When Joya and Emre told me 3 weeks before their wedding that they wanted to shoot a music video on their wedding day, I silently flipped out. I kept thinking: “they have no idea how crazy just a normal wedding day is”
But then we set a meeting with videographer David Robin, and we all got to work. I knew it’d be ok because we had a great team and both Joya & Emre are executives in the entertainment industry. For those of you that don’t know what this means: it means they have what it takes to be successful in one of the most cut throat industries there is. You don’t question if something can be done, you just DO IT. They just added this huge project onto their wedding day because they “thought it would be fun.”
So they started story-boarding this song, emailing their friends and family who would enjoy being a part of it, learning their lines, and finishing up on all of the final wedding prep like creating their seating charts.
At our meeting with David, we were all incredibly concerned how we were going to get the footage we needed WITHOUT taking away from the wedding day unfolding organically. We didn’t want this to feel like a huge music video shoot. So the Timeline was created to allow for photography & videography, with segments at the end for the music video being filmed. For instance, the bridesmaids on the couch scene was at the end of the family portraits and it only took 3 takes. Less than 10 minutes.
Joya and Emre informed their guests in the program that they were doing this video and they’d love their guests to be involved. Guests were told that they would recess down the aisle 3 times: the first being their actual “we’re married!!” walk, and the 2nd & 3rd filmed with the guests lip syncing the lyrics. The song was only played twice during the reception during the later part of the evening after dinner (and following Joya’s surprise song to Emre!) when everyone was in the mood to boogie. Throughout the day and evening, friends were pulled aside to film their bits.
Even with perfect planning, things can go wrong. Not only were we concerned about having to implement the rain plan, but we got started almost an hour late due to some things that could not be controlled. We all pulled together as a team though! The Photographers, Callaway Gable, were fully on board with all of this filming and despite the time crunch, were still able to get amazing photos.
Even with 7 cameramen running around that day, nothing felt forced or too “Hollywood-y.”
We all love how it turned out and are loving the reactions of people online.
