D
Hey Alyssa! Yes that’s right, we’re having only 10 tables at our wedding with the 100 guests. :D We decided to make it a more private occasion with people most important to us since our wedding will be a highly personal and dear event. This is quite a stark contrast to general Chinese weddings which tend to (easily) have 20 tables and up!
I hope you can come to the wedding too; we’re confirming invites with personal friends and family in this moment and I should be announcing for RSVPs from PE readers in Nov or Dec.
(PS: Hope you got the China Panda toy clip you were checking with me on the last time!)
Hi Celes,
yeah i definitely hope to be able to attend your wedding :) flying from MY shouldn’t be a problem at all :) to say 20 tables will be too humble, in Malaysia, it’s easily 50 tables and up. hehehe.
i just came back from Shenzhen yesterday but the Shenzhen airport is quite disappointing with only a small duty free store. i found it in taobao.com instead. Anyway really thanks for your help and your video, otherwise i wouldn’t know this cute little toy exist :D
Ouaou!
Hi Celes and Ken! Being the girl from Greece who also pays a lot of importance like you two to the number 5 (my wedding day: 5/5/2012! Dear Celes we have already shared this detail between us two when you first announced your new relationship in May 2013, remember?) I couldn’t help but being impressed by your photos! No matter how impressed though one may be by the absolutely wonderful background and magnificent surroundings it is without doubt that the pictures talk by themselves: the language of your bodies and the look in your eyes demonstrate that you two guys truly belong to each other. Even if one doesn’t know anything about your story, just by looking at you two one immediately assumes that it would be a real pity if in this life you two didn’t manage to find one another! For my eyes you are blessed to be together because your own eyes show what’s in your soul!True love! The fact is that you have picked up a highly talented photographer (without a doubt), you have chosen a wonderful place to have your first photos as a couple, but without your involvement and true feelings for each other, the best artist of the world could not have managed to show so many things in the atmosphere without your cooperation as “one”. I can’t help but wonder how great your wedding pictures would be……!!!!! Well, in less that a year we shall definetely know!!
Hey… Wonderful pics Celes! You both look so happy and the scenery is breath-taking. The shoots are very candid and it gave me the idea to include engagement photo shoot in my wedding-list too. Also i should include that Ken looks really like a prince :) and u a princess. Its good to know that the much awaited date is finally out. Take your time and plan the wedding of the century :) .In India May means torrid summers and is generally a crossed-out month for weddings. How is the weather in Singapore in May?
Hi Ipshita! May is quite a popular month for weddings in Singapore/Chinese culture I think, along with months during the year end. That’s because usual months like February-March and July-August are out for Chinese for separate reasons (like February is Chinese New Year, March usually coincides with a festival to tend to the graves of loved ones (seen as a negative period to have celebrations), and so on. (Not that any of this was our key consideration in choosing the month/day though; we don’t believe in conventional thought and went with the date most significant to our relationship).
The weather is also the best in Singapore between May-July in terms of having the least rain, though it’s also the hottest in July! The rainy months are usually Nov-Jan of the year.
That’s interesting that May is generally a crossed-out month in India by the way; would be because of cultural perceptions of that month (torrid = harsh) or because of practical reasons like since it’s so hot, it wouldn’t be good to wear your gown or good for a huge celebration with others?
Hey Celes
Indian(esp. Hindu) marriages takes place from the month of October to March and many astrological signs are considered before setting a date. Marriage, conventionally here is a very detailed process in which families are in regular consultation with the priests who tell them which date is auspicious.
Though young people do not believe in such things but parents can be quite persuasive when it comes to marriage and they try to find the best auspicious date which features bright omens :D. The wedding season in India is generally cold and is also accompanied with rains so we are used the harsh conditions.
I would like to know what type of wedding you are planning to have? Are you having a church wedding? Traditionally what type of wedding Chinese people have?
Hey Ipshita! :D We’re having a traditional Chinese-style wedding banquet which is definitely not a church wedding. You can read more about Chinese weddings here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_marriage
While the Chinese style wedding comes with many traditions, customs, and guidelines, we are not letting ourselves be bound by them but are simply taking the path that most aligns with our needs and desires. (The fact that our wedding is exclusive with only 100 pax is indicative of that; many Chinese weddings easily have 250 pax or even over 500 pax as Alyssa mentioned in her comment above.) I’d say while our wedding is a Chinese-style dinner banquet, it’ll be very modernized, mix with our personal elements (e.g. we *MAY* have a first couple dance which is typically a western concept: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_dance). We haven’t planned the finer details yet and will do so nearer to the date.
We’ve also found that some people have template, cookie-cutter-style weddings and end up having a wedding which is more ceremonial than reflective about anything about the couple. Some also let it become an extravagant affair for their parents to show off to relatives/families. Neither are what we want; we want something that is true to our relationship and love. (At the end of the day the wedding is ours, not going to be parents’ or society’s or tradition’s.) So we expect that our wedding is going to be quite personalized and exclusive, with a touch of elegance and romance.
Wow, I can not choose a good word to project my emotions about the picture,I can just say they are beautiful, as both of you and your love.
I wish happiness for you two.
Aw thank you so much Farnam for your kind words! :D
Lovely photos! My faves are the first one with the white roses, the one captioned “At the beautiful cathedral entrance” and the Tantallon Castle pics.
