KENTUCKIANA Based Wedding FilmmakerCAPTURING THE beautiful AND authentic MEMORIES OF your WEDDING DAY
The day will go by so fast and you’ll have so much fun, but when the sun has finally set, the drinks have gone warm and the food has gone cold and all your loved ones have returned to their homes, the memories that you share of that wonderful day will keep with you for a lifetime.
We capture those memories, because it’s what we love.
photography provided in part by Kendra Farris Photography
Want to learn more about investing in the film that’ll tell your love story for the rest of your lives?
A RECENT FAVORITETHE FEATURED FILM
We love what we do and we love the films we make so we like to make space at the top of our site just to show off a little and keep a fresh showcase of some of the work we’re most recently proud of.
The current featured film is a very unique one in that it’s not actually a wedding, yet!- it was such a joy to work behind the scenes with this groom-to-be, having too much fun being sneaky in our first ever Proposal Film. In the spirit of Document Films, much of this film will be used to tell Max & Jasmine’s story when we produce their wedding film in 2025. Don’t miss out on getting to see this beautiful moment, it’s definitely worth the watch.
WHAT MAKES US DIFFERENT?
WHAT WE USED TO DO & HOW MOST STILL DO IT
The way most do it, including the way we used to, is to give you a highlight reel of your wedding day; starting from whenever the videographer’s hours begin, and placed over some nice music and perhaps the audio of your vows or even the toasts, it’ll go from scene to scene to following the major events of the day until it ends whenever the videographers hours end. This tells a rough story of the events of the day but often lacks real substance and, even worse, rarely provides more value or coverage than what you’re already receiving from the photographer who you undoubtedly hired first, making a wedding film an expensive accessory.
The Big Problems
Most wedding films are bound by the few hours you could afford to hire your videographer for on the wedding day. Maybe that means you miss Mom helping the bride put on her dress or Dad giving that special toast at the end of the day. Sometimes that means constricting the timeline of a wedding day until it feels more like a 10 hour sprint than an intimate celebration of your future together. Worst of all though, it means that no matter how important it is to your story, if it didn’t happen or wasn’t mentioned on your wedding day then it doesnt make it into your film.
Your wedding film, already constrained as it is, can only really be edited like a highlight reel, as if your day were a basketball game, with loud and exciting music laid over it to drum up emotions over the imagery. There’s no room or time in such a film to convey the quiet intimacy, the anxious anticipation, the calm moments in between the loud ones, the loving support and reunions with loved ones gathered there to celebrate the new union being made that day. For us, these are the most precious moments on a wedding day and it breaks our heart to see them overshadowed because that’s just the way everyone does it.
Most wedding videographers price to move, they do a lot of weddings in a year to make ends meet, we know because we did too, but that makes it impossible to spend the time really needed to get to know a couple’s story, talk to their friends and family, and create a wedding film that authentically tells your love story, the whole thing. The cheaper a wedding film is the more of them your videographer will have to do in a year and the less they’ll be able to give each love story the unique care and attention it deserves to truly be told well.
The end result is a rushed, incomplete, loud, impersonal, and cheap wedding film that isn’t much more than the motion picture version of the stills your wedding photographer already got.
For us, this just wasn’t good enough.
HOW WE’VE CHANGED EVERYTHING & WHY WE LOVE IT
We want to give you more- it’s a life changing moment, it deserves more. We start with a visit soon after you book us for some in-home conversation to get to know you all, we learn about your childhood, your love story together, precious memories, who your favorite people are and who to talk to on your wedding day. We take all of that infromation and make a plan for how to incorporate it and capture it all in your wedding film, wether that means showcasing that trip you all took that changed your relationship forever through photos and videos you all captured yourselves or asking Dad about his favorite memories of you with an interview and old home videos. We begin filming your wedding day as early as we need to and we stay until the end so that when you watch your wedding film it feels like reliving memories. We talk to all of the important people and capture all those real and intimate moments you share with those you love- all while sneaking in little references to those memories and precious moments you shared with us at your in-home meeting. We’re into the art of telling love stories and your love story doesn’t just begin on your wedding day so neither should your wedding film. Your love story is one in a series of love stories, your parents, your grandparents, and all of those who played an important part in making you who you are today; all culminating in the union of your love, surrounded by all of those who have loved you and brought you to this moment- those people, places, relationships, and memories are all necessary for telling your story and we don’t skip out on them.
Our Big Solutions
We don’t charge you by the hour. We operate on a flat rate so that you’ll get every minute of your wedding covered, you just send us the timeline and we’ll be there to capture the day. We don’t want to miss a thing because we want our wedding films to feel like a dreamy memory of how the day went; and besides, who wants to tell only half a love story anyway?
We tell the whole thing, not just the highlight reel. That moment when you and your bridesmaids had side stitches from laughing too hard or when your Grandfather shed those little tears as he watched you walking down the aisle; when you stole that moment with your new partner after the ceremony to let it all sink in or when your best friend gave you that once or twice in a lifetime kind of hug; when the day is whirling by and you don’t even get a chance to really see everybody you wanted to- we’ll capture it all, exactly as it was, like a fly on the wall, just watching those beautiful moments unfold.
We don’t price ourselves too low to doing quality work, so we’re able to take all the time we need to give you the kind of experience and wedding film that we aspire to, as artists, without worrying about the other 30 weddings we have that year. We center our entire business model around giving the most and very best that we have in our power to give- we skip nothing and you get everything, the toasts, ceremony, wedding film, raw footage, everything you could want, for every couple, every time.
