Chapter 2. Wedding Photos

My Big Fat Guangdong Wedding

Chapter 2.  Wedding Photos

 

China has a ratio of 1 photo studio for every 4 or 5 couples who get married each year. Yes, I’m quite convinced that more people work in wedding photo studios than get married in any few years. The only greater employee to customer ratio mystery here in China is the ratio of cell phone stores to people buying new phones.

I thought this would make life easy. There’s a huge concentration of these wedding photo places along one side of People’s Park. Simple task. We’d just need to go to half a dozen and write down the packages, prices, and what any extras we would like will cost.  Then it should be easy to select the best deal. I wanted to make sure the chosen shop had a decent selection of outfits, and that the area with the backdrops wasn’t so crowded that it would be like rearranging everything in a small apartment between shots (the one where our lovely daughter had a photo shoot at recently was like working in a walk-in closet).

Shop number one (Estetismo) seemed very cooperative. My fiancee was even kind enough to write in English so that I would have some clue about the conversation. For what was offered, it seemed very expensive, but I’d already braced myself for the need to sell most of my internal organs on eBay spend a lot of money on this.  Things were going fine until the sales girl said that the pricing structure was confidential and we couldn’t take the piece of paper out.  When asked why, she said it was so that people couldn’t go from shop to shop to try to find and bargain for the best deal. 

 

 

I was livid infuriated homicidal apoplectic less than pleased.   The last time I checked, shopping around for the best prices on goods and services was a major part of how things worked in China.  We left.

Rather than take a chance of wasting any time, as soon as we were out the door, I jotted down as much as we could recall on another piece of paper.  Rather than take the chance of dealing with a problem like this again, for the next shop, I kept a piece of paper and my pen below the level of the table while my fiancee questioned the sales girl and translated the pricing details.  Studio #2 had a significantly better package and the extras cost less.  The only problem was making a graceful exit without signing a contract and leaving my right kidney a large cash deposit.

We almost turned around to head the other way – towards a larger group of studios, but it was lunch time and the nearest restaurants were ahead.  As we went in to eat, I saw another Studio next door.

 

 

As we left the restaurant, we looked at the outside of Studio #3 again.  It was MUCH fancier than the other two (which were both pretty nice as far as such places go), so I almost voted to skip it.  Since we were there already, we decided to take a quick look.  The initial presentation was very impressive.  We asked about prices, but the sales girl wanted to show us the outfits and the studio itself first. (Ah yes, first we’ll make you fall in love with our costumes and sets and then it will be too late when we hit you with the HUGE price. )

 

 

The selection of outfits was excellent.  A couple of items I thought were just backdrops or photoshopped in were real props.

 

The only odd thing was that a male employee was following us on the tour and never got more than an arm’s length away from me.  I was really wondering what was up with this.  It turned out he was a brand new employee and was observing.  I was very impressed with what they had in sets, backdrops, and costumes, but was worried how I’d deal with my fiancee’s growing enthusiasm when the price was finally revealed.

We went back down to the sales area and a sheaf of papers with packages was produced.  I couldn’t understand very much, but the 13,999 RMB price tag was on the first piece of paper was painfully obvious.  The other studios started with their lower end packages first and then worked upwards, so I was very worried about what I’d see next when she turned the page.  To my relief, the next page had a lower price, so I resisted the urge to grab my fiancee’s hand and run away screaming for a moment longer.  A few pages in, there was a package with two prices.  I asked what was up with that.  It turned out to be a big sale package at half off the normal price.  That put it close to the price of the packages we liked at the other 2 studios.  I asked for details.  7 outfits, 5 in studio plus 2 outdoors (1 at a place that would have cost an extra 200 RMB at studio #2), a poster designed for the entrance of the restaurant where the wedding party would be held, 3 wall portraits, a couple of albums with 35 prints, a DVD, a CD of the photos, and a few other odds and ends.  Even better, the CD would have ALL the pics taken.  The other Studios wanted an extra 25+ RMB per pic for adding any to the CD.

I’m thinking that this can’t get any better.  Then my fiancee decides to start negotiating.  Some more extras get thrown in.  More negotiations and the sales girl retreated to the manager’s office.  When she returned, I heard one of the words for “foreigner” a half a dozen times.  I was wondering if this is something like “Why would some rich foreigner not be able to pay the already generously discounted price?”, but it turned out that the manager decided to knock a few hundred RMB off the total as a special deal since they don’t normally get foreign clients. 

I was happy with the whole thing, but we wanted to check one or two more places just to be sure.  Hey, if this gets better with each shop,  why not keep going?  Escaping from the sales girl who is VERY eager to get a signature and a deposit proved challenging, but was finally managed.

Studio #4 managed to come close to #3, but couldn’t quite match them.  Studio #5 did the same.  Each place had some unique sets and outfits, but we were only getting this done at one place.  Finally, Studio #6 was far more expensive.  They did have the best outfits and sets, but the price was the highest of all the wedding photo places we’d visited. so we left.  Before we get too far away, Studio #3 had called and took another 200 RMB off the price. 

We decided to let the sales girl there sweat for a couple of days, so my wife could hit her up for another little extra or two before signing. 

So, the final selection was Wedding Studio #3:  HanFengShang Wedding Photos.

 

 

You can find them near the south-east corner of People’s Park in downtown Dongguan.  Leave a comment if you need directions. Make sure to tell them you were referred by an Escaped Lunatic. 

 

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