Midnight Magic Videography | Knoxville TN wedding videography at its very best

I have said this in several recent post, and the latest YouTube video to make the rounds is proof of this, traditional weddings are no more.  The weddings of our parents and grandparents are long since gone.  In their day the wedding went something like this;  the bride and groom didn’t see each other the day of the wedding, the bride came down the aisle escorted by her father to the sound of a church organ playing “Here Comes The Bride” with her veil pulled down over her face.  The minster said a few words and the only words the bride and groom said were “I do’.  They walked out of the church to family and friends throwing rice at them as they departed for a small reception in the fellowship hall or banquet facility down the street.  The had a receiving line to greet the guest, cut the cake and maybe had a first dance and that was it.  End of day, they lived happily ever-after.

The funny thing is, those weddings were being done even just a few years ago. Today, however, most brides want a wedding that will be memorable not only for the bride and groom, but for the family and friends attending as well.  That is why most brides today are thinking “outside the box” when they are planning their wedding.  Brides are walking down the aisle escorted by a step-dad, or a brother, I’ve seen mothers escorting their daughters down the aisle.  Brides and grooms are seeing each other BEFORE the ceremony to take pictures. Receptions are like parties with either a band or a DJ playing songs for the guest to dance to. Brides and grooms are starting their first dance to Etta James “At Last” only to break into a dance to “Thriller” or “Baby Got Back”.   And don’t even think about throwing rice at a wedding today, most brides are leaving the reception with guest blowing bubbles, throwing rose petals or if the reception goes into the night, sparklers are popular not to mention very beautiful to see.

An article that appeared in USAToday talks about how weddings today are more about the personality of the bride and groom then they are about tradition.  Go to YouTube and do a simple search about “wedding dance” and you will see 102,000 results for couples that did a special dance on their wedding day.  I had the honor to shoot one of those special dances and let me tell you, not only was it fun to tape, but it was fun to watch.  Not just the couple, but the friends and family as well.  The reaction on their faces was priceless.

I have always felt that the wedding should reflect the personalities of the bride and groom.  Think about it this way, does your car reflect your personality, does you home, how about your clothes, your daily routine?  Does’t every part of your daily life reflect your personality and style?  Your wedding should as well.  If you are a traditional kinda person, than have a traditional wedding, if you are a princess at heart, then have a princess wedding.  Your wedding day should be fun, it should be something that you will remember for years to come, but it should also show your personalities as well.

Next weekend, August 9th, I will be at the Premier Bridal Show at the Knoxville Convention Center.  The show will be from 11am to 4pm, you can go here and get discounted tickets for the show.  If you come to the show, please stop by my booth and say hello.  I will have demo videos for all who would like one.

I have said for a while now that the traditional wedding is no more.  Weddings today can be a fairy tale romance, a quite, somber occasion, or even a lively, almost party event.  But, one thing remains the same at every wedding, the wedding party entrance.  The groomsmen walk up the aisle usually followed by the bridesmaids and then the bride being escorted by her father or someone special in her life.  This is mostly done to some very elegant, or classical music.  Well, that is until today.  I found the following clip on YouTube today and wanted to share it with you:

I think this is just one of the most amazing things I have ever seen at a wedding.  But, it is also a great reason to have a professional videographer.  Think how much better this would have been if it had been shot with two or three camera angles. Using professional grade cameras on tripods, not a shaky hand held shot.  Most of all, do you think the pictures alone will do this entrance justice?   Sometimes, video is the best thing to have at a wedding.

As a wedding videographer, I get some unusual requests such as:

“can you shoot just the ceremony?”
“can the video be shown on the web?”
“can you not get any video of my Aunt May? She doesn’t like to have her picture taken.”

Those are just some of the many request I hear from brides when we are putting together their wedding video.  Any everyone of them I can fulfill without any problem.  I have a “Can Do” attitude about wedding videos.  I will never tell a bride or couple “No, I can’t do that”, as long as it’s ethical and legal, of course.  Now, I’ve been unable to do somethings that have been requested: for example, a couple of weeks ago the groom at a recent wedding asked if I could “live stream” their wedding on the web so some relatives, who could not make the trip, could see the wedding.  I told him I would try to steam if for him.

I did some research, found a good site to host the stream, I even tried it out a couple of times just to make sure it would work. Everything looked great and it looked like it would work great.  That is until the day of the rehearsal.  When I got there and set everything up, we found out we had no internet and no cell service.  I mean no coverage, nothing, zero, not even a little bit of a signal.  I told the groom that I was sorry, but I would not be able to stream the video for him because I couldn’t even use my wireless laptop card.  I think he understood, but I use that as an example of when I say “Can Do”.  I will do everything in my power to make your request happen.

I tell that story to led up to something that happened the other day.  I got a call from a young lady who asked if I could edit her wedding video.  She said a friend shot it for her and wanted to know if I could edit the footage to make it a nice DVD like some of the examples on my website.  I told her I would do what I could and make her the best DVD possible. She gave me two mini-DV tapes and said everything was on those two tapes.  I knew right then that this was not going to be good and was I ever right.

Seems her friend tried to shoot her wedding and all the things that happened before and after.  As I watched the raw footage I knew that there was not much footage that I could use.  He was very shaky,  kept zooming in and out very quickly and you could not hear any of the ceremony. He also stopped shooting the ceremony half way through the service. The reception coverage wasn’t much better.  He missed every single important moment; the first dance, the bouquet toss and the father/daughter dance.  Unfortunately, he didn’t get any of it.  He did get plenty of shots of the party guest hooping it up, drinking a little too much and a lot of yelling and screaming.

After looking at all that footage it made me realize what some brides are getting when they ask a friend or a relative to video their wedding. They are asking someone to capture one of the most important days of their lives who has no idea how to professionally do it.

I’ve said this in a couple of blogs before, you can go to the big box store and get a nice camcorder for a good price, and it will do a good job of getting good video.  Everyone has a digital camera now a days, I’m sure everyone of your friends have one.  Would you want them to do the photography at your wedding?  Of course not, but it amazes me how many brides will trust their video to someone who has a digital camcorder.

A professionally produced video of your wedding is one of the best investments you can make when planning your day.  So many brides think that the video is just a “extra” add on to their wedding and then only if they have money left over. Did you know that not even a hundred years ago, photography was considered an “extra” for weddings?   Only the most elite brides could afford a photographer at their wedding.  And even then they would get one maybe two photographs of their wedding day.  Can you imagine only having one or two pictures of your wedding day?

Today we live in a digital multimedia world.  Todays brides have access and more ways to capture their wedding than ever before.  Most parents of brides today didn’t have the option of having a wedding video made.  Your parents didn’t have a YouTube to post videos so that others could see moments of their wedding day.

I met back up with the bride who gave me the video tapes to edit and I had to tell her that there was nothing I could do that would be any good.  She started to cry and then she told me that the video was her last hope of remembing her wedding day.  She said that a friend of hers told her he would do the photography at her wedding for free as a gift. When she got the pictures, they were not very good and there is not one shot of her and her groom during the service. She had hoped that the video would allow her to remember her wedding.  I felt so bad for her, I really wanted to try and do something for her, but there was nothing I could do.