Here at Ever After we’ve had a very busy 2010, and a good one at that. Early on in the year we had our training weekend in Wales, which turned out to be a bit of an adventure with all the snow around. A few weeks later we were named as a finalist in the EventDV Top 25 of Hottest and Most Influential Event Filmmakers in the World, which had me literally jumping for joy.Then in May we crossed the Irish Sea for a stunning and memorable wedding at the Adare Manor Hotel in Ireland. July took us to Florence in Italy for another amazing wedding where with had the honour of working with the fabulous Joe Simon. In August I was invited to speak about Short Form Wedding Films at the anual WEVA Expo, the biggest convention for our industry worldwide in Orlando, Florida. And on top of that, while at the convention, we also won our second WEVA Creative Excellence Award for a Bridal Elegance shoot we filmed earlier in the year. We finished that trip to the United States with a short visit to some good friends on Cape Cod in Massachusetts to celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary. Finally last week, we were in Vienna to film an engagement shoot for a lovely couple from Singapore. That trip was no doubt unforgettable too as we almost didn’t make it there with our flight from Heathrow being cancelled due to snow (which was solved by a 30 hour trip which included a long drive down to Dover, a ferry, another cancelled flight from Brussels and long delays). And in between the weddings here at home in the UK have kept us rather occupied too.
So what has 2011 in store for us? Well, in January we’ll be jetting off again, this time to film a wedding in Florida, followed by another convention, In[Focus] in New Orleans. After that, we’ve got a busy diary already with plenty of bookings, so if you want us to film your wedding next year, get in touch as soon as possible. Don’t forget, we only take on a limited number of weddings each year so we can keep our standards as high as possible.

Now to finish the year, one more video clip to share. Earlier in the year, we already showed you a trailer to this wedding. Now it’s time for the highlights to Clare and Matthew’s wedding.

Clare & Matt from EverAfterVideos on Vimeo.

Here at Ever After we wish you all a magical 2011! May all your dreams and wishes come true!

Next up: Elizabeth and Philip! Here’s a wedding I’m unlikely to ever forget, first ever wedding where the bride invited 2 donkeys! Elizabeth is quite the animal lover and loved the idea of a petting zoo, originally she wanted an elephant, but that didn’t seem quite feasible. So the next choice was donkeys, Jack and Del Boy, who were groomed to perfection for the big day and proved to be quite popular with the guests.
Elizabeth and Philip’s wedding was truly beautiful: 2 of the sweetest people you’ll ever meet, a lovely venue (Gaynes Park in Essex), perfect weather, … And we had the pleasure of working with Alison and Stephen from Purvis-Gisborne Photography again. You can check out some photos of Elizabeth and Philip’s wedding on the Purvis-Gisborne Blog. I hope you enjoy the highlights from their wedding film.

Elizabeth & Philip from EverAfterVideos on Vimeo.

And now for a little extra treat. If you venture over to our Ever After Facebook page, you’ll get a glimpse of what we were up to yesterday in the North East. We’ve got a little flavour to share from Florence and Michael’s wedding at St Godric’s Church in Durham and a reception at Jesmond Dene House in Newcastle. It was a beautiful but freezing cold day, luckily not hampered by any snow. And I just want to give a quick shout out to Ian from Pacific Studios, who was more than a joy to work with yesterday and to the florist Diana Kaye, who put together a stunning bouquet made entirely from Lilies of the Valley (which smelled amazing)

The last few days of 2010, and we’re in the Christmas spirit here at Ever After, in the sense that we’ll be sharing quite a few more videos with you before the end of the year!

First up this week: Lara and Tissa! Lara can best me described as the giddiest bride we’ve ever had and I love her for it, she was just so adorable! And Tissa, well, he was one of the sweetest grooms we’ve ever had, planning a bunch of little surprises like an ice cream van and Chinese lanterns for Lara on their wedding day. Their ceremony took place at St Michael’s Church in beautiful village of Hathersage in the Peak District (some of you may have heard of this church as it’s the place where the grave of Little John lies). The reception was at the Sheffield Hilton, making a nice contrast going from rural to urban in one day. This lucky couple didn’t just get one wedding day! A few days after their wedding day here in sunny England, they flew to Sri Lanka for more wedding celebrations with Tissa’s family.

