註: 英文原文由來自美國的金龍哥撰寫，Gabi之不專業翻譯請見各段括弧文字。
[應該是所謂的前言吧]:
While I am very experienced in reviewing products, I have almost no experience reviewing services so please forgive me if this is not written appropriately by comparison to other service reviews. Really I only decided to write a review of a wedding photos company because my fiancé asked me to and it’s probably not a good idea to start ignoring her requests before we even get married. I assume there will plenty of other requests from her for me to ignore down the road.
評論一般產品是我很在行的事，但我幾乎沒有評論過專業服務。因此如果本評論撰寫方式若有非屬服務評論之方式，請包容這部分的不專業(老公是電子產品copy writer也是電玩評論部落客唷)。我決定要寫這一篇評論其實是因為我的未婚妻有所要求，而且我想在還沒結婚就拒絕他的要求似乎不是個好主意吧。畢竟未來說不定還有更多我可以忽略的要求，所以我就乖乖地寫了這篇評論。
I’m not really a big fan of weddings. I don’t mean that in the cynical, men don’t like the idea of getting married sort of way, though that probably applies as well. I specifically mean that I genuinely dislike the modern wedding concept and process. You see this in movies and TV shows and hear about it from friends and relatives. Planning and executing a wedding is tremendously terrible in just about every way. It’s expensive, time consuming, and irritating. It’s a wonder many couples even make it all the way through the process of actually getting married considering how horrible the entire experience is, and the amount of arguments that take place because of the wedding before you’ve even gotten married. And I’m speaking as the groom, which means I’m only putting in a fraction of the effort that the bride is. So for me, the entire process needs to be as painless as possible while still being affordable for me to pay it any mind at all.
我完全不熱衷婚禮這檔事，說真的，男人本來就不會有甚麼想婚的念頭，更別說辦甚麼婚禮了，尤其我很討厭現代婚禮的繁瑣過程和內容。就像電視電影演的，甚至你還聽過周遭親朋好友的經歷，籌辦婚禮根本很災難、很麻煩。又貴、又花時間，還很惱人。很神奇阿，想想這麼可怕的過程，還沒真的結婚就為了婚禮吵架拌嘴，但世上居然還有這麼多對情侶通過這些繁瑣的過程! 身為新郎為婚禮的付出更是常常不及新娘呢! (因此無法想像新娘的覺得惱人的程度有多劇烈吧!) 所以，我唯一希望就是整個過程舒適無痛、價格也能負擔得起就好。
My fiancé shares some of my views about wedding planning and execution. One of the reasons we work so well is because we’re both extremely apathetic about a great many things, such as wedding planning, compared to most people. If not for our families’ wishes and religious practices, we probably would have just gone to the courthouse, got married with no grand ceremony, and moved in together with no pomp and circumstance. In reality she didn’t even want to get wedding photos because she considered it an unnecessary extra expense. I, being very traditional as well as forward thinking, decided that we needed to get them because chances are one or both of us would regret not having them later. Especially when we need to remind ourselves why we got married in the first place after several years of ignoring each other’s’ requests. So I, being the man in the relationship, put my foot down and said we were absolutely getting wedding photos taken. After she agreed, I promptly put the burden of figuring that whole process on my fiancé. I am the groom after all.
