Let’s start at the beginning, right back to before I purchased my Canon 5d. So it all starts with Devin Super Tramp; Devin is a Youtuber, he creates amazingly inspirational videos. These are normally short videos around 3-5 minutes edited to a piece of music. The actual footage is typically of some kind of crazy stunt like the world’s largest rope swing! He also films landscapes, nature, scripted comedy and much more.

I was so inspired by Devin’s work I knew from watching the first one, it was something I wanted to do. Being stuck in your average 9-5 desk job; the attraction of getting out of the office and into the fresh air was irresistible. I couldn’t think of anything else I would rather spend my time doing!

So that very evening I went home and purchased the exact same equipment Devin used to create his videos; the same camera, the same lens, the same glidecam (camera stabilizer for smooth footage) just about the same everything. The quality of Devin’s videos was exquisite, I knew if I bought the exact same equipment the only limiting factor would be myself, something I was sure I could overcome.

The equipment soon arrived and I began experimenting with a few of the cameras features, I’d never picked up a video camera before so it was all very new. I took the camera outside and filmed a few bits and bobs like grass in the wind and ocean waves hitting the shore. Although I enjoyed my little dabble in filming, the prospect of actually making an entire video like one of Devin’s was overwhelming! I didn’t have a clue what I would film or even where I would start. The camera hit the top shelf and became one of those “I’ll do that another day” things.

A few months later I received a message on Facebook, my good friend Kirsty, next-door neighbour of 22 years was getting married and would I mind filming the wedding?! This was the seed that started my career in wedding videography, the more I thought about it, the more appealing it seemed. What could be better than going to weddings all over the country, seeing different places, meeting new people & most importantly of all getting away from that desk? The seed was planted, now began the task of growing it into a viable career :)

So I’d agreed to film Kirsty’s wedding; this was great but I didn’t want to turn up to Kirsty’s wedding as a total novice & I knew I would need more than one wedding video under my belt before I could convince brides & grooms to be to part with their hard earned cash. So back to the laptop I go… This time I ended up on a Wedding group on Facebook. I sent out a message offering to film 2 weddings for free preferably before the 31st December (Kirsty’s wedding). As you can imagine when people saw the word FREE they jumped at the chance, I soon had over 30 brides volunteering their weddings.

I picked out two of the most promising, the first, Colin & Kathryn’s wedding at Cooling Castle Barn on the 1st of December and second, Simon & Ven’s wedding at Beaumont Estate in Old Windsor. I chose these two for a few different reasons, the first being the venues themselves, from what I could see from their websites they were both stunning.  The second reason was because they were both before Kristy’s wedding. The third – they all seemed like nice people :)

I think that’s about it for this chapter of the story, in my next post I’ll cover Colin & Kathryn’s wedding at Cooling Castle Barn.