Lara & Tissa from EverAfterVideos on Vimeo.

And on a side note: We have some exciting plans for next month. We’ll be having a contest featuring the 5 most popular wedding videos we’ve featured on this blog this year (based on page views and comments). Among the prices: a £200 John Lewis voucher and a £75 Amazon gift certificate. So stay tuned for the details of the contest coming up in January!

Despite the fact that we are based in Sheffield, we rarely cover a wedding in our own neck of the woods. This year was a bit of exception. First in line were Amy and Nick. Although they currently live down south, Amy’s family is from Sheffield and she came home to get married. And when I say home, I really do mean home, as the reception was held in the beautiful gardens of her parents’ house.

The days before the wedding featured several torrential downpours, making the whole set up of the marquee a bit trickier than it was supposed. But then the day itself was perfect. Amy looked simply beautiful, her dad wiping a tear away as she came down the stairs.

The evening entertainment was provided by QEII, a really amazing Queen Tribute band who rocked the house (well, marquee). They were superb!

Also, a quick shout out to Rosemary and Andrew, the lovely photographers at Chilli Pepper Images who we worked with that day.

The Wedding of Amy and Nick from EverAfterVideos on Vimeo.

When I started in this business back in 2002, it seemed rather hard to find other women doing this job. It very much looked like a male-dominated industry, despite the fact that our product is aimed at a largely female market. Usually when going to conventions or anything else industry related, people would always talk to Niels and seem to treat me as a “plus 1”, Niels was always quickly to tell them that I was the driving force behind this business. Even at this year’s IoV Convention, it was a challenge to find more than 5 women at any one moment and I still felt that many businesses at the tradeshow didn’t even bother trying to get my attention. So it seemed that not much had changed in 8 years.
But then it helps to look a bit further and you will find that some of the most amazing event film makers in the world are women! And then 2 of those amazing women, Jennifer Moon and Reagan Zugelter, got together, and established “POSH” with the aim of connecting, educating and inspiring women visual artists.

“Because of their age long training in human relations—for that is what feminine intuition really is—women have a special contribution to make to any group enterprise.” – Margaret Mead

42 dedicated women filmmakers and photographers.
Five sparkling days in the Bahamas.
One powerful message: We Create.

Professional event filmmakers and photographers from across the globe gathered recently on a cruise to the Bahamas for POSH 2010, an educational workshop and retreat for women. Inspired by their shared experiences in an industry dominated by males, the group spontaneously decided to use their creative gifts to craft a short film illustrating the positive power and passion of women in the film industry.

Shot on location at POSH 2010, “We Create” was directed by Maura Coleman-Murray and Kara Jensen, filmed by Maribeth Ratajczyk and Luiza Perkowska, and edited by Meg Simone. All 42 POSH 2010 attendees collaborated on the piece.

We Create from POSH on Vimeo.

Last week was a busy one for the Ever After team. On Wednesday and Thursday the IOV had their yearly convention ProVideo at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, in fact it was the 25th anniversary of the IOV. We ran 2 seminars, both on some of my favourite subjects: audio and vintage lenses. After our Thursday seminar, we travelled further down south towards Surrey to meet up with Emma and James.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a livelier and upbeat church rehearsal! Emma and James were clearly eager to get married and looking forward to a day of celebrations. An October wedding always carries the risk of rain with it, but Emma and James has a perfectly gorgeous autumn day with the rain holding off until late at night. After a their service in the idyllic St Mary’s Church in Datchet, the reception was held at the Wenthworth Club, Viginia Waters in Surrey. Karin, the coordinator, made sure that every little detail was perfect and indeed it was! The team at the Wenthworth Club was an example of efficiency and service. Kenan, the banqueting manager made sure we were looked after.

Magaret and her team from the ChairDressing Company together with Firebird Events made the room look exquisite as you’ll notice in the clip below. We worked alongside David and Ann from WardPhotoArt who were the photographers of the day. It was a pleasure working alongside them and I had a great time chatting in the down time. Sylvia on the other hand was very busy editing the Same Day Edit which we screened during the band’s break.

And now without further ado, have a look at the Same Day Edit:

Emma & James: Same Day Edit from EverAfterVideos on Vimeo.

