Every time we sat down with Sarah and Mike, we’d somehow lose track of time and spend three hours hitting it off over coffee, or drinks, or pizza — they’re just that much fun and easy-going. By the time the wedding day arrived, we were all just friends, hanging out and celebrating their wedding day — it just so happened that we had cameras in our hands the whole time.
Over those lengthy talks, we discovered a few things that we wanted to capture for their wedding film: 1) they compliment and contrast each other in the most perfect ways, 2) their energy is infectious, 3) their wedding party was made up of friends and family members who were all very special to them and would play a huge role in the wedding day itself.
Another important thing to note is that they booked us to create a same-day edit for them. Now, although we approach same-day edits in the same way as our highlight films, they do require a whole other way of thinking and a lot more pre-production to ensure that we can put a strong piece together in a short amount of time. That means we ask a lot more questions to ensure we stay two or three steps ahead of the action and have the flow and feel of the story almost entirely planned out before we arrive and start filming.
The truth is that we love same-day edits and we love the process of putting a story together on the day of and seeing everyone’s reaction when it plays. Our first wedding ever was a same-day edit, so while we were learning the ropes of how to even shoot a wedding, we were editing the video away to play at the reception. It was a tough day and we could talk about the locations around Toronto that were 45 minutes away from each other, the Gay Pride weekend traffic, the construction on the major roads, or all those different things that seemed to make everything that much harder, but it all became irrelevant when the same-day edit finally played and we were able to witness the impact that film had on the audience.
We’ve come a long way since that first sde. Nowadays, there’s some very intricate planning that goes into every same-day edit we put together, but the key is to embrace the advantage of knowing exactly what you’re setting out to film. Going into the wedding day, we’ll already know what song we’re using, how we’re going to transition between different scenes, the story arch, and how the film concludes. All we have to do is fill each different segment with footage we’ve filmed, but knowing all of that information makes it pretty easy for us to do so.
For Sarah and Mike, we knew that music was a pretty big part of them, and their tastes fell into a sort of folky/chillwave/indie sound. We pushed ourselves to find a song that characterized this sound, and, although not typically what you’d think of for a wedding film, Radiation City’s What Could You Do proved to be perfect for them. We loved the song and it inspired us to take on a different approach than we usually would. One of the key lyrics is “What could you do with these hands, my love?”, which allowed us to make hands a theme throughout their film. From Mike’s hot shave, to Sarah’s make-up, the couple holding their cards to each other, or simply holding hands in the limo after tying the knot — we knew we’d have all we’d need to pull it off, so we went for it and we felt it made the piece that much tighter, allowing the visuals to play off of the audio and vice-versa.
When it all came together and we saw and audience of 400+ people at their reception laugh, clap, ohh and ahh along with the film, it made all the planning and extra work entirely worth it. We always try to create something that captures the essence of the couple and their story, and we think this is completely Sarah and Mike — and their personalities pushed us to go outside of our comfort zone and do things we wouldn’t typically do. It really takes getting to know a couple inside and out to put something like this together for them.
So without further a do, we hope you enjoy Sarah and Mike’s wedding film below!