Our Wedding Video

I'll be honest, when we started planning our wedding last year a videographer was the first thing I cut to trim down our budget.

First, because I (like most people) hate the way I look and sound on camera...and didn't want to have to worry that my every move on the most important day of my life was being capture by a complete stranger!

Second, because I thought watching the video afterwards would take away from all the emotions, memories and feelings I had surrounding our wedding day.  There is no way a video could live up to how I remembered that day in my head, right?

But then, my grandmother passed away in April (2011), just 2 months (almost to the day) before my mom.  And I completely changed my mind.

At her viewing, one of my uncles set up a TV to display a montage video with snippets from my great grandparents', grandparents', aunts' and uncles' and my own parent's weddings. 

It was the first time I had ever seen video footage of my grandmother when she was "young".  And the first time I ever saw my parents wedding video.  To be honest, I didn't know they had one!

I think watching the videos was an emotional experience for everyone that day. We all got to see the day our families started, starting our great grandparents!  But, you know the saying about how every family occasion seems to be either a  wedding  or funeral?  Well, we were definitely living it.  Wedding one year, funeral the next.  And little did we know we'd have yet another funeral that year... 

I cried watching it for about a million reasons.  Tears of grief over the loss of our dear grandma; tears of happiness to be a part of her living legacy, and to see how in love all those bride and bridegrooms were both then and now; tears of sadness as I saw just how much my beautiful mother's body was failing her, 30 years after she married my dad; tears of joy as I anticipated my marrying the love of my life; tears of absolute fear later that night as my mom had another near-death chocking episode. 

And finally, I cried because I learned that I wipe the tears from my eyes the exact same way my mom did...and because it had already been so long, due to the Parkinson's disease, since I had seen her wipe her own tears that I forgot we shared this little semblance.

Over the next few months, I made my case to Nate about why we now needed a videographer at our wedding.  What will they show at my funeral?  (To which he replied "you are nuts") How will our kids get to see how young and in love we were on our wedding day? ("They don't want to see that!")  I told him I didn't want something 12 hours long that we'd never watch - just some basic  coverage, set to a few songs, that shows the highlights of the day!  Nothing expensive.

But in his mind, we had already written this off the list.  And it was a couple thousand dollars we weren't adding back on...  He didn't budge. 

So, what did I do?  I hired one anyways.  And felt so guilty about it! 

That is, until I got the final version and showed it to Nate.  He LOVED it!!  (So much so that he actually thanked me for going ahead and having this done even though he had said no!).  And so did I! 

Here it is, my friends:  Our Wedding Video. 

I hope you enjoy this little glimpse in our wedding day.  And who knows, maybe it will help you decide whether or not a videographer is for you!

P.S. Wedding day coverage + editing by Well Spun Weddings.  

P.P.S. The infamous tear wipe at minute 1:15...