Jess + Misha — You knocked my socks off hard.

As Jess and Misha’s offi­ciant, Tracey, so elo­quent­ly puts it near the open­ing of this wed­ding film: love can’t be defined by any sin­gle moment. It’s all the lit­tle moments. It’s every moment.

Love can’t be defined by any sin­gle moment. It’s all the lit­tle moments. It’s every moment.

This is a sen­ti­ment that not only rings true for Jess and Misha, but also for their multi-layered nar­ra­tive, which draws from their read­ings, cards and vows to cre­ate a piece that weaves togeth­er each moment from this incred­i­ble day. Whether it’s some­thing as mon­u­men­tal as the couple’s chore­o­graphed hip-hop dance rou­tine or some­thing as spon­ta­neous as Jess peak­ing out her hotel win­dow to catch Misha and the grooms­men walk­ing by, each moment — big or small — is a key com­po­nent of this beau­ti­ful­ly com­plex story.

On a day that had us all over Toronto’s east end — from Pantry, to the Broad­view Hotel, the cou­ples’ home, and their dreamy recep­tion at Ever­green Brick­works — our gear and approach con­stant­ly changed through­out the day. With so many dif­fer­ent and var­ied ele­ments, flex­i­bil­i­ty was key. That meant being able to change from mono­pod, to tri­pod, to a gim­bal, and throw any lens we need­ed on a cam­era at any moment.

As always, the Mōvi played an impor­tant role in mak­ing some of the more dynam­ic scenes even more immer­sive, bring­ing the view­er right into their brass band reces­sion­al, the hora, and their dances. But at the end of the day, it’s Jess and Misha, their love for one anoth­er, and the per­son­al­i­ty that they lend this film that keeps you watch­ing from begin­ning to end.