Tara & Matt's Wedding

Was at St. John's United Methodist Church at 6900 Ward Parkway in Kansas City Missouri. St John's is a beautiful church property. A immaculate, lofty sanctuary, aesthetic architecture and lovely little garden patios make great surroundings for photographers and videographers. And entire wedding congregations too, of course.

The Bride & Groom and the whole wedding party enjoyed a trolley ride from the church to the reception in the Hilton President Ballroom, downtown Kansas City, MO at 13th & Baltimore. The Hilton staff hostedan elegant dinner and party.

Tara & Matt were truly a wonderful couple to work with. More often than not, I meet with brides before the wedding, but not always. In this case I never saw Tara in person, until I arrived at the church that day. Within minutes, I knew I liked her. I bet a lot of people who know her know what I'm talking about. Matt? Hey that dude is pretty cool, even if he is a Jayhawk !

Just kidding folks - the families... especially Tara's Dad, a big Tiger guy - had a whole lotta fun at the reception playing up the KU-MU rivalry. It appears this is a mixed marriage.

I better change the subject !
OK - I'm trying out a new video player on this page. It's different than the standard video player, but it has most of the same features, a full screen button, as well as the usual controls. Hover over the video after it starts playing to bring up the controls. The progress bar is drag-able up to the downloaded portion, it appears as a red line on hover.

NOTE: When you click play, the video area will flash to white... and sometimes lingers there for a few seconds while the video loads. It should start playing after a few seconds though if you're on broadband.

This is the highlight video - the intro segment seen on the full length DVD that the families get. That video also contains coverage of the ceremony and reception in a documentary "as it actually happened" style.

The Wedding Highlight Video

The Grand Entrance

About the Video

Shooting
This was a true one camera wedding. I rarely shoot a ceremony one camera wedding anymore but this one is.

Shooting a wedding video, and shooting it well, requires experience, talent and instinct. Especially with only one camera. Pretty much everything is a 'get it on the first take or miss it' situation. You have to follow all the important moves of the Bride and Groom for 6 or more hours while trying not to be too obtrusive. You deal with conditions which are sometimes very unfavorable to video, and often unpredictable.

It's two types of jobs within one. Much of the day, before the wedding ceremony and afterwards, at the reception, it's "run & gun" type shooting. Handheld and always on the move. The ceremony itself, is covered in a much more conventional way, and experience helps to shift into that mode. Now you set up on tripods and shoot the continuos service. You must preserve sights and sounds of the day in a documentary manner, yet at the same time get special creative shots to be used for the intro or credits or the DVD artwork... and wrapping it all in a neat packagein a package that presents astory of love.

There's definitely an art and craftsmanship involved in creating a wedding video that is worth watching. The best video or movie is one in which you never think about the cameraman. That means jerky movements and shaky footage are seldom seen. Shots all tie together to create a seamless flow. Hold the cheesy effects and gimmicky stuff for the most part, go for a style that is timeless, so it's watchable 50 years from now.

Editing
I edited this intro highlight piece in bit a different style. Nothing super fancy here - the most important thing is just the selection of clips and the arranging of them. The love story gets told.

I show a lot of dreamy romantic style stuff here on the website, but this one is a little more straightforward in approach. But I like it. Tara liked it. You? You can watch some of my other wedding videos in the Showcase section.

The Michael Beers Band

I was surprised to see an old friend at the reception. It was Michael Beers! Michael is one of those guys who always makes you feel better just by running into him. I used to do a lot of weddings with Michael, but hadn't seen him for quite too may years. It was a pleasure to work a gig him again!

Michael has a great website - click here to visit the Michael Beers Band website.

The Michael Beers Band is a great local band with a huge song list. They play everything. With a long history and great reputation as one of the best private party bands around the Kansas City & Lawrence area, you can't go wrong with the Michael Beers Band if you want a live band/MC for your wedding reception.

Impromtu Video
I was equipped and geared to shoot a wedding reception and it's pretty hard to shoot a band with one camera on a crowded dance floor... The only sound source is the camera top microphone, so its not the greatest, but the performance of the band comes through! I wanted to shoot a complete song, moving around a bit without too much jerkiness.

So anyway this is very impromtu, on the spot recording that was done for a quick Youtube video.