When Brad from Shaking Hands Productions (he’s a fabulous Virginia-based videographer, go have a look!) emailed me with his proposal story, I knew I had to share it with you.  While Brad’s girlfriend Lyndsey was modeling for one of his videos Brad surprised her by proposing and Adam Miller caught the moment on video.   I teared up watching!

My proposal to Lyndsey from Shaking Hands Productions on Vimeo.

Tim Gosnell was on hand to take photos of the proposal - I adore the shocked look on Lyndsey’s face.

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While a good slideshow is always a crowd-pleaser, there are a few new trends that I really love, and one of them we used for our wedding!

A newish service offered by video companies with the right equipment and talent, called Same-Day-Edits, takes the pre-ceremony getting ready footage and the ceremony itself, and quickly cuts them together into a highlight reel of the day to show at dinner.  It’s a great way to share the excitement and prep from earlier in the day, and relive the best moments of the vows, with the guests.  My favorite company who does amazing and moving same-day-edits is Still Motion, out of Canada. Here’s one of my absolute favorites:

Cheryl + Andrew’s SDE - Vancouver from stillmotion on Vimeo.

The adorable Mrs. Eggplant and her hubby made a really sweet music video to show at their reception, just before entering the hall for their grand entrance.  I love how personal and “them” the video is, and it really reflects a lot about their relationship:

Another trend catching speed is the video Love Story, in which the happy couple recounts the early days of their relationship and what has lead them down the aisle after many happy years.  When our videography company (Digital Princess Productions) offered us the opportunity to film a love story, we knew we wanted to shake things up a bit and keep true to our creative, hammy personalities.  So, Hunter whipped up his version of our love story, and together we created The Fresh Hubby of LA.  When we showed this at our reception, the reaction was overwhelming.  The crowd demanded an encore - tears of surprise and delight rolling from their eyes.  It was definitely the last thing anyone expected, but it absolutely set a tone of fun, irreverent and exciting energy that kicked our party off just right!

What other cute slideshow alternatives have you seen at weddings?  Are you doing something unique for yours?

Julie had a great idea for the morning of her wedding to Jeff - she wanted to spend time at her childhood home surrounded by her family and her oldest and dearest friends.  She asked her cinematographer, William from humanstory films, to be there to document the morning and I love the sweet and personal video that is the result.

Naked Opie, Julie Dots … breathless from William Gaff on Vimeo.

How are you spending the morning of your wedding?  Who will you surround yourself with?

There was a time in the wedding planning process that videography was no where on my radar. I didn’t want to spend the money and I didn’t want to be left with a cheesy wedding video of a style circa 1992. You know what I’m talking about. But then, the more I became immersed in my happy wedding blog haven, the more I fell deeply and madly in love with modern wedding cinematography and from that point forward, everything changed for me. A few months ago, I shared my excitement at having stumbled upon the supremely talented Luke Walker and his then fiancée now wife (congrats, guys!) Alisha Clark by way of a series of random coincidences and ultimately booking them for our wedding videography. I can say with confidence that may just be one of the best decisions I made while planning our wedding.

Last Friday, I was stunned into teary-eyed silence when I got to see our wedding video trailer. I immediately shared it with E and as many people as I could. Just two weeks after our wedding, things are already starting to get fuzzy so I’ve been anxiously awaiting photos and our video trailer. What I felt as I watched it was nothing short of glee. It’s amazing how a video (or photos) can catch little moments, looks shared, tears shed and emotions that you’re so busy experiencing you don’t necessarily notice when in the moment.

Without further ado, I’ll let the video speak for itself…

Cyd and Mike [Video Trailer] by Clark Walker Studio

Working with Alisha and Luke has been spectacular. They are both supremely talented and incredibly fun, an absolute true joy to work with and to know. I thank you both with my sincerest and and warmest gratitude. I can’t imagine not having this stunning treasure to remember our wedding.

The wedding videos I’ve seen lately are NOT your grandma’s boring wedding video.  These videos are incredibly creative and so well done.  I am currently working with our videographer, Steve to figure out how we can do this and what song we should use.  These three are my inspiration, and I only PRAY that we can come close to the coolness of these videos.

Check this one out-I love how the couple used the entire wedding party to make it more fun.

Brandon and Jessica - “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” from Toad Productions on Vimeo.

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Justin Fone shared the positively charming video from Maureen and Nathan’s Napa Valley wedding with us.  Maureen and Nathan are from London and held a beautiful destination wedding at the V. Sattui Winery.  The whole event was filmed in Super 8mm film - which is so classic and timeless…

Maureen & Nathan from Justin Fone on Vimeo.

… and paired with this hauntingly beautiful melody - sigh.  Lovely.

E.

PS - Justin is based in SF and LA, but spreads his fabulousness all over the world!

When we first started dreaming about and planning our wedding, sticking to a budget that would allow us to have a fantastic event without draining our savings and that of my parents who are graciously contributing 2/3 of the budget was a priority. With that priority in mind, I put my MBA to the test and started hashing out a rough budget. In the months since that budget has been tweaked, pruned, preened, expanded, cut and slashed in a hundred different ways. From the beginning I knew date, location and photography were my top priorities and things like a designer dress, a fancy cake and elaborate flowers were not, even though I love all of those things as much as the next girl. One thing I never even considered was videography. No way, no how, it just was not going to happen.