The end result is a different kind of wedding film, a different kind of experience, something unique to Document Wedding Films and something we could not be more proud to offer.
We just want to make the best wedding films we possibly can, because those stories matter to us, your stories.
“We just watched the wedding video! LOVED IT!! Beautifully captured the essence of me and Jamie! We had no idea you all had so many angles set up. Really impressed. Perfect little treasure to hold onto dearly! THANK YOU!
— JAMIE & MARY
THAT NOSTALGIC FEELING OFTimeless FORMATS BROUGHT TO your WEDDING FILM
Love The vintage Look Of super8 or 16mm film?
We do too! We work really hard to emulate that look in post for those times when a clip is just begging to be on film. We’re also passionate about the real thing and bring Super8 film cameras with us for every wedding, it’s a fickle medium though and on very old cameras so that’s why we like to know how to emulate it, just in case! Watch below for an example of a subtle film emulation over Henry & Celine’s Wedding Trailer.
How About The homemade Feel Of VHS?
We love the nostalgia of the 90’s home video, it’s what we grew up on and capturing a bit of your wedding day on VHS or even just emulating it sparks a special kind of joy in us. Our clients love to see the VHS next to the Super8 and the 4K video all working together to make your love story feel as timeless and familiar as it should. Below, you can watch another Wedding Trailer but this time stylized after a classic VHS Home Video, enjoy!
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Our Wedding Films have a lot of attention and care put into them so they take some time, but, we know how much it means to you and how anxious you are to see it so we provide a little sneak peak of a few of our favorites to hold you over until the whole film is finished. Most Wedding Trailers won’t have any emulations, we just made a special one to help showcase our film emulation.
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An emulation is when I approximate an analog medium through careful editing techniques so that the footage captured on my digital camera very closely mimics something like film or VHS. Sometimes a clip just speaks to me and it begs to be transformed, it’s a little bit of the story that was made to be told like a home movie from another time but I just happened to capture it on digital instead.
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As always, it’s already included. I document on these formats because it’s what I love to do, it’s how I like to document love stories. I’ve been doing this a while too, I know that no one likes to be nickel and dimed. Now, it’s only a few “rolls” of each that I bring out throughout the day, if you want the whole film documented on either then I’d love to discuss that!
A Look BEHIND THE LENS OFTHE MOST IMPORTANT THINGvalues
I have found over the years of being a professional creative that the thing which draws me closest to my clients, the thing that leaves us both the most fulfilled and satisfied, has been a set of shared of values.
That doesn’t mean that we have to like the same music or have the same religion, but that those core motivators in our lives, our “why’s”, are pretty well aligned- especially when it comes to the choices you make on your wedding day and the vision you have, we have, for your film. Really, isn’t that what we build most of our meaningful connections on- shared values?
That’s why I like to start here. What I do, making these wedding films, and everything else I make, means a lot to me, and nothing kills my excitement and creative spirit more than when a client and I realize too late that we were never aligned on those “why’s”.
And what better way to get to know me?
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The quiet moments between the inevitably hectic ones, when the world slows down just to let you two soak it all in. A moment between a bride and her mother after she’s just helped her put on her dress- the best man gives a groom that look and a hug before they walk down the aisle, or just the tow of you stealing a moment away from everything to cherish the bond that has just been made between them. Those are not only some of the moments most important to me, often more important to me than some of the more typical story beats of a wedding day, and because I love them and I love them for you I always make sure that those moments happen and that you all get that time together and with those that you love because wedding days go by too fast.
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Family and friends are one of the most important things to me, it is part of what fills my life with joy and thankfulness and gives me life. Sometimes it’s the family we were given and sometimes it’s the family we choose but whatever it is, those precious and tender moments between family all gathered together under one bond, the immense love that they have for a couple is what makes documenting a wedding such a pleasure for me and it’s not uncommon for it to bring more than a few tears to my eye throughout the wedding day.
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This was a difficult one to name, of course I don’t mean physical touch ha- but that human touch, that feeling something possesses when humans hands have left an impression on it, especially with art. Much of our world and the content in it has been, wiped clean of what makes it human- “everything has to be perfect” - “stabilize every piece of footage” - “edit every one and every thing until it looks AI generated” - that’s not for me, and it’s not for my clients. I want to feel the human touch both behind and in front of the camera, I want to remember the real humans, their relationships, their love, when I watch a wedding video.
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Not everything will be perfect, but it will be good, because it’ll be you, uniquely the two of you and all of those that surround you. Telling your love story, the whole thing, authentically, with all of it’s blemishes and natural beauty, in a way that represents your truest selves, is one of the thing’s that matter’s most to me when I’m making a wedding film.
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There are those who want their wedding to be a performance, a grand show fit for television, kicking off their new lives together, complete with circus attractions (I’ve seen it) and with the couple as the performers of the main event- I love that for them and it is very cool but it’s not for me. Stress and the pressure to perform weighs heavy on a lot of couples already and in my experience the spectacle of it all becomes a barrier for the kind of authentic, vulnerable, and intimate interactions that I live to capture in a film. That isn’t to say weddings have to be small to be intimate, I’ve seen them come in all sizes, the difference is in what is being made a top priority. For me, the weddings I love the most are those that make a top priority the love, the friendships, the family, the community and a gratefulness for your live’s together.
Now I Want To Get To Know You!
Follow the link below to fill out an inquiry form and get the process started.