Good morning, and welcome to the thunderstorm.
This is part three of Holly and Luke’s wedding, it is the wedding day itself, and I want to spoil the ending right now because it’s in the title anyway: one of my a7S III bodies died during the reception. Rain killed it. Everything else about the day was fantastic and I’d do it again tomorrow, but one camera did not make it home in working order.
The forecast was 100% chance of rain, all day, with a generous dip to 90% in the middle. So going in, I already knew this was going to be a test of how water resistant the a7S III and all these lenses actually are. Turns out: mostly.
Gear Setup
Do we bring too much equipment? Yes. Does it make me feel better? Also yes. Backups for everything, and it all fits in about three cases, which I’m choosing to count as a win.
The first one in is what I call the black hole case, because it holds everything and appears to be infinite on the inside. Then the SKB tripod case, which has four light stands, two tripods, and a monopod in it. Both of those cases have wheels. Both of those wheels were completely useless, because the venue is gravel, and I am now zero for two on buying cases with wheels.
No drone. It was way too wet for that, and I know some people would have flown it anyway, but I’d already been out the day before to get the establishing shots whenever it wasn’t raining, so there was nothing to gain.
The one thing I set up early and then leave alone all day is the reception light, an Aputure 60x hanging in the corner. My favorite part of that light is the D-tap. That’s it. That’s the whole review. Getting it hung hours before anybody needs it is one less thing to do whenever the reception hits and everything gets crazy.
Bride Prep, And The Curtain Rod
Holly had deliberately told everyone to keep one room clean for the end of getting ready, which is the single most helpful thing a bride can do for her videographer and almost nobody thinks to do it. The problem was that room had almost no light in it, so I went to open the curtains, and the entire curtain rod came off the wall.
Everything’s fine. Do not be alarmed. The videographer is just breaking things.
Honestly though, if only all curtains came off that easily. The amount of times I’ve stood in a hotel room fighting with curtains that are glued down and hoping to get them out of the way quickly is not small. I decided to act like it was intentional and moved on.
The Poker Game
Luke and the groomsmen had a poker game going in the cabin, which is a gift, because it gives you something to film that isn’t six guys standing around holding beers. Somebody in the room suggested a Daniel Schiffer style card transition, and we all agreed that Peter Lindgren already did the definitive poker run and it blew up his channel, so there was no point trying to beat it.
The Letters
Both of them wrote letters and read them on camera, which is the backbone of the film. I ask whoever’s wearing the lavalier to place it themselves and then I ask them to confirm it’s recording, purely for my own paranoia, and I have never once regretted asking.
One small thing worth stealing: whenever I filmed Holly, the window light was coming in on her right side, so for Luke I set him up with the light coming in on his left. Same setup, mirrored. It’s a tiny bit of variety that costs nothing and makes the two shots feel like a pair instead of a repeat.
Because of the weather, we also moved the whole schedule earlier. The plan had been for this part of the day to be relaxed, but pulling everything forward gave us more chances to get the couple outside in whatever gaps the rain gave us.
First Look And Portraits
Bridesmaids first, then dad, then Luke. And then we got maybe the only genuinely dry stretch of the entire day and ran outside with it. Umbrellas, wet grass, a cow that flatly refused to look at the camera, and Rachel back there supervising my shots and having a very specific vision about it, which she denies.
The lens doing most of the work here is the Sigma 35mm f/1.2. It is an absolute chunky boy. It is also worth it, and I shot a lot of this day wide open at f/1.2, which you can see on the settings overlays throughout the video.
Ceremony Setup
Three problems, and I want to walk through them because this is the part of a wedding day that actually requires thinking.
First, the chapel is wood and metal, and it was raining, so the roof noise was going to be a real issue. Second, Luke is much taller than Holly, which means the side angle I’d normally take to catch her face during the vows just doesn’t work, so I had to commit to being on her side and moving my tripod. Third, the aisle is extremely short, more wide than long, so the aisle shot had to happen on a 35 instead of the 50 I’d normally reach for.