我的未婚妻其實和我的看法有點類似，都覺得籌辦婚禮很煩人。我們之所以在這件事上很合得來，也是因為我們對於很多婚禮事務都有點麻木不仁之感，覺得很沒必要。如果不是為了滿足家人的期待，我們可能會直接去法院公證，省掉所有麻煩。事實上，她一開始根本連婚紗都不想拍，而且覺得拍婚紗很浪費錢。而我的傳統觀念覺得我們需要婚紗照是因為不希望我們未來後悔沒有為人生大事留念。尤其我覺得我們需要些甚麼東西，去提醒未來在婚姻中可能漸漸麻木迷失甚至忽略彼此的我們，當初之所以相愛、結婚的原因，所以我決定我們一定要拍一組婚紗。在她同意之後，我當然馬上把剩下的調查功課全都交給我的新娘去煩惱，畢竟我就是個新郎嘛~
[第一次拜訪就選擇綿谷]:
My fiancé found three potential wedding photography companies for us to visit before finally making a decision. Wataya Wedding was the first one we visited. As this is my first time getting married, I don’t have any personal experience with the wedding photography process other than having appeared in photos at some weddings I’ve attended over the years. The reason we ultimately went with Wataya Wedding during our first visit rather than visiting the other two potential studios and comparing is because they immediately made the process accessible and easy to understand, while remaining affordable. Or at least subjectively affordable considering I haven’t personally gone and compared prices between wedding photographers in Taipei. This was especially valuable to me as a foreigner that doesn’t speak Chinese.
我的未婚妻一開始找了3間攝影工作室，想一間一間看過後再決定。綿谷結婚式是我們參觀的第一家。畢竟也是我第一次結婚啊，我對婚紗攝影根本毫無經驗可言(啊不然是要結第幾次?)。我們當下就選擇的綿谷的原因主要是因為，綿谷很快地就讓我們很清楚了解拍攝的過程、非常容易理解而且價格也滿合理的。或說至少我覺得很合理，反正我是沒去另外2家比較了啦。(是的，我們當天就下訂了，完全沒有去比較別家XD~當天下訂有優惠唷!)
Wataya Wedding is a very welcoming and humble environment. The main building isn’t large and intimidating with giant pictures that scream “this place is expensive” as you walk up to the entrance. It’s a normal looking business nestled away in Neihu with a normal looking entrance and main room. There’s a single mannequin in a wedding dress on display, a few tables a couple computers, and a coffee bar. This might seem too simple compared to many other wedding photographer offices in Taipei, but that’s why I liked it. It didn’t intimidate me. It didn’t make me feel like it was going to be a long formal process that would cost me an arm and a leg. It was just a nice little shop that happened to sell the service of taking wedding photos.
綿谷的環境非常舒服、既熱情又謙遜，空間不大，完全不像我所知道的攝影公司都掛著巨大的婚紗作品，好像在說這裡超貴超高檔的感覺。相反的，位於內湖的綿谷有一個很平凡的大門，櫥窗只有一件婚紗展示，室內幾張桌子和電腦、外加一個咖啡吧檯。跟其他的公司比起來應該太過簡單吧，但我喜歡。這樣的環境不會讓我覺得我在這裡會被扒一層皮還是賣手斷腳後才能走出去，也不會讓我覺得好像有很多正式的步驟要執行，就只是一間很nice的小店。
綿谷結婚式: 官網連結
Upon entering, we were greeted by multiple employees, all women, that were very enthusiastic but not overwhelming. One of them invited us to sit down and proceeded to show us what they could offer. This entire conversation took place in Chinese with my fiancé translating the parts I needed to know (price, number of photos, dates, number of prints). That was one of the main things I really liked. I was able to get all the key information I needed in one conversation directly without a bunch of run arounds and upsells. They were very honest and transparent about their multiple packages they offered, their prices, and what the process would look like. Perfect for people like me who are mostly disinterested and unable to understand the conversation in the first place.
一走進店裡就有很多職員來跟我們打招呼，清一色的女孩，很熱情但又不會讓人覺得太過頭。其中一位(就是Sunny店長!)請我們坐下沒多久，馬上就很清楚地讓我們知道他們所提供的服務內容。整個溝通過程都是以中文進行，由我未婚妻翻譯我需要知道的資訊，例如價格、照片數量、印刷數量等。而我喜歡這樣簡單明瞭的溝通方式，且一次就能得到所有資訊，過程中完全沒有甚麼推銷、討價還價的過程。綿谷非常實誠，所有包套內容價格都很透明。這樣的方式讓我這種對拍婚紗沒興趣的人，也可以在最短時間內了解所有該知道的細節。
What really stood out to me in that first meeting was the physical product presented to us. In Taiwan, weddings include lots of printed photos to give guests like cards of multiple sizes, a photo book, and a portrait. This isn’t really the case in American weddings, so I wasn’t really familiar with the whole process. We were given boxes of prints to look at in various sizes, shapes, colors, and design schemes. It wasn’t the ability to look at the photos that mattered to me, but the ability to handle the products directly. The photo books, the portraits, the cards, and even the dresses were all made accessible to handle and examine first hand. Though you aren’t aware of it when you first walk in, the office has large stock of wedding and reception dresses and multiple fitting areas on site. Right away I was able to see exactly what I would be getting and for how much. This was the most effective way to sell me on a wedding photography service.
