We mentioned recently that there are a few weddings that we can’t show any visual evidence of due to some strict privacy concerns.

Well, this past weekend, Feria Cinematic Imagery was the official cinematographer for Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam’s daughter’s wedding. It was a two-day affair at the Governor’s Residence and the Belle Meade Country Club.

It rained for a portion of the day, but, cleared up plenty for the beautiful ceremony. The reception was fantastic—huge dancefloor was filled with hundreds of guests, a huge, lavish reception tent with antler chandeliers, with a fire pit for s’mores and cornhole games outside.

We even became friends with the Secret Service men over the weekend. Maybe, someday our wedding film might be seen—not likely. Too bad, or else you’ll see the Governor getting DOWN on the dancefloor and his first lady singing tunes with the band.

A career highlight for now for sure.

We met Brittany & Trenton what seems like soooo long ago. They came into our downtown studio, told us about themselves and looked at our work. It seemed like we connected with them immediately, and shortly thereafter, they booked us for their wedding—15months later. That 15 months is now this Saturday. We are so excited for them. We feel like through our filming process, we have become good friends.

We’ve spent a day shooting engagement pictures, another day some pre-wedding cinema b-roll footage, recorded interviews at their brand new house (hardly any furniture, still!) and have met with them many times to discuss their special ceremony day.

And now, it is finally here. I wanted to post some of my favorite engagement pictures I’ve ever taken—it was a rainy day in Franklin, TN, but these too were troopers. We covered so much ground in less than two hours…

This is the cover of their wedding guestbook.

We started out at the Factory in Franklin. Altho the weather was pretty horrible, Brittany & Trenton were in a great mood. She brought a sweet polka-dot umbrella and we hid underneath awnings and coverings. While scouting out the location, I snuck underneath a 2ft door covering—let’s just say that it didn’t suffice. I was soaked.

They changed out of their casual get-ups and got down-right classy. Their dark suits and dress made their smiles really pop out.

This reminds me of an old gangster movie. Where the “gangster” is a tough-looking guy with the most tender heart.

After we left the Factory, I took them down a country road and we found a farm with huge overgrown fields and a long, black fence. They braved the wet grass and trecked out into the pasture. I love this image.

We can’t wait to show you how we capture their day. They are entrusting us with a cinema & stills package—we love handling all of the creative responsibilities of that. More soon. Congratulations, Brittany & Trenton!!!

We’ve posted some amazing footage and stills before of Sarah and Jay — our simple country couple from Kentucky. Over the course of two weekends, we had a fun time shooting their pre-wedding and engagement sessions, as well as the beautiful outdoor wedding and raucous ceremony that carried on late into the night. (The DJ might or might-not have been arrested for violating the noise statutes, we aren’t going to say!)

Anyways, we just wanted to share images from the event and album. Our team did a fabulous job covering the static and motion event—wedding cinematography and photography. A big shout-out to Ben, Bobby, Amelia, Joel, Ian and Ryan! We worked together really well and the long ride there and back didn’t seem so bad. Especially, with Ian giggling in the back seat the whole time. Anyways, here they are:

This southern wedding had amazing details to shoot. This is probably my favorite shoe picture we’ve ever shot. Perfect! Sarah’s mother did a great job planning the event. In fact, she actually wrapped up construction of this amazing house just in time to host her daughter’s wedding! Sarah and her mom did a fantastic job with all of the details.

Jay got ready with his groomsman a few miles away from Sarah. We found a picturesque fading wood barn to shoot him and his groomsmen. I pulled this quote from our wedding cinematography highlight video.

I imagine that any bride would love this reaction from her bridesmaids:

I can’t watch the wedding video without choking up at the moment Jay says this about his bride. And I’ve probably seen it two dozen times by now.

The junior bridesmaids and flower girls were just super adorable. All the bridesmaids had champagne dresses and gorgeous bouquets—flowers were provided by The Twisted Stem, and they really did a wonderful job with all of the flower settings.

This huge wedding cake was bursting with fresh flowers between each tier. Virginia from Mert’s Cakes is seen here putting on the final touches. And yes, it was scrumptious.

Our custom designed guestbook was filled up with so many well-wishings by the end of the night.

Horses and carriages carried all of the bridesmaids—Sarah and her father in a princess carriage—through the town up to the ceremony.

It was the perfect time to shoot the ceremony. Beautiful sunset light shone over the audience and brightly illuminated the bride’s veil. Love the sun streaks on the wide angle shot!

After the ceremony, we rushed our lovely couple down some country roads and into acres of fields and tall grasses. We eked out shots until the sun completely set (LOVE our dslr’s—we got amazing shots at 6400ISO using 1.2 primes.)

The classic blindfolded-groom-feeling-up-a-groomsman trick. Works every time.

The band, Black Widow from Nashville, was amazing—the dancefloor was just about always filled with people grooving and moving their feet, and after they finished, the DJ took over. The party was slated to go till 3am. Alas, we’re getting old and took off around midnight—filled up with Jarfi’s catering, delicious wedding cake and really happy with our results. We took some peeks and knew that we’d have plenty of great footage for an amazing wedding video.

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Vendors:
Photography/Cinematography: Feria Cinematic Imagery
Catering: Jarfi’s
Reception Entertainment: Atmosphere Entertainment
Band: Black Widow
Cake: Mert’s Cakes
Florals: The Twisted Stem
Carriage: Around the Town Carriage
Ceremony / Reception Site: The Withers’ Family Farm

I’ve been so focused on wedding cinematography with Feria that I haven’t shot wedding photography in a long time. However, when my good friend Nicole Carpenter(Elocin Eye) asked me to help her shoot in Atlanta, I jumped at the chance to work with her (When my wife and I moved out from Northern California to Nashville, she literally was the first person we met. And we’ve been friends and collaborators ever since).

