Japan Round 2 - Ippon! (Pre-wedding photos)

This is a continuation of the Japan trip a few blogs/months back ( Scottie visits Japan).

Now that married life has settled a little in, I'm ready to share the wild adventure of taking pre wedding photos.

Before the day of the shoot I had to attack Mos burger, so we ordered 4 different types to try out.  I'm sort of in the mood for one now!

Before goin into the wedding photo shoot we took a stroll through empty streets and a small town near Mt. Fuji.

For those of you overseas away from Asia, you may not know this, but its a tradition to have wedding photos taken months before the actual wedding for memories sake.  The bride then usually hangs a giant self portrait over the bed.  Scary.

Anyway, we wanted to have some privacy and since we both love Japan we thought it was best to have it shot here. Ida managed to find a local wedding team and we simply loved the pics they took with previous couples. They're known as PhotoRose.

The timing of the shoot was madness.  We started make up at 8 p.m and began the shoot from 10 p.m till 3 p.m the following day.

All ready for the photo shoot.  Woohoo.  let's roll.

First up the midnight cherry blossoms. We were really freezin' our asses off with this one. 

The whole street was in bloom.  We had caught the perfect timing. 

Next up, the moonlight:

Unfortunately the the stars weren't out, but the moon was full and it was getting even colder.

It was probably around 2-3 a.m.  during this part of the shoot.  The team then took us on a hour drive up a mountain and parked the car.  I remember the photographer turned around and looked at us at the backseat and said "Sleep".  WTF.  He had us wait for the sunrise for that perfect shot.

Sunrise in Japan.  It would'nt be fun without this...

The sunrise shoot was probably the coldest time.  I mean, I'm known for sweating in a shirt in a club, but I was shivering in 3 layered tux. Poor Ida was frozen stiff.

As the morning light broke through the clouds we headed back down to a yellow flower field.

Looks like nothing, but once we got into it, the surrounding fetl pretty surreal.

When we finished here we looked up to the sky and noticed we were really close to Mt. Fuji.

So we drove to the base and got a few snapshots.

My next goal is to hike that sucka.

As the sun came out the cherry blossoms were stunning to see.  We went to 2 different locations where the blossoms were in full bloom.

You'll have to click enlarge, but the last pic had so many leaves blowing off it was really peaceful to watch.

Our main photog "Ranmaru".  You can see he used a super scope lens cause the last thing you want to see is my face close up.

One of Ida's fav photos.

The overal team was great and even a few employees decided to drive a 2nd car and helped out the whole time with even more shots.

A random dog protecting some random carpark and just because I felt like putting up a random photo.

By noon we were taken to this pretty purple flower field.  Probably my favorite area cause it had Mt. Fuji in the back and the bullet trains going by.

Now for the final shoot.  Another particular thing that Ida and I love is Hawaii. I have family that live in Kauai and I did propose to Ida on the beach of polihale, so part of our plan was to have an Hawaiian themed wedding.  So we had these custom outfits made for us and did our final shoot at a beach.

Aloha!

That concludes the wedding photo taking in Japan.  Next up?  The wedding!!

Here are a few more candid shots after the shoot. 

Group shot with the crew!

The office of photo rose.

Check out some of the pics they've got. 

http://www.photo-rose.net/

I'd totally recommend them. The only catch, they only speak Japanese. They do have some english cards which they'll read to you if you can't speak the language.  Overal, the team is really down to Earth and super nice about everything. 

When we got back to Tokyo we met up with some friends we met through Etchy.  They suprised us with a pre-wedding cake. Very cool and fun.  I wish we could've stayed longer and hang out more.

Thanks Kazuya, Pemapema, and JasmineT :P.

Now before heading back to home we must eat like pigs!

Sashimi all the way!

Osaka Pizza!

Flip it, twist it.

Sause it, slap it.

Finish it!

Cheers.  See you at the weddin.