I first met Meg at Focus Seminars. We quickly became friends and stayed in touch even when she went back to work in Chicago.
 
I got phone calls and emails telling me about how she met Joe at church and how amazing he was. Then the day came when I got the call. They were engaged and she wanted me to shoot her wedding pictures.
I was so excited for them and to finally meet Joe, but I really felt like I wasn't Meg's photographer. I knew I could do it, but what I wanted for her was better than I could do.
I sent her to my friends at Wirken Photography. I really wanted Becca to shoot the photos for them, and if I was asked to do video I'd love it, but would've been happy to just be in attendance.

In the end, Tyler shot the engagement photos, Becca and Jewel got to shoot the wedding and Ryan and I went along for the video. It was one of my favorite weddings of all time for so many reasons. One, it was Meg & Joe, and I love them - for another, it was Chicago and their wedding was gorgeous. I had also met Meg's mom and sister at Focus, so it was awesome to be a part of the family for the day.  The ceremony was amazing at the Moody Bible Church and the reception was by far the best I've been to. The band Sway performed all night and I've never heard better - the dance floor was packed!

The entire day ran so smoothly and I loved the detailed & professional service from Kristin at Big City Bride.

Thank you Meg & Joe for letting me into your world, on your most special day. I was truly honored to be there and capture all of those moments for you. It was one of the hardest edits for me to do because I wanted it to be a 4 hour video. You guys are wonderful & I hope you enjoy this short piece before you get the full length piece... which may be 4 hours.



The music in this video is by Amy Seeley - she's amazing, swing by her website and check out her stuff or grab her record off iTunes. Music was licensed through WithEtiquette.com

Details:
Wedding Planning: Big City Bride
Church: Moody Bible Church
Reception: Germania Place
Band: Sway

For the technical folks out there:
You may see a visual difference in this video compared to the rest that I've done or posted here - Canon released a new camera and it arrived literally the week of the wedding. I shot this entire piece with the 7D, hand held with a 20mm and a 50mm lense. I didn't have time to buy anything else for it. Since that wedding I've shot and produced several other projects with it and all 2010 weddings will have the same visual quality, plus a few new tricks.

For those of you that were left hanging at the end of the video wanting to see more; all of my videos cover the whole day. This is just the opening piece, followed by a full-length ceremony shot with multiple cameras as well as the whole reception edited to music as well. Contact me today so I can get your day on my calendar, 2010 weddings are filling up fast!

Ryan + Beth had a gorgeous outdoor wedding in the Rose Garden at Loose Park.
I was the lead photographer that day with my good friend Jenaé while Ryan and Jonathan handled the filming.

For their video, I edited all the pre-ceremony footage, full length ceremony, all the reception highlights and this piece at the end. I occasionally get questions about whether or not the full length ceremony is included on the DVD and I always film the whole thing.

Each of my wedding videos end with a wedding day highlight and each of them are different depending on the couple, the day and the music they help choose - Here is Beth + Ryan's:

Morgan and Lindsay spent a year apart before their wedding. She was in Australia while he served our country in Kosovo. They were an incredibly fun couple and I loved being a part of their day.

Their ceremony was at Monteserrat Vineyards in Knob Noster, MO on a crazy hot July day. Immediately following the first kiss a huge thunderstorm (with sideways rain) drenched the guests hiding under the tent, but they all stayed and had an incredible party shortly after.

Monteserrat is a beautiful vineyard and I highly recommend swinging by for a tasting if you're in the Kansas City area it's just about an hour away.

So, this last minute, like a week away, but I'm teaching a class next Tuesday night at Digital Labrador.
It's one of my favorite places because I rent lenses and fun gear from them all the time for all my weddings.  I've even covered the shop for them a few weekends while they've gone to Mexico or the Flint Hills for one of their awesome photo workshops.
So Brud, one of the awesome guys up there approached me one day and said "what do you know about shooting video with a Digital SLR camera?" Well gang, quite a bit.
I actually used the Canon 5D Mark II shortly after it came out to film for a Food for the Hungry video early in the year, did another marketing piece with it, and I recently bought a Canon 7D for all my corporate marketing and wedding videos next year.
So - are you a photographer or videographer wanting to know the basics of shooting video with one of the coolest things in the video world right now?
Swing by the Digital Labrador site and check it out under the "Learn" tab.
There's some exciting new things happening in the photo/video world with these cameras - come learn about shooting video, composition, creative shots, dealing with audio and later editing - I look forward to meeting you!

So today I'm being rather productive and just wrapped up two wedding videos.  I was about to ship them out when I thought I'd take a second to show you some custom cases that I use.



My friend Matt McNary over at Hammer Press made them for me from a design idea I got from Sara Swenson's CD cases.  I added my own verbiage to them as well as the logo that Matt designed for me a couple months ago.

I wrap each case in a ribbon the same color as your flowers or dresses from your wedding day.