Can’t wait to celebrate with Erica & Kris!

What is your favorite image?

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.

Ellie and Nick are a living example of the term “opposites attract.” The enjoy life through their love of food, music and their dogs. Here’s a highlight segment of their story.

We had such a great time spending time capturing Ellie and Nick’s story. I mean, come on… who wouldn’t enjoy combing the vineyard isles at Tennessee’s own Arrington Vineyards; or running the steps in Tennessee Titan’s home, LP Field… the visuals just jumped at us knowing the locations we were going to be able to film. But even more than that is the caring and heart felt compassion Ellie and Nick have for each other. They may be Yin and Yang but but they enjoy life like they were created for each other.

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!!!

A quick preview of Ellie and Nick’s upcoming story. A couple who are as opposite as yin and yang but enjoy life through music, dance, food and the outdoors.

Look for a sample of their story in the highlight video coming soon!

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

Even though many places are closing up shop until after the New Year, we are still editing and wrapping up video collections and photo packages for a few of our weddings.

We will have many posts with wedding highlights soon! We look forward to 2011.

We loved the footage so much from their wedding ceremony we had to create another highlight video showing them off! What a great couple to work with!

We love our work! Brianna and Seth are a prime example why. Every couple has something unique about their story and Brianna and Seth are no exception. During one of our pre-wedding/pre-shoot interviews with them, we were excited to learn how much they love going to fairs in the local area of middle TN. Ben and I looked each other with the same thought…. “we have to shoot them at a fair!”

The day we scheduled their interview, they shared even more little tid-bits about their story that added so much visual ideas. Later that evening we drove out to the Wilson County Fairgrounds to begin shooting. However, strong storms rolled in as soon as we arrived. We thought about riding it out and even went ahead and got tickets for rides and such. However, the rain just lasted way too long and we decided to throw in the towel for that evening. A few days later we attempted the shoot again. This time, the weather was perfect! We had a great time following them around, shooting them on some rides, just being a fly on the wall as they enjoyed their evening.

As the night wore down, we were about to wrap the shoot when all of a sudden, without notice, we were treated to a fireworks display. Thinking back to their earlier interview, we knew this was a chance to put the exclamation point on their story. Check it out!

It’s such a blessing to be able to work on multiple facets of a wedding. Primarily, we focus on striking wedding cinematography, learning about our couple’s story, spending time with them on a pre-wedding video shoot, and then doing our best the day of the wedding ceremony to capture all of the detail, tradition and emotion shared on the momentous day.

But, sometimes, a bride has seen some of my photography work and asks if we can create some amazing stills for them as well. Sarah and Jay, our duo from rural Kentucky, visited our studio seeking wedding video production, but, later on asked if we could shoot photography, too. We jumped at the chance, knowing that we could put together our own still / motion capturing team to capture everything we needed. And instead of being afraid to step on another photography company’s toes, we were able to work together and bounce ideas off of each other. It was great being able to art direct photo and video at the same time!

When we arrived in Columbia, KY, Sarah’s parents were feverishly working to complete the construction of a brand-new spacious house that would host the large wedding (only a few weeks later!). As construction usually goes, obstacles come up and delays just naturally happen, but, they were hopeful that it would be completed.

With the home under construction, we were forced to shoot elsewhere. Forced? We gladly took advantage of the 200 acres of nearby grassland, cornfields, horse pasture, creeks & streams, rolled haybales, rustic barns, etc. etc. etc. This was picturesque country and we had to limit ourselves with so many options. We also enjoyed some time in the town square (established in 1802). The beauty of small towns is the ability to stand in the middle of the street at rush hour and shoot pictures and video without anyone getting mad. Instead, we heard honks and exclamations of “Hey Sarah!” and “What up, Jay? You guys making a movie?”. Seems like everyone knows these two (I’d assume that every boy in town is jealous of Jay for stealing the local beauty).

Here are a few of our engagement photos we took during our pre-wedding shoot. We started downtown walking beside local shops and cafe’s.

We jumped on their 4-wheel drive Razor scooters and scurried through their farmland, crossing over creeks and ALMOST getting stuck in the mud! Marko had to hang on the back on the way into the river, luckily, our lenses got spared from the mud kicking up all over the place.

This field, can we shoot here? Of course! Every time I asked Jay he was certain all of his neighbors wouldn’t mind. So, we took advantage of a field full of freshly rolled bales and then corn as far as the eye could see.

A few days before the wedding, Sarah called and asked if we could get a guestbook made with the engagement images. A few late nights and stressing over production turnaround, but, I was stoked with the quality and rush turnaround. Here’s a couple shots of the book on the guest table:

It was a blast shooting the engagement photos to go along with our southern wedding cinematography. Here you can see the pre-wedding highlight video we did for this adorable couple. “Simple Love” is such a great title for it!

So, was shooting static & motion imagery a challenge? You bet—but, I think we came away with some great images. And, as I mentioned earlier about art directing photo & video, it was great to shoot a shot that I loved and say, “Bobby! You gotta get this!”. Subsequently, I’ll see Bobby doing a slide shot somewhere else and I’ll yell out, “All right, hold on, I’ve got to get a shot, too!”. It’s an exciting challenge to take a still image and figure out a way to portray that in film, and do it under time constraints. All in all, it’s a testament to a strong team that brings different strengths and backgrounds to the table.