Audio was three sources: a lav on the groom, a lav on the officiant, and my old faithful Zoom H4n plugged straight into the back of the musician’s speaker for the house feed. I also put a second, backup mic on the officiant, tucked lower under his shirt, on the theory that being more isolated would keep some of the rain noise off it. He was completely unbothered. “I’m here to serve, man.” Heads up: the Zoom H4n has been discontinued, so this link goes to its replacement, the Zoom H4essential.
Nobody has ever told me no on any of this. I try to be really nice about it and just ask them to indulge my paranoia.
The Ceremony
Holly and Luke’s vows have jokes in them that were clearly written for me personally. She promises to always put him first, even whenever a new camera gets released and he has to know all the specs because Potato Jet just put out a tutorial. He says she finds joy in the simple things, and sometimes the expensive things at B&H. I was standing right there.
All the audio recorded, all the angles worked, and I got her face for the vows. Good ceremony.
The Death Of My a7S III
About 45 seconds before the bridal party got introduced into the reception, the camera started glitching out real bad.
I put together How To Film A Rehearsal Dinner | Wedding Filmmaking Behind The Scenes: Holly & Luke’s Wedding Part 2 as well, which covers the part I skipped over here.
I still don’t know exactly what went. Could have been the lens, could have been the body, could have just needed to dry out. What I knew in the moment was that we’d been shooting in the rain all day and now something was wrong, so I switched to the backup a7S III that Brayden had been using for behind the scenes, put him on the a6400, and kept going.
Which left me with no spare bodies at all. If a second camera had gone down I’d have been borrowing the photographer’s Nikons, and I would like everyone to understand what that would have cost me emotionally.
This is the whole argument for redundancy in one moment. I bring too much gear, I get made fun of for the number of cases, and then one afternoon a camera dies 45 seconds before an entrance and the day continues like nothing happened. That’s what the extra body is for. That’s also what insurance is for.
Reception, Night Portraits, And The Exit
Holly’s dad gave me a shout out in the middle of his toast, which was lovely and also mortifying, and I was extremely grateful to be wearing a mask because I was blushing hard enough to be visible from space.
After the first dance we took the couple back outside to see how waterproof the light was, on the grounds that we’d already killed one camera so we might as well find out. Backlit, in the dark, in the rain, at f/1.2 and ISO 12800. Then the private last dance, then the sparkler exit with me walking backwards in front and Rachel behind them with a spotlight, which is about as fancy as we get.
My beard was wavy from wearing a mask for fourteen hours, one camera was dead, and the wedding turned out so, so good. No complaints.
Watch The Rest Of The Series
This is part three of three. Part 1 is us adventuring with Holly and Luke in the mountains of Colorado, and Part 2 is how we filmed their rehearsal dinner. You can also watch Holly and Luke’s actual wedding film, which is what all of this was in service of.
Music, Editing, And Gear
This video was sponsored by Musicbed, and every single song in it is licensed from them. Clay Finnesand, Natalie Madigan, and Nevada Wild are all on there, and they have somewhere north of 700 indie artists and composers, so finding something that matches the vibe you’re going for is not the hard part.
I used to license per song and hand Musicbed literally thousands of dollars a year. In 2018 they introduced a wedding filmmaker subscription, which is unlimited music for one flat yearly rate, and for those of us burning through songs at the pace weddings demand, that’s a huge win. They also have a system called Sync ID that automatically clears YouTube copyright claims on anything you licensed under the subscription, so neither you nor your couples get hit with claims. Use the code MATTMUSICBED and you’ll get 12 months for the price of 11.
These behind the scenes videos take forever to edit, and this one exists because my friends at Archaius Creative helped me cut it. If you’re drowning in a backlog, or there’s a part of the process you hate like color grading or sound mixing, that link gets you 10% off your first edit.
Everything I used on this wedding is listed at my a7S III wedding kit, my broader favorites are at geni.us/filmmakingkit, and this was graded with my own WhoisMatt LUTs.
If you want to learn to cut wedding films this way, my full edit process is in Wedding Film Framework, there are a few thousand of us in the Learn Wedding Filmmaking Facebook group, and my free guide to booking more wedding clients is right there whenever you want it.