Thanks to all of you who participated, we really appreciate your thoughts and I can’t wait to start editing some of these together, I feel so inspired.

Check our our newest blog post above and look for Frankie J’s wedding next week!

Hello brides and grooms and anyone else who follows our blog,

We hope your wedding planning is going well.

We have some fun wedding videos to share with you soon but I realized this was our 100th blog post and thought I should do something special!

We have been planning on editing together some inspiration boards like photographers do (check out Style Me Pretty for some examples) – but in video!

SO – what we need are ideas. Well, we have ideas but we want to know what you want to see! What would help you come up with ideas for your own wedding?

To make this a little more fun, if you leave a comment with ideas you will be entered to win a little contest (prize TBD) so please, comment away!

We’re excited to share ideas with the wedding community and hope that you enjoy watching our videos as much as we enjoy making them

-Jared&Danielle

If you’re interested in our services for your wedding, be sure to mention the A-list for a discount. Go here to check it out!

Jared and I decided to take a longer trip over the summer of ’09 and visit some places we’d always wanted to go. Some of the best advice we’ve gotten from married couples about marriage is to make good memories the first few years. Since we don’t have kids yet, now is the time to explore the world together. We chose Ireland because that’s a place we both have wanted to go for a long time. We decided on the Netherlands because I still have family there – and so we could “discover my roots” hah! And we thought the history of Berlin would be cool to see as well. We definitely had some fun adventures as you will see through this video. We just brought our “handycam” video camera which we hand held so excuse the lack of quality and the bumps! hah  

enjoy!

We have been making traditions as our own little family and one of them is a Christmas card VIDEO! This is our 3rd Christmas married and so here is our 3rd [cheesy] video!

enjoy…

…because life moves

We were also in San Diego Style Weddings Magazine. We shot Lisa and Brent’s wedding in March and here we are listed as vendors for their Prado wedding! Click on the photo below to see the online version:

Last but not least, you might remember our postings from Brooke and Brandon’s wedding from back in April, well they even put a little blurb about all their vendors in Perfect Wedding Guide so check that out as well! Click on it to see their online version.

Needless to say, we’re pretty excited to have all that happen in one month! It’s neat to see people sharing their wedding ideas with all these “real weddings”. It’s nice to know there are other real people planning their weddings out there We hope to see some more of our couples out there sending in their wedding experiences!

Stay tuned…we have a bunch more recaps coming up!

…because life moves

First of all, we came in 3rd in the 10News A-List competition! Thanks to everyone who voted, you are all so awesome! We are really excited to have this honor

Over the summer we’ve been busy! One thing we did was enter a video into the San Diego Fair and it won first place! We got 2nd and 3rd last year so we’re really excited that we moved up this year. Here’s the award winning video:

One thing to say about that video too is that it is one example of a promo spot which we have so much fun doing! The cool thing is that they can look any way you want, more like a commercial like the one above or more like a highlight of how you work or just a cool fun video showing off your company’s personality. We have a few examples…Here’s one example, here’s another, and here’s another one. If you are interested in something like this for your business, please give us a call! We LOVE doing these and would love to work with you.

We also got to go on a trip this summer! One piece of advice that we have taken from other married couples when we got married was to make lots of good memories. We’ve really striven to follow that advice especially before we have kids and still have time to go lots of places…so here’s where we went this summer! We took two weeks and went to Ireland, Germany and The Netherlands. Here is a teaser pic and I’ll post the video soon (after I catch up on some wedding videos)

Stay tuned…our next wedding recap video is from New Jersey!!

Here’s the link to the article but I’ll also post the whole thing here. These are my tips on how to choose a videographer based on what I know.

Good luck in your wedding planning!

1. Start Planning Early:
Whether you are planning your wedding two years from now or two months from now, it’s best to start planning as early as you can. Vendors and venues get booked really early especially if you are planning a summer wedding. The sooner you can get your foot in the door, less will be saved till the last minute and the less stressed you will be. Another benefit of planning early is getting a good quality vendor. The longer you wait, the more you will have to “settle” for someone you might not be as happy with or might not have the style you want. When thinking about videography, this is especially true. Once you know who you want to hire, contact them immediately to make sure they aren’t already booked for your wedding date and set up an appointment to meet.

