Sophia Ritz: A Taiwanese wedding photo experience – Pre-Shoot Consultation
In Taiwan, wedding ceremonies are not the grand affair that they are in America. There’s usually a tea ceremony, a procession and a large banquet on the wedding day, but for the actual getting-married part, it’s just a trip to city hall to get the marriage certificate. As a result, fancy-shmancy wedding photos are taken in a studio before the wedding, and it’s generally a big deal for couples getting married. My mother’s wedding/engagement gift to me is Taiwanese studio pictures, and after looking at some other people’s wedding photos (and after my mother went through some hard bargaining with a sales rep), we settled on Sophia Ritz.
Sophia Ritz is located in an area of Taipei known for its abundance of wedding studios (Zhongshan N. Road Sec. 2 & 3). The exterior of the building is a clean and slick grey/white, with a bold black lettering for “Sophia Ritz”. We tried to take photos of the outside, but a man sitting on a chair on the sidewalk outside the front door yelled at us, telling us no pictures were allowed. Mannequins line the window displays, and their outfits would change every few days. Going inside, the side walls are lined with desks for couples to check out photos, and in between the floor is covered with round tables for employees to speak with clients. When you go in, you tell one of the ladies what you’re here for, and they sit you at a table and serve you some tea to drink as you wait. The walls are lined with giant pictures of Taiwan’s top supermodel Lin Zhi Ling (or Lin Chi Ling), and the screen savers for the computers have video of Lin Zhi Ling. The studio is most famous for shooting the current Taiwanese president’s son’s wedding photos.
Our first visit to Sophia Ritz was to pick outfits for our shoot and talk to the photographer about the style we wanted. They took us the second floor, which is the dressing room floor. The floor is divided into about 6 dressing areas, with a lobby sort of area near the stairway. You need to take off your shoes to go into a dressing area. Each dressing area has a closet lined with dresses and a large carpeted area with a large curtain that forms the dressing “room” for privacy. The dressing room has a large mirror inside, as well as a large “dimmed” mirror across the dressing area to show what outfits will look like through a photographer’s lens. There are couch/ottoman type things for bride’s loved ones to sit and observe dresses. Throughout the tryout period, various dressing agents would walk into your area, scour the closet for a dress, and leave to find their client, so I guess their wardrobe is spread out throughout the whole building.
The dressing agent asked us about the different outfits we want for our shoot. I had five different outfits provided as part of the package, while Kelvin had four (meaning he had to wear one for two shoots or bring his own). I get to have two wedding dresses (a smaller one to move around outdoors and a very formal, poofy dress with massive train for indoors shooting), traditional Chinese wedding outfit, traditional Japanese outfit, and an evening gown. If you want the latest, couture dresses, you can pay extra; otherwise, you just get their older selection, like we did.
The agent brought over an album that displays their traditional apparel, which doesn’t require a fitting since they’re one-size-fits-all. The album was mostly qipaos and such. In terms of ancient Chinese apparel, there were only two options. The first was ancient Chinese bridal apparel, with both bride and groom wearing bright red outfits and elaborate headpieces. The second was an ancient Chinese princess sort of deal, with the bride having a bright pink dress that’s more girly and with a less elaborate head getup. The groom just wears a fairly plain, I think dark blue outfit. Kelvin much preferred the latter, as he hated the ridiculous colors and silly hats of the old school wedding costumes. I hated the incredible girlyness of the latter costume and loved the idea of a traditional looking wedding picture, so I insisted on the first costume, which we eventually went with despite Kelvin’s apprehension of having to wear the groom’s outfit. They only had one Japanese outfit available, which was slightly disappointing. After verifying our traditional outfit choices, it was time for dress fitting.
The first dresses I tried on were for the evening gown. Because I chose two traditional outfits, I only needed to choose one evening gown, which made the fitting a lot shorter (thankfully). The dressing agent asked for preferences, and I believe I asked for anything not poofy and not pink. She said she wanted to avoid red since we have a red Chinese outfit. She proceeded to go through several closets on the floor and grab several dresses back to my dressing area. Then she’d close the curtain, and I had to strip down to only my panties in front of her (ugh). She’d help me get into a dress, zip me up, adjust boob placement into pre-sewn cups in the dresses, make we wear some heels, and then open the curtain for fiance and mommy opinions. We went through a myriad of dresses, since I never think I look good in anything, but we eventually settled on this wine-red evening gown that had a decent train, slight beading, and was somewhat form-fitting, even though it was slight red.
