Stephanie & Geoffrey married in Concord, NC at their Catholic Church. Their reception followed at the Embassy Suites near the Concord Mills Mall and Lowes Motor Speedway. SilverFox Limos provided their transportation with an enormous stretch Hummer! Split Second Sound did a great job as the DJs as always. Juliet Van Dyke served as the photographer with her husband. This wedding stands out because it was the only wedding in 2012 where it rained on the bride and groom and we had to use rain covers for the cameras. In the trailer footage of their first exit with bubbles, it’s difficult to notice, but it is raining lightly. The rain eventually abated and we were able to do lots of outdoor candid shooting. Stephanie and Geoffrey met at pharmacy school. Their obvious predilection for detail at work carried over to their reception where they had an enormous cookie bar of family cookie recipes. Interspersed between plates of cookies were old prints in antique frames of both sides of parents, grands, great-grand wedding photos. It was nice to have a classy family touch in the elegance of such a modern hotel. The Embassy Suites has a considerable dance floor and a great ballroom. Split Second did a great job, as always, keeping the crowd on the dance floor for much of the night. One additional personal touch was Stephanie’s uncle from Pennsylvania sang an old Polish Polka that the family always sings at weddings. They followed with Beer Barrel Polka and the Pittsburgh Steelers Polka.
With the edit of this trailer, I experimented with LUT filters in Final Cut. I have been searching for ways to better batch process and color grade my trailers and I like this Photoshop filter when applied to video. It is meant to give the HD footage a filmic Instagram-like quality. When I sorted through their wedding movie and pulled my favorite clips, I realized with this wedding that there was a strong tonal difference in the type of footage from the ceremony compared to the reception. I knew I wanted to use Stephanie’s interview because of the great emotion she conveyed. Overall for the first half we went sweet and sentimental. This couple did love country music and it abounds in their movie, but the fast cut nature of their reception clips really lent itself well to a party anthem. Nothing seemed more appropriate than Pitbull’s new song from this past fall. We really enjoyed their noise maker exit in the hallway of the Embassy Suites. Noisemakers are great on video when it’s not a dark exit.