Ching Hua Bridal Art Studio Outfits
Looking the Part | Ching Hua Part 2
First things first. I needed a wedding dress. Since my photo package entailed three dress changes, we went straight to work right away on selecting the three wedding dresses that would best fit the scenes I wanted to shoot. We started with a more traditional gown. Since I knew my actual wedding dress was not going to be a princess ball gown dress.
I figured this would be my opportunity to be a princess for a day and WOW, was I treated like one by the amazing staff. Huge thanks to Hazel for helping me with my outfits from start to finish! She was so strong, quick and agile; lifting the many heavy gowns repeatedly, up and down the stairs, preparing them for me to get in and out of.
The various looks I had requested:
- a traditional princess style gown
- a Chinese cheongsam or traditional Chinese dress, but with a modern flair
- and a “cocktail dress” but was more like a formal gown in a different color other than white
It’s All About Choosing the Dresses, Ching Hua Style
I got to try each dress on and comment on what I liked and, more importantly, what I didn’t like about them. If the prepared dresses didn’t have the right look/feel of what I wanted, Hazel quickly went back downstairs, to what I imagine was a massive inventory room, to look through countless gown styles searching for the right ones that were more along the lines of what I loved.
Fun fact #1
Hazel spoke Cantonese!
After discovering that I also spoke Cantonese (though definitely not as well as my English), Hazel and I had some great conversations in Cantonese. It was a great way for me to practice other than with my parents. Huge thanks to her for putting up with my Can-glish (my Cantonese interspersed with English words that I couldn’t think of!).
Fun Fact #2
She was Malaysian! Fancy meeting another Malaysian in Taipei, what a coincidence. She was actually from Ipoh (not that far from Penang, my hometown), how cool was that!
Something to keep in mind during this whole process as well is that all these dresses are not yet fit to your body. Dresses are sized based on the last person who wore it last. They reassured me many times that it’s not something to be overly concerned about because they’ll alter it quickly to your specific dimensions in time for your shoot. So even if something is a bit small or too loose when you’re trying it on, they can do magic so you can rest assured that it will fit nice and snug.
F8T Tip Knowing what you like and what you don’t like can be a huge time saver. If you are indifferent then it can be a bit overwhelming with so many amazing gowns to choose from.
Surprisingly the traditional white dress was the simplest, the traditional Chinese dress was the second hardest and the cocktail dress was the hardest of all to figure out which ones I ultimately wanted. After choosing all the 3 dresses, Hazel took my exact measurements. Then off we went with Chun-Yu to the next part of the process; choosing my groom’s outfit.
Groom’s Outfit
Since Ching Hua didn’t carry men’s outfits, they walked us down the street to a dedicated men’s store for us to choose two outfits for him. Upon arriving, we were ushered upstairs to a changing area and had a choice to pick from black, white or blue. Ultimately since the blue sizes went small, we had to go with black and white.
Although the thought of a white suit was a bit scary, when he put it on he looked amazing. After all, when in his life would he ever wear a white suit?! The guy’s process was definitely a lot less involved than the girl’s side of things. Essentially you’re choosing a black tuxedo (choice of rounded collar or straight collar) and second suit color.
After he tried them both on and they got his exact measurements, he got to try on a pair of white patent leather shoes for his all white outfit (my angel) and then we were done! Super easy peasy!
JM Thoughts I personally don’t understand what there isn’t to like about white suits? If it looks good then it looks good. And on me, I thought it looked AWESOME.
Final Checks
At the end of every phase, there are the last crucial steps required before moving on. Moving on without doing these checks could lead to a big headache at the next stage of the photo shoot. Ching Hua was diligent and had their art down to a science. After picking out JM’s outfits, we were ushered back upstairs to the VIP room for my final fitting.
It was truly amazing how in the course of a few hours, they were able to take the dresses I had literally just tried on and altered them to my body! What I learned from Chun-Yu is that they have two master seamstresses on hand to do all the dress alterations; which is how they’re able to turn the alterations around so quickly! Amazing! As expected, the dresses fit perfectly and after the final fitting, we were set in terms of our outfits!
Choose the Album Cover
Since we were getting an album to go along with our photo shoot, we were given an option of 6 different covers to choose. We chose the one cover I personally loved, the acrylic cover with one of our photos featured on the front.
Last Questions / Confirmation of Times
Last but not least, after everything was said and done, we confirmed with Chun-Yu all details including where we would meet (their studio is in a different location, down the street from the showroom next to a See’s Candies store), time, rate for the driver, whether or not we’d have to bring the stylist with us (as it was something that we had not initially agreed on and would be an extra $5000 NTD) and our backup plan if it did end up raining (it is Taiwan during the rainy season after all).
She also gave us some tips like making sure we were fully rested the night prior, eat breakfast prior to the 8am meeting time and bring snacks; after all, it was going to be a very long day!
All in all it was a jam packed, yet productive four hours. Time flew by as we went from one step to next. Having done so many of these before, I must say, the staff at Ching Hua Bridal Art knew exactly what they were talking about, and more importantly knew exactly what they were doing. I was truly impressed by their professionalism and kindness and patience with us. I couldn’t tell you how excited I was about the actual day of the shoot.
One Final Note on the Initial Process
I just want to share how truly spectacular Chun-Yu was to work with. My experience with her prior to meeting her in person was all via email and she always responded in such a timely manner and with great English.
Meeting her in person surpassed my expectations, as she was like that in person and more. As we went from place to place, she was super interesting to converse with as she answered our many questions about Taipei/Taiwan and also shared a bit more about herself.
She even went above and beyond when we needed to drop by a pharmacy to pick up some medication for JM’s rare gout attack. After everything was over, she kindly walked us to the pharmacy and helped us get what we needed by playing translator.
She then took us to get bubble tea/boba at what was mentioned was the first place to create boba in Taiwan and helped us order some; perfect, since we were having trouble reading the all Taiwanese menus at the other boba shops! We were so grateful for the opportunity to work with her!
Disclosure | We received a discount for a forthcoming and truthful review
Ching Hua Bridal Art
- No.89, Sec. 2, Zhongshan N. Rd., Zhongshan Dist., Taipei City 104, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
- +886-2-2523-0685
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