綿谷最吸引我的是實體產品的展示。在台灣，很多人會在婚禮上發送照片小卡、展示相本或大幅輸出的照片，跟在美國很不一樣，所以我並不熟悉這些東西。但是綿谷給我看了很多別人做的小卡、不同的設計、色調等等。我其實沒有很在乎看別人的照片啦，但可以看到摸到成品真的很特別。不僅相本、掛畫、小卡，我們在第一時間還可以看到、摸到、甚至試穿禮服。剛走進去門市真的不會注意到，原來後面還有很大的空間擺放所有禮服和好幾間試衣間。這樣的銷售方式真的很有效率，很對我的口味。(其實根本只是你不懂台灣拍婚紗的必贈小物...)
(現場的樣本卡片)
[開始拍婚紗的旅程]:
For better or for worse, the process of getting wedding photos at Wataya Wedding required several visits. The initial visit, which I’ve already described, the dress trial visit, the photo selection visit, the photo editing visit, and the print pickup visit. This does not include the fact that I also had to go to another location of theirs to try on and select suits and of course the actual day of photo shooting, which included multiple outdoor locations as well as their photo studio, which is a different location from their main office/dress location and their suit location. It’s a very thorough process that takes multiple visits, but not a ridiculous amount of time. They break up the process into multiple visits because it helps you as the customer to organize your thoughts going into each step of the process and keeps you from getting overwhelmed in one sitting. If not for the fact that Neihu is so out of the way, I wouldn’t have minded this process at all, because it really did help us to ultimately get the best outcome for our photos and related products.
拍攝婚紗的過程需要去工作室很多次。第一次的參觀如上所述，其他還包含禮服試穿、挑片、看修、取件等。而且還不包括去合作店家試穿西裝、拍攝日當天去攝影棚甚至外景地點等。整個完整的過程要去工作室很多次，但也沒有很誇張的多，而且其實這樣反而可以幫助客人一步一步完成整個任務，比較不會覺得好像所有事都擠在一起。如果不是因為他們在內湖對我們來說路途稍遠，我完全不會介意要跑這麼多次，更何況最後照片的成品實在讓我非常滿意，並沒有白費甚麼力氣。
The dress trial visit was nice and seemed to make my fiancé really happy. I enjoyed the fact that the Wi-Fi works quite well, because honestly I spent 80% of that visit playing games on my Nintendo Switch, occasionally looking up and snapping a few pictures on my phone to send to my mom. I can’t really think of how that process could have been any better for the groom.
禮服試穿那次經驗也很不錯，至少我未婚妻很開心。我則是很享受店內的wifi。說實在，大概有8成的時間我都在玩電玩啦，只有偶爾抬頭看看、拍一兩張照片分享給我媽看看。對新郎來說這樣的經驗根本超棒的。(簡直就是欠揍啊! 簾子拉開的那一刻只看這男人打電玩玩到欲罷不能! 結果後來每一套禮服都是禮秘牛奶幫忙拍照紀錄的...。)
(首次參觀就試穿禮服)
While the dress location has a coffee bar, the suit location has a proper bar. I didn’t actually drink that day, but I was fairly impressed with their available selection of liquors. The suit trial experience was nice because it was private. The dress trial day/location is buzzing with activity. Multiple couples are there at any given time during the various stages of their wedding photo journey. Even when we went for my fiancé to try on and ultimately choose dresses, she was just one of several brides doing the same thing. The suit trial day was nothing like this. It’s a large studio with multiple settings and a bar but the entire place was empty save for me, my fiancé, and one female attendant. This was ideal for me.