After all the evening gowns (we went through quite a bit), she seemed more rushed with the wedding gowns, as if she were getting tired. We started with outdoor wedding dresses, which have manageable trains so you can move around easily. The dresses all seemed pretty beat up in person, with beading coming off and dirt stains underneath the edges. The dressing agent said it wouldn’t affect the pictures. As soon as I had any remotely positive opinion of a dress (I choose a strapless a-line with a “cake” edge or something), she immediately stopped the outdoor wedding dresses and went on to indoor dresses (which have massive trains) without telling me. This was kinda annoying, as I wish she’d tell me what was going on, but maybe it was the language barrier since my Chinese is pretty weak sauce. I would have liked to try out more dresses, but oh well. We didn’t try that many indoors dresses, but that’s okay, since they all look about the same (ginormous and lacy) anyway. They were also a pain to try on because you had to wear this inner skirt cage thingy to hold up the enormous skirt and train.
After signing some form verifying my dress choices, we went downstairs back to the first floor. They lead us outside and told us to go a few stores down to Gem Tuxedo, where Kelvin would get fitted for his rentals. At Gem, they lead us to one of the rooms in the back, where there’s a table to talk and a curtained area for changing. Our experience with the tuxedo fitting wasn’t as pleasant as the dresses, as the saleslady was a bit on the pushy side, trying to get us to rent extras. The package comes with the most basic white and black tuxes: shirt, pants, jacket, bow tie, and cummerbund (and shoes for the white tux). To get a fancier tux would be extra. (Just renting a vest cost 1500NT! Can’t you buy a vest for that much?) We didn’t buy into any of their sales, though my mom still made sure to give the saleslady the stink eye the entire time we were there.
We went back to Sophia Ritz to meet up with our photographer, which was selected for us. (We didn’t research photographers, and I’d assume the package we got along with our tight schedule wouldn’t allow us to choose anyway.) He was running late, so we spent time looking at the sample albums laying around to get an idea of what we liked. Our photographer, John, eventually arrived. He’s a short, fairly young guy with glasses. He doesn’t really know any English aside from basic stuff, but I was able to communicate with him okay. He asked for our preferences, and I said I wanted to avoid super-smiley cutesy corny. Kelvin said he wanted nice atmospheric lighting. We had no idea for outdoor locations, so we just showed pictures we liked from other albums. John decided on Yang Ming Mountain for the wedding dress shoot and Lin An Tai Historical Home for the traditional Chinese shoot, both locations not too far from the studio. Once all this was determined, our consultation was done, and we were done for the day.
Next: The Shoot
Related posts:
We went to Sophia Ritz Shanghai, we went through the exact same routine like shaving eyebrows, some corny poses, language barrier and all. I wish I’d read your post prior to going there so I’d know what I could expect.
They charged RMB 400 each for the adhesive bra and facial primer, even a fancier suit costed RMB 700. The falsies were not included in the package. I would expect the price range of the Shanghai chain to be lower since it’s in mainland China but they probably ripped us off seeing how bad our Chinese was. In the end, we paid something close to RMB 5000 for 120 photos on CD out of which 28 photos were selected for the 2 albums and a mini album. No scroll or a big frame picture or cards. In our 28-shots-album, there are 2 photos on a page making the photos smaller. Unlike the Taiwanese chain, the Shanghai photomontage girl wouldn’t photoshop me any thinner saying it looks unnatural and none of her clients want that. She’d only photoshop “accidental folds” in our clothes. I had to pick the clothes on the same day and we never got the chance to preview any “photoshopped” pictures. Nobody ever asked what style we wanted and which body part I was insecure about, I had to specifically tell them which was quite a challange.
Back in Holland, I finally learned how to photoshop and got the slim figure I had wanted to much to be on the album. The downside is I don’t look as good as the pre-photoshoped photos that’s aready printed on the album. Nevetheless, the make-up was great. I’d love to view your Taiwanese wedding album but I can’t seem to find it on the link you gave.
