We advertise through a company called Tying-the-knot (http://www.tyingtheknot.org/) run by the wonderfully helpful Simon and Nikki.
They recently started producing an e-zine to help couples easily find local wedding services. When they asked us to write something for the section on wedding videos, we sent this over:
The most common thing we hear from happy couples at the end of their wedding day is, “It all happened so quickly” followed by “There were so many people that we didn’t get to see.”
This is where we come in: the wedding film.
Much consideration is given to the flowers, cakes, cars and dress, but it’s the wedding film that will be waiting for you long after the day is over and the confetti is swept away; after the honeymoon tan is faded and thoughts about who to invite have turned to thoughts about baby names.
When we film a wedding we are aware that people want to see the movie as soon as possible, want to relive the day and share it with their friends. But we are also aware of the long game, the value a wedding film has to the future: to your children – and to their children. And to the long line of unknown people who will be able to reach back into their past in a way that we cannot.
Imagine for a moment how great it would be to see your own grandparents saying their vows, your great grandfather giving a speech. Aunts, uncles and distant relations; people who are only a faded sepia-toned memory.
Film is a great medium for remembering – and a wedding day is a great event to remember.
Once you’ve booked the flowers, the venue, the cake, the honeymoon, give some thought to the occasion itself – it deserves to be remembered.
Recently I was contacted by a customer who we filmed a wedding for back in 1984. This was well before I was doing any filming (I would have been eleven…) when my father Ken Jarvis, expanding on his job as wedding photographer, became one of the very first people taking advantage of the emerging video camera technologies to offer his customers a unique way of remembering their wedding day.
I’m sure the couples loved being able to show their family the wedding on television. It would have been quite a novelty back then. So we were delighted to help one of our original customers when they asked us to transfer their old VHS tape to DVD for future use.
I was reminded once again of the way in which the value of a wedding film changes over time. The thought that a whole new generation of the family will get to see the film is very pleasing. I am sure the new viewers will overlook the VHS quality and rather basic filming style (there was no easy way to edit back then) and appreciate it for what it really is: a way of connecting with the past.