Weddingbee Blog

…especially now that we have a super-awesome videographer…eh, hmm, I mean cinematographer. We kinda sorta may have about tripled what we had budgeted for this super-awesome cinematographer, but I cannot even begin to explain how excited I am about having him at our wedding! This is another area that initially Mr. B and I were in major disagreement on. He didn’t think we really even needed a videographer to begin with, so you can imagine his shock and resistance when I told him the one that I was in love with was triple what we had budgeted. It took some convincing, let me tell you…but he slowly started to come around when I showed him how awesome it would be to have a video like the one below to show our friends and family at our at-home reception:

Alexis + Fred Highlights from Rising Moon on Vimeo

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As I mentioned earlier, Sister Lioness coined the phrase “BBC” (a polite name for some people…better cry) to describe her goals for her rehearsal dinner slideshow. What she meant by this was that she really wanted her slideshow to tug at our guests’ heartstrings. She spent months collecting baby pictures from parents, deciding on music, and playing on iMovie. When we saw the final result, there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

Fortunately, Sister Lioness decided to post this slideshow on YouTube…so you get to watch it too! As long as you promise not to laugh at how nerdy I was as a kid. Promise? Well, okay…

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From the Baconator’s days as a green aproned coffee superstar, we’ve made a few awesome friends that are in art school for things like photography and video editing. We initially wanted one of them to do our photography, but eventually decided that we didn’t want an untrained hand taking the wedding pics since he wouldn’t know which shots he really had to get. Instead, we talked to him about filming the big day since we knew that he’d be awesome at editing the footage and it would be easy for him to film the wedding milestones: ceremony, speeches and first dances. Besides, we were on the fence about professional videography, anyway, so this was really win-win. One big problem: he didn’t have an HD camera, and neither did we.

We remembered that our DOC mentioned that they gave the groomsmen flip video cameras as gifts and got great footage that they just had edited together into a wedding video. Great! We could do the same thing, but with 5 selected guests and get all the cameras back at the end of the night. But where do we get enough little video cameras at a cheap price to distribute to some trusted guests without breaking the bank? Enter Black Friday. We sat around on Thanksgiving combing through the newspaper ads looking for deals and spotted video cameras on sale for 50% off during doorbusters at Staples, of all places. With turkey filled bellies, we all went to bed early and were on our way to the mall by 6 AM. By 7:30 AM, we were the happy owners of 5 half-priced video cameras! With the cameras in our possession, we were in a great spot and were excited to talk to our friend about editing.

Sadly, we found out around the holidays that he is going to be leaving Chicago before the wedding and could no longer commit to taking care of our wedding video. It was on to plan B:
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If I were to go back and do one thing differently I would have taken some ginseng and maybe have done a Soduku puzzle or two. Yeah, there’s just so much going on during your wedding day that you can’t possibly remember everything. It’s really fricken frustrating. This is why I’m telling you right now that your wedding video is worth its weight in gold. Seriously, I was originally going to hire a student and have a friendor edit it. If you can work it in your budget, please do yourself a solid and hire a videographer. You will not be disappointed.

I haven’t received my pro pictures yet. (I’m dying over here!!! I need to have a little more patience; I know they’re going to be unbelievably amazing.) However, I did get the video back last week. I’ve been holding this recap in my back pocket. I watch it to make me smile, I watch it to wake me up in the morning, I watch it to put me to sleep at night. Zeb shows it to everyone who walks in the house. We love it—couldn’t be more happy with it. It gives an absolutely accurate portrayal of the day in 3.5 minutes. Who could ask for anything more? Once you see it, I think you’ll know why my recaps are named “Raise Your Glass.”
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When we first started wedding planning, we set up a budget according to our priorities. The first priority, of course, was food. We set aside a little for flowers, a little for music, and a little for more food, err, cake. After my cousin’s wedding, I fell in love with her videographer’s highlights reel and decided to add another priority: documentation. Fortunately, our good friend is a very talented photographer, so we were able to use our “friend discount” to hire him at an affordable rate. Then, we shifted some things around in our lower priorities to make room for videography.

Our videographers, Three Ring Media, became some of our favorite vendors instantly. They not only saw my vision for a vintage and whimsical wedding, they took it to the next level, adding their own touches of creativity. We had a ball when we filmed our pre-wedding interviews with them, and we were eager to work with them on the big day.

They did not disappoint.
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When we first defined our wedding budget, Mr. Caro and I did not even discuss the option of having a videographer as we didn’t think we’d need one.

Once I realized how common it is to have a professional wedding video, I started wondering if we should consider it as well—but I quickly changed my mind. I found all the videos I saw too cheesy, too cool/fake, or too amateurish. It just didn’t seem to be our thing, so we opted to spend more on photography instead and I was quite content with the decision.

That is, until I saw this video from Winston Tao. This video succeeded where all others had failed: it moved me to tears. Even Mr. Caro got emotional watching it! You should also check it out; I am sure it will brighten your day.

Dennis & Patricia (Wedding Trailer) from Winston Tao on Vimeo.

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In the beginning of wedding planning, videography was not in the forefront of my mind. I thought it was silly to spend money on a grainy, shaky home video that Uncle Bob could have taken for free.

But everything changed one day once I saw Mr. Biscuit’s cousin’s wedding video. I am not an emotional person, but this video brought me to tears. Seriously, I was sitting at my computer blubbering like an idiot.

