Casual and Candid: This LDR Couple’s Hip Engagement Shoot Looked so Fun!

It took Mark and Trina seven challenging years to get to this point. They had to navigate their way through five years of a long distance relationship, trying their best to keep the love alive given the distance and time difference. But finally, their best efforts are paying off! They’re getting married on their 7th anniversary on the 7th month of this year. Ah, their joy is through the roof and you can see it clearly through this set! Both of them are easy-going and fun–far from being the romantic and serious type–and who they are as a couple was captured beautifully by the lenses of CAD Films. Scroll down to see more of this fun and candid engagement session in Hong Kong.

1. Congrats on your engagement! Can you share with us your love story?
“We attended the same school when we were in high school. We were formally introduced in college by our common friends. Year 2012, a talkative artist met this shy I.T. guy that eventually transformed into someone who’s fun to be with. We clicked and discovered that we have similar interests especially in fashion, music, food and travel. We’ve been together as a couple for seven years now—two years of being together in the Philippines and five years of being in a long-distance relationship. Mark is living in Alaska since 2014. Communicating and expressing our love virtually is really hard. Our trust and patience we’re tested in this situation. It was a challenge for us but it didn’t stop us from loving each other. We tried to make it work despite of the distance and time differences. As a result, every minute that we spend together becomes more special, and we start valuing the littlest things that we normally do. Every year we promised that we’ll see each other at least once. Some say it’s sad, but for us, the best part of any long distance relationship is that giddy feeling you get when you finally see your partner after months or even years. Who could’ve thought we will survive this. We learned to become more motivated to reach our long-term goals. Now, we’re getting married on our 7th anniversary on the 7th month of this year.”

2. What’s the story behind your engagement shoot theme?
“We are not really the romantic and serious type of couple. We’re both easy going and like to have fun with each other. We decided to create something that would represent us as a couple and at the same time something that is unique and outside the mainstream pre-wedding film. Actually all the scenes are candid and that’s exactly who we really are. We chose the music where we imagined we’re in it. The concept of the music video is just two people enjoying the company of each other.”

3. What was your experience like in shooting your engagement?
“It was a very lighthearted mood all throughout our prenup shoot. We were just having fun and living every moment together. The vibe was right and everything was just natural.”

4. How did you choose your team for this shoot?
The creative team behind this beautiful art is composed of young individuals. We wanted something fresh and less expensive. Since we’re resourceful and we’re hands on in preparing this shoot, we, as a couple, did the styling of our clothes which we normally do. Then I did my own make up and had my hair done in the Philippines before flying to Hong Kong. The person behind CAD Films is April Duran which happens to be our schoolmate back in high school. We’ve seen a lot of her works especially her travel and visual content that are perfect for the concept we envisioned. These gave us the go signal to get her as our official videographer and photographer for our pre-wedding shoot. And guess what? she did the shooting of the video and photos all by herself.”