Many months into the planning process and I can safely say that videography is the one thing I’ve changed my mind about completely and have not wavered on since. Unfortunately, I still did not know how to make it happen and doubted we’d find room in the budget. Remember E’s amazing same-day edit video by the incredible Simply Cinematic? Or how about the genius that is Mrs. Milkshake’s same-day-edit by Toronto-based Still Motion? These are just two of the beautiful reasons why I’ve been crying myself to sleep every night for the last six months because I knew we wouldn’t be able to work videography into the budget. Ok, so maybe I haven’t exactly been crying myself to sleep, but I have been thinking, hoping, wishing and dreaming. A lot.

If you’re like me you’ll remember the beautiful wedding of Caitlin and Evan {above} featured on EAD last month, shot by the fabulous Luke Walker. As it turns out, Luke and his fiancee, photographer Alisha Clark, have recently opened up shop on a business they now run together, Lillie Studios, the focus of which is primarily incredible cinematic quality videography in the Upstate NY region. You can actually watch a trailer from Caitlin and Evan’s wedding on the Lillie Studios website…I absolutely love how it turned out!

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Brianna from Well Spun Weddings emailed to let us know about their amazing work.  We’re very excited to share their work with you. These three videos speak for themselves.  We love them, and know you will as well.

Well Spun Wedding Films from Jon Gangwer on Vimeo.

Well Spun Wedding Films - Mexico from Jon Gangwer on Vimeo.

Well Spun Wedding Films - 3 from Jon Gangwer on Vimeo.

Our obsession with this genre grows!

Ever wanted to know what it’s like to be a wedding vendor? Well this post is going to be the first of several that show our vow renewal from the perspective of our fabulous vendors.

The Simply Cinematic team created this fabulous clip giving us a little insight into their preparation and the ‘behind the lens’ of creating a same day edit video. It was so fun for us to watch because we saw sneak peeks into a lot of the day that we had not seen before!

Beyond the Lens - Ami & Scott’s Same-Day-Edit Video from Simply Cinematic on Vimeo.

They’ve also blogged about the event from their perspective {here} and will be back on EAD soon to write about the process of weddings from a cinematographer’s viewpoint.  We hope that you’re going to enjoy these articles; seeing and hearing about executing events through the eyes of vendors will give us all a little bit better idea of what we’re up against in this crazy wedding world while trying to make our day go off without a hitch!

E.

I can’t believe that I ever thought I wasn’t having a videographer. I think I was disillusioned by all of the cheesy wedding videos you have seen. You know, where there are flying animated PowerPoint graphic intros and credits. Admit it, you’ve seen these too.

Then we began blogging. And we started the Library. And A. and I began connecting with some absolutely unbelievable cinematographers and seeing beautiful trailers and videos that were so unlike anything before that I couldn’t any longer imagine not having a video of our own to share after the event.

When we first learned of Simply Cinematic through Jessica and Brett’s wedding and Almasy’s blog, I knew we had struck gold. Their style was so perfectly complementary to Jessica Claire’s - it was bright and vivid, slightly edgy, fun, artistic, and unique. You can tell by watching every one of their videos that they pour their heart and soul into their business, and those are the kind of vendors that I honestly love giving my money to. Rainer and I have struck up an amazing friendship through this process and I cannot even begin to thank he and his team for the vast amount of effort and enthusiasm that they put into recording our event.

We walked into Turner Field, they’re there. The hair salon on the morning of our ceremony? Yep, there too. Getting ready for the ceremony - they are in my hotel room right on time, making magic. They captured every moment in a way that was amazing - you almost didn’t even know that they were there.

And then, we all saw this video at the end of the night, played on a big screen…

Ami & Scott - Same-Day-Edit from Simply Cinematic on Vimeo.

… and we shed tears and laughed. And in a moment, every single minute of preparation for this event and every dollar spent was worth it because we have this video (and many many amazing pictures from Jessica, Michael, and Mark and more video to come) to remember it by.

So if any of you all are on the fence about hiring a cinematographer, do it. And I promise this comes from someone who had it nowhere near the top of her priority list. The same day edit was my FAVORITE part of the event (it trumps the first dance by just a hair) and I cannot imagine now not having this to remember everything by. And for any of you who are close to Orlando or have the ability to bring Simply Cinematic to you (Atlanta is close driving distance!), I can’t even begin to say how much I’d recommend them. I’ll be writing a detailed vendor review on the Library shortly, and you can be sure it’s going to be glowing. Rainer and his team are unbelievably great people and supremely talented cinematographers, and you can’t get any better than that.  You guys, they edited this video in just THREE HOURS.

To Rainer, Billy, James, and Lesliejoy, thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping to make our day so special.

E.

Cinematography is something that is so new and fun to me - I’m just discovering all of the amazing talent out there and one of those artists is Library member Kevin Von Qualen.

Kevin was kind enough to share with us the absolutely stunning Aspen wedding of Brooke and Edouard shot in Super 8.

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

Brooke and Edouard were lucky enough to have both Kevin and the unbelievably talented James Christianson record their day.  James’ work is just as fabulous, as evidenced by all the eye candy from this wedding!

Check out more luscious images on James’ blog!

E.

I admit it, I’m a sucker for Super 8. So naturally, I am loving Northernlight Filmworks and their beautiful combination of HD and Super 8 video.

Erica + Paul from Northernlight Filmworks on Vimeo.

They have a FAB blog to stalk, too!

E.