How could a simple video cause such passionate pathos? Here, just check it out yourself:
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Zeb’s cousin has a super fancy job with CNN. She’s pretty stinkin’ amazing—as you are about to see (unless you are at work and unable to watch videos–in that case, sorry!). It is tradition in Zeb’s family to make a video slide show at graduations and weddings. I’ve got a VHS from my high school graduation but the tradition even dates back to Danny Tanner recording devices and pictures taped to an easel.

We had our bachelor/bachelorette parties this past weekend and unfortunately Zeb’s cousin couldn’t make the trip up from Atlanta. Instead, she gifted us with this gorgeous preview of our wedding slide show. She’s absolutely incredible and her apartment smells like rich mahogany and many leather bound books. Just kidding, I’ve never been to Atlanta but if I had to guess, I’m sure her apartment would smell like sauce…awesome sauce.

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Here we are, continuing with the reject pile! To briefly recap, these are the ideas that didn’t end up making it into our wedding. This last one is a biggie and deserves its own post.

#6 Videography

My favorite part of modern weddings is videography. It was #2 on the list of must haves next to completely, utterly, kick butt photography. I thought that our biggest hurdle was budget, so I scoured the Weddingbee Vendor Reviews to find local companies (to save on traveling/lodging fees) that also did great work.

But Mr. Crepe was a film major and just didn’t feel that we should pay someone $Xk amount to cut together a film he felt that he could do himself. I wasn’t thrilled with this choice at first—I trust his editing skills completely but I’m worried that it would be too big of a project for him to finish within a reasonable amount of time. Why not outsource this to someone who did this for a living? I had found one company whose work I loved and they were located in Nashville, so that was perfect:
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Just a few short weeks after I was engaged my step mom came to me and said, “make sure you get a videographer!” At the time, I was so hung up on finding a venue, a dress, and making sure we had a planner, I forgot all about her advice.

It didn’t dawn on me that we didn’t have a videography until most of our budget was gone.

#shit

I’m not going to lie. I got pretty upset. I felt like all of our hard work choosing other vendors would go to waste if we didn’t have someone there to capture the day on film. I talked with Mr. B about it and looked over our budget dozens of time trying to make room for the impossible. Meanwhile, I was torturing myself with videos like this one.
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What that title should really say is how married life, and well, life in general, can sweep you off of your feet and take over. Since the wedding, we have been non-stop. Settling in, working more than ever, graduate school. It is amazing that nearly five months of marriage can go by, and it still feels like you got married yesterday. Where, oh where did that time go?

So, while I gather my thoughts, and work up the nerve and emotion to recap the remainder of my planning, our wedding, and honeymoon, here is a sneak peek of our wedding day as captured by our fabulous videographer, Kevin Von Qualen. Not only did he work his magic putting together one beautiful video, he so kindly put together a second highlight the joys of our reception.

Wedding:

St. Louis, Missouri - Super 8 Wedding Film from Kevin Von Qualen on Vimeo.
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So some time ago, I lamented the lack of videography in our budget. And while some folks are having (or had) no video at their weddings, the majority vote is still for having it. Either you had it and you’re so happy you did, or you didn’t and it’s one of your biggest regrets. And those videos…they haunted me. I became determined.

Then I found an inexpensive videographer through the hive and tried hooking up with them. Alas, this was not meant to be. The vendor never returned my inquiries, and I got frustrated all over again.

One night, I actually snapped. I had come too far to just give up, and there simply had to be a solution somewhere. I scoured the internet high and low for a while. And then I found this.

Nick & Erin Preview from christina keane on Vimeo.

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So, a while ago the hive convinced me that videography is pretty important most of the time. And then, through the hive, I discovered a videographer whose style is perfect and who was in my price range! I was sure it was serendipity. Well, and the awesomosity of Weddingbee.

As you can see, I was excited. Ecstatic, even. But I had one more hurdle to go. (Or so I thought.) I had to get Mr. Lox to buy into videography, quite literally. One weekend as we were setting off to go somewhere in the car together, I carefully brought it up to him. I tried to be neutral and honestly see where he is on the issue because I truly didn’t want him to feel bullied or pushed into this. He listened and turned to me at the next red light. And asked how much.

I’m sure there were a lot of things I thought he might say here…“You want to spend more money???” or “Will you drop this already?” But instead he said, “How much will it cost?”

OK, so this could still lead somewhere bad. So I quoted him the price from the vendor the hive sent me. He shrugged and told me sure, book them. He thought I was going to quote a much higher number. The price was fine. Go for it. I was surprised. When we got home I gave him another chance to change his mind when I asked if he wanted to see an example. He was game, so I showed him another couple’s video. He liked it! I was getting my videographer!
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Sometimes, you find a vendor that you just click with. They get you, they get what you’re about as a couple, and they get what your wedding is about. I’ve felt that way about my florist for a while now, and I decided recently that I also feel this way about our videographer.

Our videographer creates “love stories” out of their wedding videos. They try to learn as much as they can about the couple so that their wedding video really captures their personalities. They accomplish this by interviewing couples a couple of months before their wedding. This provides footage of the couple talking about their relationship and their future, but it also gives the videographers the opportunity to get to know their clients’ style.

Our videographers recently contacted us to schedule such an interview. They told us to choose a location that represented us well. The baseball fans that we are, we immediately thought of Turner Field.

With Sister Lioness at the ballpark…and we’re all wearing Polo…weird.

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