Marianne & Michael's Wedding Video Edit

You never know what a new connection will bring you.  I start with this because this is how I came to edit the video for Michael & Marianne’s wedding video.  I reached out to Steve Kang, a Facebook acquaintance that I knew from some photography groups we’re both a part of.  I asked him to lunch because it seemed like we were bidding on the same types of jobs and I asked him if there’s anything he’d like to collaborate on.  Turns out, he needed some help with an edit on a wedding he shot and had been sitting for a while.  We agreed that I’d do the edit in trade for him helping me with some production work (blog post and details coming soon).

Like so many things, it just wasn’t that simple.  Most would “Yada, yada” over the best part and say, “Everything went great, the edit was easy, and nothing went wrong along the way”.  If you want that version, skip to the last couple sentences.  As you can guess, that wasn’t my experience.  To start, I had already been behind on some other projects so I didn’t even look at this material until a week after I had the files.  Shortly after I started the edit another job came up (which is what Steve helped me with) and now I’m behind by two jobs.  Oh boy.  Its a nice problem to have but I hate the feeling of the ball being in my court and owing someone.  I want it done so I can move onto the next thing.

Meanwhile, I’ve been working on changing my technical workflow in my business. Painful to go through with the promise of better organization in the future.  While I was hard at work on the edit of the wedding, my editing hard drive failed.  Yikes!  Not. Happy.

I look up places locally to recover data and found one not too far from the house.  Fortunately, they were able to recover all the data off the drive.  I, of course, had a back-up of all the data on that drive except for the wedding edit.  I got the data back and now have a back-up of everything and also have a nice video to share of Marianne & Michael’s wedding.  I’ve posted a small portion of the edit here since the full version is about 30 minutes long.  Enjoy!

Marian & Antwan's Wedding

As a follow-up to my previous post for the wedding of Marian & Antwan I wanted to put together an album layout from the images captured as a second shooter.  It doesn't give you the entire flow since my role is to help the primary shooter get what he needs.  There were however, a few opportunities for me to capture images and what I'm posting here is a result of those moments.  I picked out a few of my favorites to give you a sense of how I experienced the event from start to end.
 
I arrived in the morning with the task of shooting the groom getting ready.  Uh, didn't work out exactly because they were already ready!  Hmm...go with it, right?  So, we shot a variety of shots with the guys in the house where they were getting ready.  There was a really cute little boy that I wanted to feature.  The image below is the result.  I also shot some reflection off the party bus as the guys were waiting to jump in.  Kind of different.

Guys prep

This was a Egyptian couple and the church had some interesting detail.  By the way, I was really thrown when people were chanting in the ceremony.  Everyone has their traditions and it's interesting to be an outside observer.  Just wish I had some audio to share with you to give you a sense of how it sounded.

Church Detail

Bride & Bridal Party

Since the priest was running a few minutes late, I was lucky enough to get a few minutes with the bride to shoot a couple images.  She was beaming on her special day and is as nice in person as she appears to be in pictures.

Bridal PartyCeremony

A couple shots of the bridal party and a quick capture of the bride and groom during the ceremony.

Just Married

This shot of Marian & Antwan just after they exited the church is one of my favorites.

Reception Details

First Dance

Finally, a few of the first dance as bride and groom and the dance with their parents.  Congrats guys!  This was the first time I worked with Mike and his crew, and they were such a nice bunch of guys.  Two were shooting video and we all had fun working this event.  I'd love to work with them again.