It took 10 years to make this wedding film.
Retro Wedding Edit
Scroll down for the film but please read its backstory…
10 years ago today I married a girl; a girl that through my eyes is flawless.
Heather is everything I still aspire to be. I’m happier today than I was the day I married her.
Our wedding was the best day of our lives. It was everything we wanted it to be. If we were to replay our day, we wouldn’t change a thing - not even the weather. It was true to us at the time and still embodies - to this day - every value Heather and I grip steadfastly to and are trying to nurture in our children.
We married at Omaka Scout Camp, a location both Heather and myself had spent countless weekends camping as Scouts. It was a rainy 12 degree January day in Christchurch so we had a waterfight in the river - with homebuilt catapults to boot.
Our marque, canoes, chairs and tables were all hired from Scouts. Our plates were all purchased (over the course of a year) at the Eco Store (or the Super Shed as it was back then). 10 cents each - way cheaper than hiring at the time. Our dessert bowls were edible. Our confetti was popcorn. Our table runners were spotlight specials (lovingly stitched by Heather’s Mum).
We catered for 120 people that night and all the food - yes ALL the food - was cooked by Heather’s best friend’s Mum (Pam & friends) as their wedding gift to us. That’s one heck of a wedding gift…and delicious. Mum and Dad purchased bargain boose on sale at Pack ‘n’ Save for an entire year (my childhood closet was literally bursting with Speights & Lindauer). Mum made our wedding cake. It was chocolate and yummy in my tummy. My father-in-law found the perfect band - Acoustic Solution - who were quoted on the night saying “this is our first underwater gig”. With the high voltage running through that tent and the endless dripping, we are all lucky to be alive. Our celebrant was Heather’s Grandfather, Alan. He and his late wife Jean (Heather’s Grandmother) made all the corsages with prized flowers from their garden. Heather’s Bridesmaid, Megan, composed a song just for us and performed it at the ceremony. The vintage cars were supplied and driven by Rod - a family friend who also made Heather’s engagement ring. We did a choreographed dance - before they were cool, and then uncool, and now cool again. You can watch the whole routine here (stitched together from multiple cameras as our handycam ran our of tape!) Heather’s dress and my shirt were from Bridal Boutique & Sons…nah just jokes- we scored them on TradeMe. The boys and I ditched the ties and wore $10 Warehouse jandals to the ceremony and my $59 wedding ring literally arrived by courier the day before. That night we partied until 3am before retiring to our hippie van that had been pimped by mates as a makeshift bridal suite.
It was truly our wedding and it all came together with a lot of help from our friends and family.
…& thank God we had a videographer.
Well, our good friend Sarah to be precise. Thanks a whole bunch Sarah! Wedding videographers weren’t really a thing in 2010. Nor were camera phones or selfie sticks. That’s good, because I hate selfie sticks.
“Thank God we had a videographer” is something I hear a lot from my couples and during the course of stitching this wedding film together I’ve grown an even greater appreciation of this. It has reinforced the ridiculous scale of my responsibility as a wedding videographer.
It’s terrifying. Exhilarating. I think that’s why I love it. I know that’s why I love it.
We’ve never watched our wedding footage. Until now.
Over the last decade, the original tape has been digitised, burnt to DVD, tossed around boxes (& survived a rat infestation), digitised to hard drive after hard drive. Uploaded to the cloud. But never watched. Never appreciated. It was just way too long and dated and hey, I kinda have other wedding films to make.