A couple of weeks before Marquita and Marcus's wedding, we were in Montgomery for another wedding. We drove by this really cool looking place with these great fountains, and I thought it would be a great place for a wedding reception with amazing photos! Fast forward a couple of weeks and it is time for Marquita & Marcus's big day and where do we arrive for their reception - the Alabama Activity Center! The same place that I had commented on just two weeks before!
Not only was it our first time at this venue, but it was also our first time to work with Meghan Cease, of M. Elizabeth Weddings & Events. She did a fabulous job throughout the very emotional ceremony and the fun reception!
With Jessica Messer by our side, we were able to get amazing footage of our couple in front of gorgeous fountains! We love working with Jessica - she is so much fun and talented! The bride and groom patiently smiled for countless photos (and video); we just couldn't get enough. Marquita is just beautiful and is was so easy to just keep filming! BTW, Marcus was pretty cute too!
They both have such supportive families that I just know that they are going to have a happy and fun life together. And with as many wishes for babies as we captured on film that night, I see a beautiful family in their future!
A couple of weeks ago we were honored to be a part of the wedding of a great couple and their families. Stephanie and Steven were married at Double Oak Community Church under the direction of Beverly Andrews with Engaging Celebrations. It was actually Beverly's home church, so her husband, Jim, was running the sound and light board. I do have a special thanks to him for upping the lighting just a bit for a light greedy videographer!!! Hee Hee.
After the very romantic ceremony, we all traveled over to LincPoint. This was our first time working at this venue! After 7 years, we don't get to work at new venues often, so it was so much fun! Andy Tolar, Design Productions, had transformed this area into a beautiful masterpiece. It was amazing! Geoff, with Jamm Entertainment provided the entertainment for the evening and kept everyone dancing!
If you are a follower of our blog, then you know that I LOVE to post sneak peak clips for our couples. Normally, I will post fun dancing or a small edited portion of the couple's 1st sighting on the blog, this time I decided to post getting ready footage. I didn't include all of the details from this couple's day in this edit (ie. wearing funny glasses with a mustache that moves up and down so that the her dad wouldn't cry when he saw her in her dress). One of my favorite clips is the expression on the bride's sister's face after putting on the veil. How neat it must be to have a sister!
The minute that I spoke to Mrs. Pettus, I felt that I was part of their family. She was just so warm, even on the phone. When I drove down to meet she and her BEAUTIFUL daughter, Lauren, I knew it was a customer relationship that was going to last. BTW, I know where Lauren gets her looks!! Trey is a lucky man!
The wedding was to take place in a very old and beautiful church in downtown Montgomery. The First Baptist Church was established in the 1800s (I believe). It was an amazing cathedral-looking church with so many little details everywhere.
The bride looked fabulous in her new gown from Bella Couture. Both the mom of the bride and mom of the groom didn’t look half bad themselves! (I see beautiful grandbabies in their future)
We had worked with Arden Photography several times so it was fun to be able to work with her again. She is very talented and her pictures always come out great!
It was a beautiful ceremony! Elegant, classic, romantic. I am not sure that the Pettus family realized so many people were going to be in attendance. It was standing room only in the balcony too! We did a 4 camera setup for the ceremony. We were lucky that the kneeling bench had a little tiny cubbyhole for our camera to be placed so that we could get an amazing shot of the bride walking down the aisle with her father. As videographers, we don’t like to move during the ceremony, but getting that shot can be tricky, especially in a church. BUT WE GOT IT! That might have been my favorite part of the day.
After the ceremony, we went to the new venue in Montgomery, Alley Station. I think we were the 3rd wedding reception since they opened. It still smelled like new paint. It might be my new favorite reception location. It had wonderful light (even around the band), several floors so if you didn’t want to hear the band, you could be on another floor, and very hip décor. There was a rooftop area where we were able to get some incredible shots.
The amazing day had to come to an end. I might have even caught Lauren yawning right before the reception ended! After a unique sendoff, Lauren and Trey left for the evening to go to their new home. And then onto the honeymoon on Sunday! We wish the newlyweds all the best in life and love!
We arrived that morning to begin getting ready coverage for the bride and groom. Doing all day coverage is our favorite – sure we are tired because it is a long day of shooting, but we love to be able to be with the family and capture everything that happens on the wedding day. And my favorite is capturing when the bride and groom 1st see each other that day!!! Priceless!
During the midst of our crazy, busy week, we were able to capture Lacey and Tyler on their wedding day! After a full house ceremony at Riverchase UMC, the wedding guests made their way to The Club for dinner, drinks, and dancing!
We had a couple of connections to the bride and her family – 1) John knew the bride’s parents from Spain Park High School where they both were involved in the Football Coaches Show and 2) Lacey’s matron of honor was a former MSP bride! We love to see familiar faces! (Although it was probably 3 hours into the evening before things slowed down enough that I was even able to say hello to Natalie)
It had been a few years since we had been given the opportunity to work with Marsha Perry Photography. We were excited to see her in action (instead of just at vendor meetings)! All of us spent the evening chasing down the bride and groom and their guests - making sure that we were capturing just the right moments.
The band did a great job of keeping everyone on the dance floor. It was a party like no other! Below is a small highlight clip that we provided to the bride and groom as their sneak peak!
Lawd what a week!
It's been a long time since i was so tired and so pumped at the same time.
It started as early as Tuesday, when we produced a new promo for Alene Gamel. We love Alene. Her events always go off without a hitch and everyone has a great time. But Tuesday was a long night, I stayed up way late burning and printing DVDs.