禮服的店內有個咖啡吧檯，而男士西裝店則有個酒吧。雖然我沒喝，但真的滿令人驚艷的! 試穿西裝的經驗也很好，也比較有隱密性。畢竟門市那邊，常常在同時間有好多對新人也在。未婚妻去試穿的時候，同時間也有很多位新娘在試穿。但西裝這邊則是空間很大很舒適，當天也只有我們一對新人去試穿，是非常理想的試穿環境。
(良夫西服試穿照-超專業而且場地風格好棒!)
I don’t like trying on clothes. Especially not suits. The studio was spacious and quiet, allowing me to change and then walk around the entire studio in the suits to actually try them out. There was a large selection of ties and handkerchiefs to go with the many suit and shirt options, allowing me the freedom to really express myself the way I wanted to do for my wedding photos. I got to try on suits that I’d never dream of owning. Overall, it was a very positive experience for me. Or at least that would have been the case if my fiancé wasn’t such a hater. Apparently my style preferences are those of a man from one to two generations ago. The attendant was smart enough to keep siding with my fiancé rather than me, because she could tell who was really in charge. I still hold that three button suits aren’t out though.
我其實不喜歡試穿衣服，尤其討厭正式西裝。但這間工作室既寬敞又安靜，我可以試穿完甚至多走幾步路感覺一下衣服。他們有很多可供選擇的領帶、手巾，去任意搭配任何西裝，我很高興能有這麼多款式可以選，並呈現自己想要的感覺。也可以嘗試我可能一輩子都不會擁有的樣式。總體來說，這次試穿是個很美好的經驗，至少我是這樣覺得啦。畢竟我未婚妻一直很挑剔我的品味，覺得我的品味很過氣。而門市小姐通常站在我未婚妻那一邊，很顯然她知道誰才是做決定的人。不管怎麼樣，我就是喜歡3扣式的老式西裝啦!
Wataya Wedding is good at the upsell because they let the service sell itself. When you choose your package you are tasked with deciding between numerical choices that have no effect on quality. You get the same quality and experience regardless of which package you choose, which is a good thing. The choices that have to be made come down to the question “how many?” How many dresses do you want photos in? How many suits do you want photos in? How many locations do want to shoot in? These are the sorts of decisions you have to make and the only barriers in price. They didn’t try to upsell us with additional services. The service was consistent. What it came down to was seeing ourselves in so many different dresses and suits and wanting to have all those styles preserved. If not for our budget, we would have just kept picking more suits and dresses from their fairly large collection.
綿谷結婚式對推銷真的很在行，我說的是靠高服務品質來推銷他們自己。當你在選擇包套的時候，都只是數量上的差別，完全不影響品質。不管你選擇多組數還是少的，照片內容的品質都一樣的好。你只需要決定: 要幾組照片、要幾套婚紗或西裝、要去哪裡拍攝等等。沒有其他的加價方案，所有服務內容都很一致。試穿那麼多套禮服跟西裝，每一個樣式都讓人好想保留。如果不是因為我們有預算限制，可能會超級失控。
The actual day of photo shooting was a combination of stressful and entertaining. It’s a stressful process. You have a limited amount of time to drive to multiple locations, some of which are not convenient, get your clothing and looks straightened out, take a bunch of pictures, and then rush off to the next location. Wataya Wedding did a great job of handling all of this. They drove us to each location and provided the photographer, make-up and hair stylist, and an assistant on site for the whole day. They were helpful, attentive, experienced, and efficient.