Your wedding plans sound good. I don’t know much about Chinese-style wedding dinner banquets, so I’m looking forward to hearing about that and the rest of the wedding! :)
Hey Moon! The first one with the white roses: are you talking about the one with our closeup face shots?
That’s actually a self-taken phone camera photo, haha! We found it quite funny that that would be a favorite (over some of the other professional ones) given that we just casually took it in a second with an old mobile phone! (Whereas the others were taken by a professional photographer with very professional gear.)
I love the others you mentioned as well! I can’t wait to see them in an actual album or a big canvas as Susan said; have to get around to designing the album first!
Hey Celes! Yes, that’s the one I’m talking about. :) I realised after I commented that it was a self-taken one but I still think it looks good! lol. Sometimes spontaneous photos come out nice!
I like the ones with the sunset behind too, they look atmospheric. :) That will be cool having them in an album. I read Susan’s comment; that’s a good idea, they would be good on canvas, especially some of the “dramatic” ones with the sunset and castle in the background. :)
Hi Celes, these are so beautiful! I especially love the more dramatic ones you posted at the end. They are very inspiring! <3
Thank you Christina! :D
Hi Celes and Ken,
Great pictures. Being in love is the greatest high in life. Been there, done that more than once so consider myself very privileged. Enjoy, and thanks for sharing.
Thank you so much John! :) We appreciate your kind words!
Beautiful Celes!!! Congrats and all the best to you both :)
Thank you sweetheart! :D We appreciate your kind words!
Very beautiful! Best of luck to both of you!
Thank you Wouter!! :)
I love your pictures!!! It’s inspired me to the same when I get married ;) and I have a question out of curiousness. Why do you wait so long to get married (besides reserving the spaces, preparations, costs, etc and all) How do you even have the patience xD?
When I get really excited about something I get so hyper I almost want to run and do it the same day and if I don’t do it I almost go crazy because I can’t stop thinking about it haha. So is it something like you guys want to make sure everything is perfect for that special day? :)
Great question fufu! Actually things moved in a whirlwind in the first two months before we got engaged (actually less than two months: from getting together, knowing each other in such an accelerated — though not deliberately forced — pace, moving together, knowing each other’s family, growing closer, etc.), so we just thought having a year between engagement and marriage is a nice period of time to chill before the wedding! Weddings typically need a lot of preparation and we just wanted to take our time and enjoy the process.
Being that this is the only time I’ll ever be engaged my whole life, I also wanted to just relish and enjoy the whole engagement period (which we have been doing, though now we feel like an old husband-wife couple already lol!).
There were many times in the past few months when I did think, “Gee, I rather just get married in the marriage registrar’s office right away than deal with this wedding preparatory hijinks,” because ultimately it’s marrying Ken that matters to me: not trying to organize/set up some event to “announce” to the world about our union (which incidentally my blog and Facebook page already does the job very well, perhaps even more so than having a wedding dinner to a private list of people).
But given that I’ve already announced about the wedding plans and date earlier and we already expressed that intention to some friends/family, we thought to just move ahead with this intention and have fun along the process. And we are, now! (Ken himself really doesn’t care how it’s done: all he wants is to be with me and he just wants me to be happy.) Having our wedding at a hotel really makes the whole thing easier for us because the hotel (Shangri-La) takes care of a fair bit of the arrangements: we just have to select from the options provided, such as table linen, flowers, and so on. So now the key thing next is the bridal wear and I’m excited to get started on that in a couple of months’ time!
And yes fufu, you should totally have pre-wedding photos before you get married next time! :D I’m sure it’s going to be totally beautiful, you and your girlfriend!!! :)
Great shots! What strikes me is Ken looks like the textbook definition of strong but gentle man. Have fun!
Haha I just told Ken that and he laughed then struck his chest out (make-believe prideful pose) in response to your comment!
I like the Edinburgh shoot better because it is more artistic and dramatic. My favorite shot is the Sunset at Cramond Beach with the 3 tall pillars. I love the flowing white gown and waving hair. You could print this on canvas as a piece of art! For close-ups, I love the one near the Castle with the white flowers in front of you.
Hi Susan, thank you for your comments! We love that sunset shot too. Ideally we want to print a couple of our top favorites in canvas and all when we move into our new home, but we would need to check the photo size limitations first (not sure how big the photos we were sent can be printed up to; the photographers told us we can blow them up pretty big but we need to check with the printer first!).
Hi, I just recently discovered your great blog. Thank you very much for all the great posts on it! Every time I visit your blog, my heart is filled with warmth, love and positivity. I never thought a website could do that. Thank you! I wish you the best in your relationship and life. Personally I like the Tantallon photos. I was listening to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khh5NqMx8AI while watching your photos, I don’t know any Chinese so I don’t know whether the lyrics fit, but the music sounded just right :)
Thank you Anonymous Ghost! :D So glad to hear that the blog fills you up with positivity! Please continue to visit; I’ll continue to write and share more positive writings and my personal lessons/stories through life.
Re: the video, that’s so interesting that you were watching that video when seeing the photos; it seems like a music video of the drama Legend of the White Snake (popular Chinese legend which has been told in dramas in many different iterations around Asia).
Aww! The photos are so beautiful! The best of luck to the great couple ♥
Aw thank you Kerstin!! :) Thank you for your well wishes!
Beautiful! Thrilled for you both.
Thank you Nicole! :))
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