When she IM’d me about her wedding, I immediately said, “Wait, you’re shooting a wedding? Rad! Can I bring the FERIA team for some story-telling wedding cinematography???” Unfortunately, the couple had just booked a few friends to cover it. However, she quickly asked if I’d be interested in helping her shoot photography for it.

I thought I’d share some of the images I got from the day thru my lenses:

The wedding took place at the Payne Corley House, in Duluth, GA. The bride was absolutely gorgeous, and I have not met anyone sweeter. A native Brazilian—she was really fun and so vocal about her appreciation for having us there. Her dress was incredible.

Got some great pictures of the flower girls:

John, the groom, has been on staff for a huge church in Atlanta, North Point Community Church, for over 20 years as a music director. His groomsmen and he were hilarious to work with and comfortable with the cameras zipping around.

This is probably my favorite picture of him, as he can’t wait for her to come around the corner into view. Reminds me of how I felt when I got married!

The ceremony was set in amazing weather and the outdoor location was bathed in perfect light. Gabby brought some of her Brazilian traditions to the wedding, even saying her vows in Portugese.

The night ended up inside, with cakes, traditional Brazilian sweets and samba dancing.

A few of the couple shots we took afterwards. This couple is so sincerely in love, it made me smile the whole time.

Honestly, I think it might have been my favorite shoot so far. Knowing that Nicole was rocking the “official” shots, I was able to just relax and experiment with different lenses. In fact, I had to hand over my copy of the Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 L fifteen minutes in, so she could use it—and that’s usually my go-to wedding lens. So, I had to deal with the 50/1.2, 85/1.2—What a great trade-off! Using those on my two Canon 5dmark2 bodies was a blast. I did have a 70-200/2.8 IS for my long range—think I’ll stick with this combination for a while.

It was definitely a different experience for me—I have never been a second shooter before, and now that I am working on telling stories in cinematography, I think I see still images in a different light. There were so many occasions when I was thinking about how I could put on our steadyvest and approach this certain shot, or “Oh, man, if I had the slider right now this would be sooooo sick!” Looks like Marko has brainwashed me and fully converted me to the dark side of motion!

Nicole was so fun to work with…she’s a natural at it, her clients love her and I have a feeling she’s going to be super successful in the market down there. Hope to work with her again.

If there are any photographers that would like to use me as a second shooter, I’d definitely be interested in trying it again. That is, of course, if FERIA isn’t already doing some amazing wedding cinematography for a travel destination wedding!

Posted some images earlier from our Birmingham wedding day with Andrea & John—here is the wedding video trailer.

It was such a pleasure working with this great couple. The location was beautiful, the wedding party were fun to be with, and the weather set the scene for a memorable ceremony.

We were so glad to receive this note from John, the groom:

I had no idea how incredible this would be. Also nice choice on the music. I love Sigur Ros!
All I can say is Excellent! and Thank You!!! I’m telling everyone I know to hire you!
- John Dorgan (groom).

When we heard about a couple in Birmingham, AL that needed wedding video coverage with less than a week’s notice, we jumped at the chance. It was a minor scramble to put together our travel kit and team, but, we made the 3 hr trek down south, thirty minutes outside of downtown Birmingham.

John and Andrea were got married on her family farm—rolling acreage that includes picturesque ponds (complete with swans!), green pastures with grazing horses and even a covered bridge. Raindrops fell a couple times during the day, but, tapered off just in time for the afternoon ceremony—outdoors overlooking the water.

The ceremony itself was beautiful, accompanied by violins played classical music throughout the service. We experimented with some timelapse shots of the amazing rolling clouds and had our glidecam going to capture some dynamic moments. We will have more still images and our trailer up soon.

We had so much fun during our two days with Bryan & Amy. We also ended up with so much usable content that the editing process was a bit difficult. However, we think what we ended up with really reflects the fantastic wedding event and the love that each one of them has for each other.

We’d love to hear your thoughts—enjoy!

We had such a great time hanging out with Bryan and Amy for their story session last week at the airport. After looking at some of the amazing clips produced by our 5d2 setups, we were excited to spend a whole day with them on their wedding day. The location? Picturesque Cedarwood Plantation in Whites Creek, TN (just north of Nashville). The historic house is a perfect setting: in the middle of lush trees decorated with hanging votives, a rustic old barn surrounded by lush field of grass, bubbling brook and water fountain.

Preparations took place in Opryland Hotel suites—working alongside photographer Krystal Mann and her team, we captured some establishing shots, intricate details and some fun candids. As we caravanned over to Cedarwood, the overcast skies opened up—the forecast had predicted the wet wouldn’t come till after reception time. Amy was such a calm bride, quickly making a decision to move the ceremony inside the barn—she was the epitome of composure.

Of course, the intermittent rain created obstacles for us. Big Southern raindrops slapping on the barn’s tin roof made for audio capture issues and the dim barn lighting—although setting a fantastic mood—really tested the high ISO capability of the Canons. Still, the joy and excitement exhibited by our bride and groom (and the rest of the wedding parties) made us all forget about the obstacles and instead, kept us focused on capturing the beautiful ceremony and reception. We think we came away with some memorable moments.

We hope to have the trailer up real soon—the rough edits are turning out great so far.