拍攝當天是一個壓力感、娛樂感兩者交互的三溫暖。在時間有限的情況下要跑多的拍攝場景、要保持好看的樣子、又要拍很多照片，真的覺得壓力頗大。但綿谷真的安排得很好!當天有專屬司機、專屬攝影師及造型師和燈光助理，全程跟著我們一起跑，對我們來說很有幫助。工作人員真的很專業、高效率。
(左至右分別是造型師芸芸、攝影師簡爸、燈光阿淳)
The photographer was really good because he was entertaining interested in his craft as conveyed through his subjects, in this case us. Not surprisingly, I don’t really like being photographed. I find the entire process awkward. But he had enough enthusiasm for the three of us. He wanted our photos to look great. He was emotional about it. It was actually very funny how much he cared about our photos. Every little movement, position, and angle we intentional for him. These photos really meant something to him. It made me more interested in being in front of the camera. And in many ways all the staff we worked with had that same enthusiasm about their aspects of the process. From the photo editor to the dress attendant, everyone at Wataya Wedding kind of seems to care more about outcome than even I did, and I was the one paying for the photos.
我覺得攝影師很棒，從他工作態度跟照片可以知道他很在乎(簡爸超棒!)。我是真的沒有很喜歡照像，而且拍照過程通常讓我覺得很詭異(很不自然的意思啦)。但簡爸很有足夠的熱情來感染我們，感覺他真的很想要我們拍出漂亮的照片。攝影師有很多情緒表現，真的滿有趣又好笑的，看出他真的很在乎。(也細心地)調整我們每一個姿勢、角度跟動作。好像這些照片對他來說非常重要一樣，所以我們也開始覺得拍照好像也滿有意思的。從接待人員、試穿助理到美編人員，整個過程中接觸到的員工都好熱情、積極，甚至比我這個花錢購買服務的人還要更在乎成果。
(很容易因為簡爸而不小心笑得太開心! 這張照片是未精修的唷，沒修就已經超過我們的期待很多了，超厲害!)
[沒忍住慾望的就加價改方案了XD]:
The one real upsell they got us with was the photos. But as I said earlier, they don’t upsell you. The service upsells you in and of itself. We picked a package that came with 30 photos. These 30 photos would ultimately be used for our photo album as well as our printed cards and other effects. But the photographer didn’t take just 30 photos. He took 226. And more than 90% of them looked really good. But they weren’t gonna give us all 266 photos for the package we ordered. We were only paying for 30 from that 266, which we had to go through and select by hand. But for an additional fee they would give us all 266 photos in digital form. Needless to say we couldn’t live with losing the other 226 photos because that’s like multiple years’ worth of Instagram posts for my fiancé. So they got us there, but even that additional fee wasn’t too bad.
如果之前所說，綿谷不會亂推銷亂加價，但他們服務真的好到讓你很想自願被推銷。我們就被照片的成品給推銷了!我們一開始是選擇30組的方案，這30張精修照片會被放進相簿中。但攝影師不是只有拍30張，他拍了一共226張。超過9成的照片都超好看!但我們一開始選擇的包套並沒有包含所有的電子檔，只能從226張中選擇30張。後來我們選擇加價購買所有電子檔，畢竟我們不想錯過所有照片，而且未來好幾年我老婆都有IG題材可以po 啦!就這樣多花了一筆錢但是是很值得的。(其實我們後來是補差價換40組方案，含電子檔全拿。)
Choosing the 40 main photos was a terrible experience that was in no way the fault of Watatya. They invited for another visit on a different day and gave us our own computer and a private desk to work on and said we could take as much time as we needed. Fighting with your partner over which photos to print and which to ignore is so much conflict. It’s an hours long process than can get very heated, because all the pictures look great but you can’t agree on which ones you look the greatest in. It took us like two or three hours to narrow it down to just 40. And it would have taken even longer if we hadn’t opted to keep all the digital versions of the photos.
