August 1, 2021 - kenshinjeff

Singapore bridal shop review – My Dream Wedding

My Dream Wedding Review (First impressions and pre wedding shoot)

Shunfang and I chanced upon My Dream Wedding (MDW), we literally walked in one evening without an appointment, after trying different outfits at different shops along the street. Maybe it’s a bit of luck that they were able to accommodate us, or maybe we felt that they were very accommodating, professional and were very confident with the quality of their services, that’s why we went with them.

We spent 4 hours there during our first walk in visit, at no point did we feel like we were unwelcomed due to our indecisiveness and incessant questions. During this time, we walked around to check out their gowns, Shunfang very quickly managed to try some gowns because some couples were late for their appointment. I went around asking* what they could offer, what’s their unique selling point, what they could offer, how they managed their business, what the flow was like, etc. They took their time to answer all the questions that we had, very patiently until 1130pm, then we decided to sign a package.

MDW does drive a very hard bargain, if it could even be called a bargain. When we walked out and we didn’t feel that we got a good deal for the amount we paid. You know, the kind of feeling that you overpaid for something. The exact same feeling that you don’t want to get after buying something? After all, how different can one bridal shop be amongst the entire street of bridal shops if everyone is offering the same type of service?

Well, I’m very glad to have been proven wrong. After our prewedding photoshoot, both of us felt that the amount we paid for was extremely well spent. Well spent in terms of the ease of compromise, the service standards, how they managed to reschedule the photographer, the make-up artist, the effort, the accommodation and professionalism of the photographer, the experience of the make-up artist, and even looking from the viewport of the photographer’s camera, we think the shots will turn out fantastic. Honestly, this is no small feat!

At my dream wedding, you are paying for:

  1. uncompromisable service standards
  2. one to one wedding coordinator
  3. in house make-up artists
  4. in house photographers for prewedding
  5. editing of photos in house by HQ in Hong Kong

We’re writing this review just after our prewedding shoot, I’ll explain on why I find their service standards to be way above average.

Everyone employed at MDW is a full-time specialist

The photographer will spend all of their time doing photoshoots only. If you consider that most photographers will have some form of customer interaction, after gown selection, to selecting of locations, to setting up props, getting an assistant, editing photos, reviewing edited photos with clients, etc, ie, doing all the PR and non-photography things, MDW photographers actually spend 3x more time taking photos than a regular photographer! When you engage a photographer from MDW with 8 years of experience, you can safely say that they have at least 16 years of experience taking photos locally!

Overseas photographer experts

Noticed that I said locally? What about overseas shoots? Well, it’s the same! What? How can this be? How can a small shop at Tanjong Pagar have an arsenal of photographers who can be good at BOTH local and oversees shoots? Well, that’s because MDW is managed by a boss who has a really brilliant business mind. He setup MDW in several locations in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and China. Pre-covid, MDW would send the photographer and makeup teams overseas, and have them stay there at each location for a month, and do the same thing as if they were in Singapore! Of course, I am not so sure if this will be the case post Covid, but I would seriously consider shooting overseas with MDW. We’re talking about places like Sakura season in Japan, mountains in Taiwan, waterfalls in Iceland, you name it, they’ve been there for a month, day in day out shooting every day.

Service standards & Photoshop professionals

But wait, who manages and supervises everyone? That’s the magic right? We didn’t ask about it because it’s quite personal and we believe they are not allowed to mention this, but judging from number of reviews and excellent service, for sure it’s the feedback. We believe that every single employee has a KPI to meet. Photographers have to send their photos back to the HK headquarters for review and edits, (which again, are professional editors who spend 3x more time editing photos), and reviews like this. Same goes for the wedding coordinator, make-up artists, and we’re sure that even the super photoshop editors in Hong Kong have to meet a service standard KPI. Service standards are basically guaranteed.

Whenever a person pays for a one-off service, typically you’ll expect that the service levels will be non-existent after you have paid the bulk of the down payment. (Looking at you, interior designer firms in Singapore). It’s kind of to be expected since you will never come back for the service. The way MDW has setup themselves, you won’t get the feeling. You won’t need to wonder if a comment made by the staff was a smart ass or snarky response, because it will never be, as professionals are professionals, and they really need to make their customer happy to keep their KPI. Literally everyone is positively cheerful and helpful, of course the downside is that you won’t find any pensive employees with that exudes artistic charm at MDW.

Areas which need improvement:

Letting the coordinator have a better customer to coordinator ratio, for faster responses. Sometimes you need an answer within 30 minutes to 6 hours, and you can’t get that. Why? It’s because the coordinator is so packed from the moment they open until the time close. The response time is typically around 6-24 hours. On the bright side, it also means they are entirely focused on you when they are with you.

Letting the customer have a proper timetable/schedule to keep to. From our experience, the coordinators and photographers know exactly how much time they can spend to finish everything, how long it is to travel from one location to another. But if you’re intending to pay for specific locations, which has a fixed time frame, or specific slots in the day, it’s better to have this available to the customers. We were trying to juggle four locations in the day, out of which three had to be booked way in advanced, some of them were better in the morning light, some of them had photo shooting timings, etc. etc. Of course, it was my own fault that I was trying to schedule everything only one week in advanced, and it was quite a nightmare to get everything done on my own. If I didn’t have scheduling experience, I would have gone mad. On the bright side, MDW did an absolute amazing job to fit to our timeline. No complaints, ridiculous charges, so much professionalism, we were SO pleased.

Ending notes:

Shunfang and I were absolutely knackered by the end of the photoshoot. Really tired, but super happy we went with MDW. We went back at Tanjong Pagar at the end of the shoot. You know when everything is over and you take a funshot of everyone who helped out? Here it is, Jackson our photographer and Samantha our coordinator! (Mico went home earlier) Thank you guys so much for making our pre wedding shoot excellent!

https://mydreamwedding.com.sg/
52 Tras Street #01-01,
Singapore 078991

Tel +65 6438 1237
Tuesday to Sunday 12.00pm to 9pm

yang

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