Annette + Peter — It didn’t happen until the music started.

We’ve said it before. Some­times, a place is so impor­tant that it becomes a cen­tral char­ac­ter with­in a sto­ry. In Annette and Peter’s beau­ti­ful nar­ra­tive, Prince Edward Coun­ty is that third char­ac­ter. And while this cou­ple are many things onto them­selves and to each oth­er — world trav­el­ers, food con­nois­seurs, and techies (that’ll be almost entire­ly Peter) — they are very proud PE Coun­ty residents.

And right­ful­ly so! Just over 2 hours away from Toron­to, Prince Edward Coun­ty is an amaz­ing lit­tle get­away with enough mouth-watering earth-to-table eater­ies to keep you busy. The cou­ple had us stay at their cot­tage for their wed­ding week­end, so amongst all the cel­e­brat­ing, we were able to do a bit of explor­ing in the coun­ty as well as our fair share of star-gazing/fire-building/marshmallow-roasting.

In Annette and Peter’s film, we actu­al­ly start their sto­ry with visu­al­ly strik­ing estab­lish­ing shots from around the coun­ty along with some pret­ty pow­er­ful atmos­pher­ic sounds. Imme­di­ate­ly, you’re trans­port­ed to this set­ting, and the images and sounds, and the way they play off each oth­er — some­times blend­ing, and at oth­er times chang­ing abrupt­ly — let you know that this place is impor­tant with­in the frame­work of the sto­ry. These estab­lish­ing shots also serve anoth­er pur­pose in the film. They serve as visu­al cues that let the view­er know the exact lay­out of the space this entire sto­ry will be tak­ing place in. With­in that first minute, we’re intro­duced to the wind­mill, the lake, the house in front of which the cou­ple shares their first look, and the barn. At first, it all seems like sep­a­rate shots from entire­ly dif­fer­ent areas, but once we see the set­up start to hap­pen and we see dif­fer­ent peo­ple trav­el back and forth along these visu­al land­marks, you get a pret­ty clear idea of what this space looks like.

We think it says a lot about a film when, even after all the dozens of times we’ve watched it from its ear­ly stages right down to the final cut, we are still left a lit­tle speech­less after each play. Maybe it’s the beau­ti­ful nar­ra­tive shaped large­ly by Peter try­ing to find the exact moment in which he knew he had fall­en in love with Annette, maybe it’s the breath­tak­ing set­ting, or maybe it’s because we love these two and are over­come with so much joy each time we see them relive their wed­ding day. What­ev­er it is, it gets us every time.