Weddingbee Blog

… cry while watching someone else’s wedding video. When I started out with this whole wedding planning thing, there were some things I didn’t allow myself to dream about. I spent today’s wedding planning session actively considering one of them: videography.

I grew up looking at my mom’s wedding pictures, and ever since I was little, I always marveled at how beautiful she looked and how young she was. My mom looks great at any age, but she just looked so bridal. It’s amazing! The photos are even more important now since my father passed away.

It sounds far reaching, but often when I think of my wedding I think of how it will look in 30 years, when my husband & I can barely remember trying to choose a dress or a venue or a shade of pink, when our kids are grown and showing these photos to our grandchildren. “Look at those weird clothes!” the kids will say. “Look how young they look!” And we will look at each other and wonder how on earth we were ever so young! And look how naïve we were, taking those vows! So optimistic! So unblemished!

Thinking of my wedding in these terms makes me acutely aware of the moments we’re creating, and how fleeting they are. So of course, I’m in the perfect position to be suckered by a Super8 video.
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Let me first start off by saying that Mr. A and I had no intention of hiring a videographer, that is, until October of 2009 rolled around.

Back in early fall, I fell in love with this video, which I found via Style Me Pretty. (I’ll wait, as I encourage you to watch the entire thing. It’s totes worth it.)

Aspen, Colorado – Super 8 Film from Kevin Von Qualen on Vimeo.

I fell in love with this video. Hard. So much so, in fact, that I shared it with everyone. I went on a mission to find a Super 8 videographer close to town (with no luck).

So, when I took a visit out to Colorado to visit to see one of my best friends (and bridesmaid) back in mid-October, I showed her the video.

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Growing up, my dad had a side business in addition to his normal 9-5 job: he was a wedding videographer. This was back in the ’90s when the whole concept was pretty nebulous and not nearly refined as it can be today. A standard video of his contained a photo montage of the couple at the beginning with the tear-inducing growing up pictures, then the bride and groom getting ready, ceremony, after-ceremony portraits, and reception highlights. These were not 10 minute video affairs. Oh heavens no.

I saw too many wedding videos. And montages. Enough to perhaps make me not want a video of my own wedding.

I should mention another “perk” of having this kind of dad is the sheer volume of videos featuring me. Maybe that scarred me, because I hate-hate-hate watching myself on video. I’m just generally humiliated by the process of watching.
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So let me start by saying that I am biased. My background is in video production, I am deeply moved by movies and I know what makes a good “shot”. I can’t imagine not having decided to have a videographer capture our wedding. I am not here to convince anyone to spend extra money but I do want anyone that is considering spending a ton of money on flowers, invitations, programs or alcohol to really consider hiring a videographer. It is one of the best decisions that we made.

There are few things that go in to choosing a videographer:

1. You don’t want someone that is going to cramp your style. You need them to fit in, get your vibe, get your relationship, understand what you want and be open minded.

2. You have to look at their work. Get examples, get reviews, get testimonials and really understand what their forte is. Do they love telling a story? Are they big on detail shots? Are they modern? Are they traditional?
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Suffice it to say, I have a new-found respect for film directors.

Anxious to test out my newly-minted 7 scene script, I wrote out a list of “audience questions” to interview my family with at Thanksgiving dinner.

My brother and Mr. Sew’s brother (who flew in from LA for a few days) helped set up the stage—just a blank wall with a chair on one side and a random painting on the other (off-center composition). We set up the camcorder on a tripod, and went to grab our first interview.

The first surprise of the night - not everyone has seen/heard of “The Office”.

(source)

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After being silent for a while, I promise I am going to finish recapping the wedding soon. In the meantime, I am sharing our wedding video that just arrived from the amazing Focal Point Cinematic, so hopefully you will forgive my silence!

Alan & Carolyn :: Highlights from FocalPoint Cinematic Weddings on Vimeo.

It is more than I could have ever expected! We love it.

Hi! Let me introduce myself. My name is Mrs. Bear Cub, and once upon a time, I blogged (relatively) consistently for this super-rad wedding site called Weddingbee.

No me recuerdes??

It’s OK, I’ll catch you up! I live in Chile (Ms. Poodle’s home country!) with Mr. Bear Cub. We met in New Mexico, got engaged in Thailand, and decided to marry in Mr. Bear Cub’s home state of Oregon, at a summer camp. I had some crazy DIY plans along the way. And an even crazier plan to run a marathon with Mr. Bear Cub a week after our wedding!

How did it all pan out? It was crazy, wild, emotional, torrentuous, healing, but most importantly, perfect in every way for us. And although our wedding day was certainly and undeniably one of the happiest moments of my life, I’m very glad it’s over. It’s just a day, and now we get to cherish our memories, while building our future together.

Before I jump into the recaps, I have a little slideshow to show you that one of our wedding photographers made for us. I almost (almost) don’t need any other token from our wedding; this selection of images completely encompasses the feeling of our wedding weekend - community.
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Well, hopefully Mr. Rainbow and I would be played be Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt:

source

I often joke that we’re the broke man’s Brad & Angie; a misunderstood brunette with a heart of gold, and a blonde haired, blue eyed fox with an adventurous streak, minus the mansions, millions of dollars, and 84 kids. And uhm, they have chemistry for days, but that’s beside the point.

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To say that nothing went “wrong” at our wedding would be an understatement.

We ran out of appetizers 15 minutes into our cocktail hour. Storm clouds swelled throughout the day forcing our ceremony from an expansive meadow into a cozy barn. The photo booth backdrop didn’t end up being quite enough fabric to encompass a large group of guests. Our band played for longer than planned (score!) but that meant we had to skip our end-of-the-night dance party playlist which I’d been looking forward to. The bluegrass songs I picked for our band breaks brought the dancing to a halt every time the band took a break; I could never figure out which songs would keep the energy high between live sets. You can’t go from fiddle and washboard to Jay-Z, right?