Thursday, Angela appeared on ABC 33/40 morning program "Talk of Alabama" here in Birmingham. She was nervous and attempted on several occasions to convince me to go in her place. In the midst of this, Will comes down with an ear infection and strep throat - one thing for sure when the Deaver boys get sick, we go all out.
We knew looking forward that we had:
1. to print and burn 300 DVD's
2. a photo/video shoot with the ladies From "The Perfect Wedding Guide"
3. a wedding Saturday night
4. an overnight edit to for the PWG photo shoot.
5. a very large and important bridal show on sunday at the Wynfrey.
So Friday was our last day to batten down the hatches and prepare for the 48 hours of run and gun on the fly, production. First on the list for friday…..Replace the starter in the van. I haven't worked on a car in a while, and I do like to tinker but it's hard not to look at a busy weekend and think "a broken down van is like the last thing i need" so anticipating the starters eminent failure (been giving us problems for a month), I found a replacement and spent an hour getting dirty.
Starter replaced, I ripped out the back seat and started loading up. Meanwhile, Angela printed and burned and packaged tons of demo DVDs, all while taking care of Will who is not feeling well and wants to make sure everyone knows it.
We called in Will's grandparents for some child care duties and Chris Carr one of our top shooters for the wedding on Saturday.
The Photo Shoot was fun. The folks at Omni Studios ( www.omnistudio.net ) were in charge of the shoot itself and were super cool to work with. Melissa Rycroft of reality TV fame was in town for the PWG Bridal expo and this photo shoot. We wrapped the photo shoot and headed off to the Wynfrey. We had anticipated the crazy turnaround on this project and decided to just stay at the Wynfrey to save driving time. We had just enough time to throw our stuff on the ground and get my laptop processing the footage from the shoot. We left there and went straight to the church where we started setting up for the wedding. Look for more details of the wedding in the coming week as we post a sneak peek.
I left Angela and Chris at The Club and headed back over to the hotel to get some editing done. Angela and Chris wrapped their shoot around 11:30 and she walked into the hotel room around midnight. Around 2:00 AM i started making stupid mistakes in the editing and decided to finish up in the morning.
6:00 came very early, very very early. Coffee in hand I started back editing. On the one hand i hate deadlines, on the other I am very motivated by them. The edit came together as the clock counted down to noon. Meanwhile Angela and Kerri set up our booth in the Ballroom and got ready to meet with brides. With the PWG video finally in the can we packed up and moved out of the room and down to the show floor. With help from Carlos from Total Entertainment and the staff at the Wynfrey, we got the video playing in the lobby.
I will say this, the whole reason I do what I do is because I enjoy producing video that people watch and enjoy. Most of the time the work we do is for a very small audience, our brides and their families. Occasionally, we get to display our work in public for a larger audience. And although I have had this opportunity a few times in the past (with varying degrees of successes) it is very, very cool to see people watch something you did and enjoy it. Also I was very very tired.
Thanks to all the folks at PWG and Omni Studios. Thanks to Melissa Rycroft and her husband Tye. Thanks for Birmingham Glam, and thanks to the great guy doing hair (a name that I must find TODAY) also a Very Very big thanks to my wife Angela who not only helped with shooting but also shot a wedding, took care of all the promotional duties, and really took care of everything else so I could edit.
As I left the hotel at the end of a long day I saw Butch Oglesby with Blue Moon Studios taking a group shot of all the models involved in the fashion show that had just wrapped. I stepped up to say goodbye and he leans over and says "what a job, right?"
Indeed.
More blogging to follow but I wanted to share what a great experience we had this past Saturday. The local Perfect Wedding Guide had us to a behind the scenes video of their photo session with Melissa Rycroft. The crazy thing is that WE suggested doing a very fast turnaround and playing it at the Bridal Market on Sunday.
More about that experience later from our guest blogger, John. But I wanted to at least get the video up for people to see.
Enjoy!
From the looks of our blog, we have either been incredibly slow (because of the lack of posts) or incredibly busy (also because of the lack of posts). Well, busy it has been! And looking toward the Spring, it is not going to let up much. We are so thankful and appreciative!
The last month or so, along with several corporate jobs, we have been participating in a few bridal shows. The first was at The Club (their 1st ever) and it was quite successful. John finished our new promo (featured on the front page of our website) hours before the show started, so we were a little tired. But their were terrific vendors and wonderful brides all day!
The very next weekend, we were delighted to participate in the Open House for Mathews Manor and Mt. View, both in Springville. And since John and I have a free babysitter just minutes away, we love working at both of these locations. That and they are beautiful venues! We filmed Traci Mathews' wedding back in August, so it was nice to see the family again at Mathews Manor. AND find out that Traci and Jason are going to have a BABY! How exciting! And once again, we met wonderful brides (and grooms) at both of these events. Many thanks to Kerri for working the Mt. View show so that I could be at Mathews Manor. John had a corporate event to film so it was just the girls!
The last bridal show on the books is this coming weekend at the Wynfrey (The Bridal Market by PWG). This will be our first year to exhibit with PWG, but after observing their amazing show last August, I just HAD to be included this year. We are actually the category sponsor this year - which mean we get (have) to be on TV this week. Yuck! I like to be behind the camera, not in front!!!! I am sure I am going to be more sympathetic to my brides after this week! I just hope that I don't say anything stupid! There will not be time to edit! I guess promoting our business which I am very proud of is a good thing, but boy, am I nervous! If it goes well, I might put it up on the blog. We will see!
But please stop by and see us at our booth on Sunday! We might have goodies to share! But we will have a FABULOUS demo! See you then!