2. Meet your vendors in person:
When hiring your vendors, meeting them in person is a must! Videographers have limited abilities with putting full quality videos online and depending on your internet connection you might not be able to view much. It is very necessary to meet videographers in person to get a feel for their personalities, style and to watch a whole, full-quality wedding video. Many people can edit together a few good clips and make it look like they are good at what they do. What you will want to look for is a videographer who is able to shoot a whole wedding start to finish with limited mistakes and good sound quality (including capturing your vows!). Also, seeing a video on DVD or Blu-ray on a larger TV will give you a better idea for what your video will look like and you can decide if you like what you see. Meeting in person will help you gauge their videography style and ask questions face to face. It is hard to have all the answers on a website or even in an email or phone conversation. Meeting in person will help you feel like you are on the same page with all your vendors, we recommend meeting all of them face to face!

3. Know the Facts:
When you have chosen your videographer, make sure to get all the details. Go ahead, ask a lot of questions! The worst thing that could happen is if you get your wedding video back and it wasn’t nearly what you expected but then you realize that you just never asked about this or that. Make sure that you are on the same page with your vendors about every detail. This goes for all your vendors as well. This is your wedding and you want all the details to be the way you planned. Here are a few things you should ask your videographer about; how many hours will they be at your event, how many shooters will be there (this is important as 2 shooters is significantly better than 1 with video), what exactly does the package you are ordering include, how many DVDs or Blu-ray discs are they including, how much are extras, what is their style (and make sure to tell them what you are expecting your video to look like), how long after the wedding will you receive your video, and what type of equipment do they use.

4. Understand the Equipment:
Ask your videographer what type of equipment they use. If you don’t know much about video equipment, that’s fine, but here are a few things you should find out. Ask if they use high quality professional microphones that will hear the sound of both the bride, groom, officiant and the music. Ask if they shoot in High Definition (HD). Though receiving your video in HD (on Blu-ray discs) usually costs more, having your video shot on HD cameras and then burned to DVD will almost always look better than shooting on Standard Definition cameras. If you are getting your video delivered in HD, understand that it will cost a little bit more but it will also be more future proof. If you don’t have a Blu-ray player now, you might soon. Some videographers will also allow you to keep your video backed up on their computers for some time so you can also upgrade later to HD. You might even be able to have your video in both DVD and Blu-ray so make sure to ask if that is an option as well.

5. Have Fun!
Getting engaged is such a wonderful, exhilarating and overwhelming time and should be enjoyed to the fullest! All the planning and organizing is important for your wedding day but the most important thing is your marriage. Make sure to plan for time to spend together without talking about the wedding and having just some “us” time. Don’t let wedding planning consume you. The process can be stressful but it can also be a fun thing to do together. Just make sure to get some good quality time together and don’t let the little things bother you. If you’ve taken the time to choose good quality vendors you can trust, and friends and family to help out, the little things will fall into place. Remember, you can always ask your vendors for advice, we all know weddings and can refer you to other vendors or just help out with little details. Good luck and congratulations!

We had a great time at the Bridal Bazaar on Saturday. Thanks to everyone who stopped by and visited our booth.

I won’t spoil anything, just want to thank Christopher Nolan for deciding that the Batman series needed a little re-doing. If you haven’t seen Batman Begins, definitely look into it and then follow it with this one, they are amazing.

I was also very surprised with the hundreds and hundreds of people also watching the midnight showing. I hate when I pay $10 for a movie only to have the experience ruined by people who want to talk through the whole thing. But last night, when the first credit came on, everyone cheered, then were silent for the entire movie, no cell phones or anything, it was amazing. Everyone was so respectful of each other (either that or tired). All in all, great movie experience and well worth my $10!

If you saw it, what did you think?