Unposed

Most wedding photography in Vietnam is directed: the couple is placed, the families are arranged, the moment is repeated until it is clean. We work the other way, and this page says exactly what that means, what it costs, and where the limits are.

How we work, and what we never ask you to do

We are in the room early and we stay out of it. No lining anybody up, no walking you into better light, no asking for a moment again because one of us was reloading. If your mother cries at the altar and nobody caught it from the front, that frame is gone, and we would rather lose it than ask her to do it twice.

Two exceptions, said now so there is no surprise on the day.

• Your couple portraits are directed. About twenty minutes, usually near the venue, usually in the last good light. That is the one block where we tell you where to stand.
• The family group frames are directed too. Three hundred guests do not arrange themselves, and these are the photographs your parents will print. Send us the names and faces that matter on both sides and we will find them in fifteen minutes.

Everything else is unposed. That is also why the gallery reads as storytelling rather than a set of poses: it runs in the order the day ran, and it keeps the parts nobody planned.

Documentary, reportage, photojournalistic

Three words for one habit. Reportage is the older term, photojournalistic is the one couples type into a search box, and documentary is what we call it when we talk to you. None of them describes a look, and that is the common misunderstanding: a studio can shoot grainy black and white all day and still direct every frame.

The test that actually works is to ask any photographer for two complete galleries, not a highlight reel. In a directed gallery almost every frame is at eye level and almost everybody is looking at the lens. In a documentary gallery you can follow the day without a caption, and half the people in it never knew where the camera was.

On colour: we grade clean and keep skin true. Your parents need to recognise the room they stood in.

What the day looks like from behind our cameras

A Vietnamese wedding is not one event, it is three, and it is where this way of working earns its fee. The hours are long and the best things are small.

• From five in the morning. Hair, make-up, a father who does not know what to do with his hands. The quiet hour produces more keepers than anything that happens later.
• Le gia tien, the tea ceremony. Half an hour in a small room in front of the family altar, usually twenty people and no space to move. It is the hardest part of the day to photograph well, and we have written it out step by step.
• The ride and the ceremony. Flowers, a line of cars, neighbours out on the street, then an aisle and vows.
• The banquet. Toasts table by table, a stage, difficult light and a lot of people who want a photograph with you. We bring our own light instead of hoping the venue is kind.

The whole shape of a day, hour by hour and with the paperwork, is on the wedding day page.

What comes back, and when

Several hundred edited photographs within one week, in the order the day happened. We do not sell a fixed number: a morning tea ceremony plus a ceremony plus a banquet simply produces more than a registry office and lunch. What we promise is the whole day rather than a quota.

The film follows: five to ten minutes, with the real voices in it. We put a small microphone on the groom, one at the ceremony table and one at the speeches, so the film carries your actual vows and your uncle's actual toast instead of music over silent footage. A vertical cut for Instagram comes with it if you want one.

What it costs

A deposit of USD 100 holds your date and locks your price. Nothing else is charged until the plan is agreed in writing. Every city and package is on the collections page.

If your guest list is small, the job changes shape and so does the crew: that is on the intimate wedding page. If it is only the two of you, the elopement page is the right one.

Short answers