選擇40張精修照片則是惡夢一場，但絕不是綿谷的錯。他們請我們找一天空檔去工作室挑片，現場直接提供電腦還說可以慢慢挑。跟另一半吵要選哪一張不選哪一張才是真正的戰場。這幾個小時的挑片過程真的很激烈，照片都很好看導致我跟未婚妻都無法選出我們最好看的40張。我們大概花了2-3小時才將所有照片篩選到40張，我想如果我沒有花錢買電子檔的話可能會再多花一倍的時間才選得出來吧。
After picking the 40 photos, they sent us home and had us come back another day to do our final editing and selection process. This took another three hours, but it’s not because we were arguing . . . as much. We just had a lot of different things to go over. You have to go through each of the 40 photos and decide if there are any edits you want done to them. Their photo editor is a literal wizard. I work in Photoshop at amateur level and I was stunned by how fast and effective her photo editing skills were. I didn’t really want any edits but my fiancé wanted a bunch of them. Some small and some quite large. But this woman handled all of them quickly and perfectly. Then it was just a matter of deciding which photos and colors to use for our cards, portrait, and other items as well as any special album ideas we wanted implemented.
選完40張後，綿谷跟我們約了另一天再回去看修片。看修大概花了3個小時，但這次不是因為跟另一半吵架…不完全算是，主要是因為有很多東西要完成。首先要檢查40張精修照片還有沒有要調整的地方。美編(Doris)根本就是魔力高強的巫師!!!我自己也滿會使用Photoshop，但綿谷的編輯真的讓我大開眼界，速度又快效率也超好。我個人是不太想要修片啦，但我未婚妻要求一大堆。Doris真的很厲害，每一個要求都修得超完美。除了精修照片，接下來就是也要把小卡片、掛畫、簽名軸等都排版製作好。
My one actual complaint, which my fiancé does not share, is that you can’t change the design layout of the photo album. You can choose the pictures in the album and you can choose which pictures are used for which specialized layout for certain pages. You don’t actually have to choose any of this because they will make those decisions for you based on your 40 if you want them to, but you are welcome to choose everything if you want to take the time. My issue was that I didn’t like the layout of some of the pages. A lot of them are modern design ideas that apparently women really like, but I’m old school. I just wanted an album of 40 solid pages of full sized pictures. I don’t want any white spaces on the page. I’m not into modern art styles. I just wanted a normal looking album layout. You can’t change their design layout in any way. Or at least that’s what my fiancé told me because again, I don’t speak Chinese.
我唯一覺得可以抱怨一下大概就是無法自己為相本內文排版，但我未婚妻不覺這有甚麼好抱怨的。你可以選擇哪幾張照片要跨頁，甚至為幾張特別的照片建議排版的方式。如果你不想花時間也可以不用挑，工作室都會幫你排到好。我的問題是在於我不太喜歡綿谷的排版方式，因為我討厭那種女生們才喜歡的現代風，我就是比較傳統。我想要的相本是每一頁都是滿版照片，我討厭留白 (他除了討厭留白還討厭人物不置中的照片…譬如一張橫幅照的人物如果不是在正中間，他就覺得看了很不舒服)。現代藝術就不是我的style，我只想要一本平凡的”相簿”。綿谷說無法修改排版方式，至少我未婚妻跟我說不可以，但我不會說中文所以不知道是不是真的。(是真的!但明明綿谷那樣排比較時尚，誰想要相簿啊!我要的是一本專業婚紗寫真輯，好嗎?)
Overall, I found Wataya Wedding to provide excellent service for a manageable price. They have a lot of options, several packages, a large wardrobe to choose from, and a really great staff. I do believe that we ultimately made the right choice for our wedding photography needs. Hopefully I won’t ever have to go through this process again, because I don’t plan on getting married a second time, but I would definitely recommend Wataya Wedding to any couples looking for wedding photography services in Taipei.
總體來說，我覺的綿谷結婚式的服務很棒，價格也實惠。有很多選擇和不同包套內容，很多禮服可供挑選，還有很棒的職員們。我們真是選對了工作室，而且完全滿足我們需求。但我還是得說，希望以後不要再重來一次這繁瑣的拍婚紗程序(好累啊)，況且我也不打算結第二次婚 (很好!)。我絕對會推薦台北綿谷結婚式給所有需要婚紗攝影的新人們:D
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