On a separate note, we just received an email from ‘the Bridal Magazine’ to let us know we’ve been shortlisted for their annual ‘Wedding Videographer of the Year’-award. To be quite honest, we had no idea anyone had put us forward, so whoever you were : Thank you!

Of course now we need some votes, so if you think we’re worthy, please vote for us:

Quick blog update, as we’ve got a busy week ahead of us! Between a few editing deadlines, we’re also off to the IOV ProVideo Show where Niels will be giving 2 seminars and then at the end of the week we have another wedding to film. Sleep is optional this week.

Last weekend we were up in Scotland, filming the wedding of Donna and John at Comlongon Castle near Dumfries. And we’ve got a Same Day Edit to share of this one. I’d just like to say, I loved Donna’s dress by Jenny Packham, it was sheer old Hollywood glamour. We also had a great time working together with Ken and Janet from Team Thomson Photography and Laura Kerr, make up artist from Blusha, who was amazing too.

I hope you’ll enjoy their Same Day Edit!

Donna and John, SDE at Comlongon Castle, Scotland from EverAfterVideos on Vimeo.

A week ago we were filming a wedding in Cornwall, last weekend we were at one in Hampshire, the weekend coming up we’ll be in Scotland… we are spending a whole lot of time on the roads these days! Yet, I somehow still managed to find the time to put together a trailer yesterday for last Saturday’s wedding. To be clear, that’s the one in Hampshire, more specifically Lucie and Matt’s wedding at Avington Park near Winchester.

We spent the day working with Rob and Darren from ShootingHip, yes, you should know by now that those are pretty much our favourite photographers, so if anyone has booked us and still looking for a photographer, please consider ShootingHip! And the other way around works too, if you booked Rob as your photographer, consider getting us to film your wedding. We’re a great team!

Anyway, back to Lucie and Matt. Wedding planner on this occasion: the groom! And what a job he did! Perfectly planned, even though Lucie was slightly fashionably late for the ceremony, the day ran like clockwork. And Avington Park, well, we worked here last year at Cathy and Craig’s wedding, and it was just as stunning as we remembered. Beautiful venue and as ever very friendly staff! In the evening, there was the fabulous Jamtastic band to set the right party mood for the evening.

So check out the trailer to this wedding and afterwards, make sure you also check out Rob’s photos of Lucie and Matt’s wedding on the ShootingHip blog!

Trailer of Matt and Lucie’s wedding at Avington Park, Hampshire from EverAfterVideos on Vimeo.

Same Day Edit time!!! Helena and Daniel’s wedding is on the menu today. They tied the knot yesterday at the stunning Rushton Hall in Northamptonshire. According to Helena’s dad Charles, Helena had been planning this wedding since she was 3 years old, organising several weddings with her doll Alice. So it was no wonder that this day went off without a hitch, even the weather was lovely (which Helena sweetly contributed to her grandmother watching over her). Helena wore a beautiful gown by Maggie Sottero and it clearly made an impact on Daniel, who couldn’t hold back the tears as she walked down the aisle.

We showed the Same Day Edit in the evening, during the band’s break, as a way to make the evening guests more involved in the day, and as ever with Same Day Edits, it went down a treat! There’s hardly a greater pleasure for us as event film makers to see people truly enjoy the work we created for them.

The beautiful flower arrangements and bouquets were created by Louise Stafford from TurstFlora.  We also had the pleasure of working with Nigel Ord-Smith Photography. And along with wedding planner Jennifer Richardson and Matt, the coordinator at Rushton, everything was just perfect.

Quick newsflash!

Yesterday evening we were awarded our second Creative Excellence Award at WEVA in Orlando Florida! Last year we won a bronze award in the Short Form Wedding Film category, this year we were lucky enough to receive a silver award in the Bridal Spotlight category. I can’t begin to say how happy we are with this result!!! There were so many amazing videos in all the categories and to know that the judges consider one of our videos part of that elite bunch, well,… it’s surreal.

So if you are curious enough to find out what it takes to win a Silver CEA, then, check this out!

Also, this morning I delivered my seminar on Short Wedding Films here at the WEVA Expo. Lots of people turned up (and not just for the Belgian chocolate I brought along) including some videographers that I seriously look up to, like Jason Magbanua for example!!! The seminar went without any technical glitches, phew, and I received so much positive feedback. This trip is sooooo worth all the hassle we went through on Sunday to get here.