Richard and Virginia are like a heaven for me. First my camera loves them, and they love me. So it can’t go wrong from there

Like any other couple, they wanted the best of the best for them to treasure their wedding story. They were ready to do whatever it took.

On the other hand, I am Wiki Lee, a professional and does 1000% committed to every wedding or project that I am commissioned with. I know exactly who I am. I am even ready to reduce number of weddings that i do in 2011 so I can focus on the quality.

But for someone who never known me and said in the first email inquiry to give me ’20 reasons why I should do their wedding’, I was so deeply honoured to know someone really wanting me to go out from my sabbatical so badly to shoot their wedding. I seriously didn’t ask much for someone who wants to book me. I just want them to love me the way I am, just let me to be the artist that I can be. But this couple gave me twenty. Even in their list, one of them was that they were willing to sell their car to fund to have me. (No no, I am not that expensive ). But knowing the sacrifice they were willing to take was something that I wouldn’t dare to dream for someone to do that for having my service. It’s quiet flattering to know that. After all, I believe I am just an average photographer who has a great God (quote from Ken Duncan).

In short, they are awesome and cool people like us

Like most other couple who came to my studio for meeting prior to the making of portrait films, they didn’t know where to start. That’s why I asked from the simplest questions to the very personal questions. From there, normally I can sense they wanted to open up or they were too shy. Sometimes, I feel my job is like a pre-marriage counsel . But mostly they always come up with pretty much similar story than the others. The question is how I can create an unique and personal.

Ok here was what I learned about them.

1. They love Thristy merc, because they enjoyed their concert as a couple. I even spotted a thristy merc poster on their bedroom.
2. They’ve been going out since high school. It’s never easy for Richard to get Virginia at the start as she had a boyfriend when Richard made the move to her.
3. I could sense from the story, Virginia was kind of like Richard’s companion too.
4. When Virginia was finally available, Richard was so excited to woo her back.
5. When they dated back in high school time, Virginia’s parent was a strict one. Thus, they went out behind their back
6. Richard is kind of man with a gift love language. On the hand, Virginia is a more devouted person who loves making card to show her devotion to Richard.
7. Richard is a basketball freak. He is a professional basketball referee.
8. Richard proposal to Virginia was a tricky one. How he made a sign “Marry Me” with rope lit by fire on the beach.

So I hope all of your questions after watching the below films, you found the answer there

But when coming to create some works for a couple, sometimes my taste can be a bit too much. That’s why my question after that meeting, I asked them “Do you want a nice one or a creative one but kind of weird?” Their response was “In Wiki we trust”. They wanted me to deliver the best as I can be. So there you go below, my kind of the benchmark work for the portrait films; creative and yet storytelling

As soon as I heard how much they love Thristy Merc and listened their story, I knew straight away that All my life by Thristy Merc would be the soundtrack for their portrait films. Their video clip was the inspiration for this portrait films to portray the journey in backward. The morale of this film is for Richard always remember the day of when he fell in love with Virginia.

The films was premiered at their reception. With a blurry projector, I thought it went well. I received so many people stopped by to say the great work on that presentation. So thank you Richard and Virginia for the opportunity you gave us to document some part of your life story into something to remember. I definitely treasure the friendship we made

Their wedding story will definitely come up soon (I hope) in this blog. It was a busy day but it was definitely a fun day but not so much fun for me as they were too many tall people around them . Yes, I am a short guy .

Come back tomorrow, I promise that I will at least pick one photo from their wedding to be the photo of the day.

In the mean time, you can also see the behind the scene (BTS) images taken by Adiv and Ilona of Foto Expression during the portrait films shoot and of course their engagement session in between the making of portrait films. You’ll see now why I love this guy now