The past 2 days in Bintan have been a blast.
I enjoyed our Bintan pre-wedding photoshoot immensely. It was truly a memorable experience, filled with so much fun, laughter and crazy moments. I feel really blessed to have had the company of 3 amazing individuals: Our photographer CF, make up artist Liren and of course my Gigi! Whilst it was such a short trip, I feel like we accomplished so many things together. And it feels really nice to have bonded with the duo during our getaway.
Here are the highlights of our trip! Get ready for a super long post!
Day 1
- Journey to Bintan on Emerald class =D Only opportunity to feel more atas.
- Massage at MT Spa. -_-' All of us agree that Aroma Day spa is so much better! The duo were pretty upset at the bad service and massage. CF was actually given an empty cup when he asked for water! Tsk tsk. Poor thing.
- Lunch at Idol Cafe... we ended up sharing giam giam Mee Goreng. Gerald and I were disappointed with their avocado juice. They shrunk and diluted the portions!
- Checked in at Banyan Biru 2 room villa. It was pretty clean and spacious for the 4 of us. My only complaints: 1) They could have provided softer mattresses! 2) There was only 1 toilet with shower... so we had to wait for one another to bathe -_-
- *fun alert* We went for the Banana boat ride at Nirwana beach club! I conquered my fear (yes, bad experience at Redang) and decided to go for it. No regrets cause we had fun screaming our lungs out and flipping over into the sea. Too bad we only flipped once! Was expecting the second flip but it never happened. Aww.
- Did some leisurely dipping (I wouldn't consider that swimming haha) at Banyan Biru's pool. The four of us had a nice chat together and Liren was sharing how it's been so long since she could rest and relax on Sunday. Glad we provided her with the opportunity to =)
- Dinner at Kelong! Had prawns, fried baby squid, kang kong, hotplate tofu and gong gong (yuuum)! Super shiok. The best part about dinner was them sharing about their stories and dreams... it was very inspiring. These amazing people really know what they want in life and they're all out to fulfill their dreams. How often do you meet people like that? All I can say is I really respect them. And I thank them for making me think about my own dreams as well.
Day 2
- Rise and shine at 3.45am for Make up! It was sooo early I was practically stoning when she was working on me. Liren dolled me up wonderfully, I was really pleased with my entire look. Loved the sweet, natural make up and hair braids! She took some before and after shots of me as well. Quite a scary difference haha. Almost worthy of being shown on those Taiwan makeover variety shows.
- Had quick cup noodle brekkie with coffee and we were off for the shoot!
- 1st shoot location: 2 Nirwana resort private villas.
Liana from Nirwana gardens' business center was really nice. She brought us to two of their private villas (one of them a presidential suite) for photo taking. Both villas overlooked the Southern China Sea, had amazing private pools, bathrooms and nice interior. We took quite a few standard, smile and pose shots at the first villa before ending off with an editorial looking shot of us walking across the swimming pool and a hilarious shot of us doing a kuku dance together.
For the presidential villa (which is SUPER HUGE btw), CF originally wanted to do a shoot in the master bedroom but the sunlight was tooooo strong that we had to give up! We ended up doing shots at the pseudo balcony spot which overlooked the sea. The interesting bit was CF got Liren to take one photo of us while he went below the balcony to shine the flash for the picture. Apparently it was her first time taking the photo so we had to ng a few times! Her challenge was to capture the shining sun within the photo of us hugging, Not easy! We had another challenging shot of us jumping, with Gerald holding onto a camera while jumping backwards and me holding my flowey green drape like a butterfly. We ng-ed 13 times! You can image how much jumping we did! After that shot, we were practically drenched with perspiration. We were sooo glad when CF captured the perfect shot and our efforts really paid off.
- 2nd shoot location: Nirwana beach
This was fun fun fun. We ran on the sand in our formal gown + suit (super difficult since I was trying not to trip over my gown!) and had funny bollywood shots of us doing stupid poses near a tree. After brekkie, we changed to our Trash the dress attire and had even more fun! CF made us do loaaaads of challenging shots, including: Us running into the sea water, Gerald throwing me into the water (which totally shocked me and made me drink lots of sea water! Even CF and Liren were shocked at how Gerald 'bullied' me!), me insanely jumping at him (apparently everytime time I jumped at him, I always made a sound effect which made the duo laugh), Gerald doing elaborated breast stroke towards me and the most difficult bit was when was CF shooting us on the shore! We had to lie down where the waves was hitting the shores and look at each other. Sounds easy? Noooooooo. We couldn't stay still cause the waves kept sweeping us away! And I kept zhao-genging! Thank goodness I wore shorts beneath my dress. Throughout the shoot, CF kept coming up with fun and quirky ideas and we really enjoyed ourselves.
- 3rd shoot location: Banyan biru swimming pool
On our way back to our villa, CF decided to have an impromptu under water shoot at the swimming pool. And we were super ready to accept the challenge! After many many ngs and lots of laughter, we finally managed to do our underwater kissing shot. We had soo many tries because I had difficulties holding my breath and getting the right underwater position. One of the ng shots actually showed me doing an unglam, kneeling pose which was hilarious!
- 4th shoot location: Pasar Oleh Oleh!
After our awesome spa experience at Aroma day spa, this was our final shoot location where both Gerald and I wore our casual, couple attire. We had fun taking photos at a random field near Kampong Lagoi, where we were blowing bubbles against the backdrop of the setting sun. Have you ever seen bubbles settling down on grass, without bursting? It's a beautiful sight. We must really thank Liren for helping us blow lots of bubbles so CF could take photos of us chasing after them. From this experience, I learned that I really suck at blowing bubbles! They always don't come out right!
We followed on to Pasar Ole Ole where we went creative with our chalkboards and used them as props! We ended off with a super jumping shot where CF made us look like we jumped really high hehe. Photography tricks are amazing!
That basically sums up our superb experience! I never thought a prewedding shoot can be so much fun. I'm really thankful towards CF and Liren for making it such a great experience. They have really impressed us with not just their professionalism, experience and creativity, but also with their warmth, sincerity and dedication towards us. No regrets in engaging them for our shoot! I strongly believe that any couple who hires them will be in good good hands.