But calling everything above a “wedding failure” depends on your perspective and mindset. According to me? Nothing went wrong at our wedding. And that’s because I didn’t have a strong definition of the word “right”. Here’s a teaser of our wedding video, made by my brother, to give you an idea of how it all played out (note: you can make it full-screen):

I knew that our wedding was going to be what it was going to be no matter what.
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Holy New Year Wedding Madness, Batman! It’s the day before my wedding. The only things I need to do today are get my nails done and attend the rehearsal/dinner. Last week, I was dreading the whole ordeal. I was convinced that I had created the Frankenstein of weddings and that it had turned against me. I was sick and tired of anything wedding related. On Monday morning, the stressful haze began to clear. I woke up and smiled because I knew that I would be seeing my woolly counterpart (after a 21 day hiatus filled with finals and holiday travel). On Tuesday, we completed our 4th move of the year together (2 for him and 2 for me). On Wednesday, we transferred all the wedding items to my planner, Ms. P. Yesterday, we rang in the new year with members of our wedding party at the Bier Garden. Good beer + good German food = good times had by all.

Today, I woke up and smiled again. The joy that everyone had predicted would ensue after last week’s shenanigans has filled my soul. My wedding week mantra has been, “At the end of the aisle, our marriage begins.” I’m ready to enter into the mysterious relationship of joining two into one. Today, I’m excited. And happy. And at peace.

I’m going to try to refrain from yearbook-esque exclamations (Can you believe it? What a ride! You’re the best!) and instead leave you with a little wedding day treat.
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I would be remiss if I didn’t share my own experience with one of our own Weddingbee PROs—the team at StillMotion!

One of my very best friends (the one we threw the citrus shower for) married this year. We were roommates in our sorority, then in Westwood, then in Santa Monica, and finally were the two of our small group of friends to move to the Bay Area. When she and her husband finally got engaged, our conversation went like this:

Robin: We’re engaged!

Pengy: Congratulations! Have you heard of StillMotion?

Much like anyone that stumbles upon StillMotion, after combing their blog, she had a hard time believing that any other wedding cinematography would ever be good enough for her wedding. I knew if I could get any of my friends to call in the superteam from Canada, it would be Robin. Heh. Heh. Heh. My evil plan worked, and she did indeed hire them, and I had the pleasure of meeting Patrick and his traveling team this weekend in Northern California and witnessing their genius in action. I tried to prepare my table-mates by letting them know that there is a distinct possibility that they might poop their pants after witnessing what they were about to witness. After they showcased the Same Day Edit of the wedding at the end of the night, the groom jumped out of his seat and yelled,

“THAT WAS F***ING AWESOME!”
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It seems like a pretty common thing. When wedding planning starts, it seems like the first thing that many modern brides do is book an excellent photographer that is out of their budget. After all, the photos are the only part of the wedding day that will survive for years to come. The bride-to-be calmly rationalizes the added expense to her fiance, mother, and anyone who will listen: “We will just scrimp on the videography… or better yet, have a friend tape the wedding.”

Of course, I was no different. And, like most naive brides, I forgot about my plan to save money on videography and started daydreaming about our day being captured by the likes of Still Motion (they are fellow Canadians, after all). I just couldn’t bring myself to trust an uncle or a college roommate with something that I’ll likely use to relive the day when the Post Wedding Trauma hits. However, considering that Still Motion’s commissions range from about 1/4th - 3/4ths of our budget, I knew that there was no amount of rationalizing that could get Mr. Pudding to agree to hire them.

Thus I began my search for a great videographer that would fit into our measly budget.
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I am so excited to write this post, and for the last several months I didn’t know if this post was possible. You see, I fell in love with videography, and more specifically, Super 8 videography. But with our surmounting wedding costs, I was worried that it was something that we just couldn’t incorporate into the budget.

However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I just had to make it happen. The moments that I will share with my family, friends, and Mr. Fro Yo that day need to be captured, and with more than just photography. Also, I’ve heard so often that people really regret not having video of their wedding. I can already imagine us watching it with our kids years down the road and reliving all those wonderful memories.

Enter Vanessa McKellar. Now, this girl is talented. I watched her videos and cried. I don’t even know these people, and I cried. I’m serious. Plus, she is so sweet and wonderful to work with. And best of all? She posted about Weddingbee and how awesome it is!

So, are you ready to see one of my favorite videos?

Erika & Phil in Super 8 from Vanessa McKellar Productions.com on Vimeo.
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In my last video post, I introduced you to our lovely videographer, Wilson Fontaine. One of the cool things that Wilson does is incorporate more casual, pre-wedding footage with the wedding day events to create a complete story. With that in mind, Mr. Hammy and I met Wilson in Central Park to get some casual footage.

Mr. Hamster and I wore the same outfits we selected for our engagement photo shoot, because we liked them so much (or rather, we didn’t want to go through the ordeal of picking out new outfits!). We met at the fountain outside the Plaza hotel and then headed into the park.

It was a sunny, weekend morning, and it was still pretty quiet. We first started out by one of Wilson’s favorite hidden-tree spots:

Source

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While I was at Bridal Market this year, Mrs. Bee introduced me to a really neat concept that we wanted to share with the hive: video that can be displayed in print material, like in your wedding album. The technology, called My Video My Voice, is essentially a video screen so thin that can be incorporated into pretty much any print material you can think of.

You can load up to 45 minutes of video material and break it up into 5 chapters, and it can be all recharged via your computer. So, you can combine the best of both worlds—photography and videography—in one place!
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