1Hi Chen! Sorry about the links. My gallery keeps having weird URL issues. I think the links should be fixed (for now at least), and the images should show up in my posts again. All the pictures we got on the CD are in the gallery, and I’ll have to get pictures of the actual products we received… erm, eventually.
If it makes you feel any better, I think ours might have cost closer to twice as much as yours. (I think I’m doing the conversion right.) While it seems like the Shanghai branch is lacking in service compared to the Taipei one, cost-wise it seems like you had a pretty good deal, especially with all the pictures you received. We only got 30 pics, with both photoshopped and unphotoshopped pictures. I would much rather have more pictures, as prints are cheap and finding people who Photoshop is pretty easy these days. I didn’t even end up liking the picture we picked for the big frame (got sick engagement pictures when we picked them so wasn’t thinking straight), so we didn’t even use it at the wedding. At the actual wedding, we took two other pictures we liked better and made our own giant prints.
I’m surprised they didn’t try their best to make you happy with their photoshopping, as that’s where they make their big bucks. They really wanted us to buy their extra photos in Taipei, so they made sure we were 100% happy with everything we got. They also seem to love photoshopping in Taipei, cuz they did a ton of it!
2Thanks for replying and uploading your photos. Your tree photo is simply romantic! I love nature themes, made that my theme too. I was very impressed on Sophia Ritz’s makeovers, I wonder if most weddingshoot stores are that good. If you look at the Sophia Ritz website, the photos are top notch compared to their clients’ photos (hope that came out right, I was a client too), not just because they have models but the scenaries, lighting, poses are nicer too. Honestly, it looks like they put more effort to advertising than to shoot clients.
Initially we went to other stores but they couldn´t book us for the next day (we pretty tied up to our holiday schedule). The other stores charge RMB 3000, you get 500 photos, 3 albums, 6 gowns for the bride and 5 suits for the groom and some other michellaneous stuff. The China price range differs a lot from the Taiwanese. I like a third of my photos though.
Out of my 120 photos, I chose approximately 20 photos where the makeup girls were glamming me up because that was where I looked skinny. On hindsight I should have chosen the `posey-posey` photos seeing how easy it is to make one thin on photoshop and how inexpensive it is to get on print. Now the reason they didn´t take the trouble to photoshop me was because I never asked for more than 28 photos in the album (most of which were not photoshoped). And because they were seriously lacking in service. I just settled for the agreed amount, moreever I had 92 other photos I could choose from the shoot (28+92 =120) which was sufficient. Every extra photo (unphotoshop) on CD cost RMB 10 each.
We picked up our albums from the Beijing branch some 2.5 weeks later from the since they needed time to get it on the album. (We were travelling through China) They forgot to include the picture frame, one of the many demisses in my experience. How long did you have to wait for your stuff? Did they send them to the US?
3Yes, I definitely think the ones on the website are much nicer than most clients, but that’s unsurprising. We didn’t opt for nicer dresses or a more popular photographer, which would of course cost more. I don’t know if we’d ever look as good as the ones on the website, even with those extras. We’re not supermodels!
No, thankfully we were able to pick up all our items while we were in Taiwan. We were in Taipei for two weeks, and basically everything was squeezed into the two weeks. We were able to get all our items the day before we went back to the States, so nothing needed to be shipped. It was pretty convenient to get everything done while we were there, though it made for a hectic schedule to do all the photo stuff.
4You write so vividly, I was reliving the day again (good and bad), thank you for putting it into words for I reckon there will be more english speaking Sophia Ritz clients googling you up for your experience. I like your sense of humour too.
The good thing about my experience is I went ahead to learn how to Photoshop. The Photoshop girl was adamant about not making me look slim but I would not bugde so she made me sign a contract stating that I am accountable for any unnatural looking result (it was literally just 1 photo to make my arms skinny). It made me think she was incompatible in her work. We were also ushered to speed up making a final selection of the photos after an hour of being there….she said because there were other clients. Sigh, is this the way the Shanghai branch do their bussiness? Sorry about ranting….
Is there going to be a post on “The Final Product”? Can’t wait to read it.
5