If you ask Ashley how we met, she will undoubtedly tell you that I taught her everything I know about cameras, and then used her for all of her camera gear when I needed help with filming something. That is all true, and since meeting her in 2010 she has traveled with me all over the state filming weddings for many happy couples.
We often talked about our own weddings and promised to film each others when the time came. She started dating Tyler in 2011, and after meeting him and seeing the way that he cared about her, I knew I would be filming them in a few years. Jump ahead to June 2013, and there I was filming Tyler’s proposal to Ashley. He set it all up in the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens and completely surprised her.
My favorite part of their proposal wasn’t just getting to see Tyler get on one knee, but how he spoke about her before he proposed. I knew I was filming something exceptional when I saw how much care, love, and thought went into that moment. Their wedding is a continuation of that moment that he proposed, and it is so incredible to be able to hear Ashley’s side of it all in the her letter to Tyler. The excitement that he shows in the proposal film is mirrored perfectly in her letter. I wish I could say that I planned for it to fit together so well, but I didn’t, although I was ready with my camera when it happened.
Her Letter
The film opens on Ashley reading what she wrote to Tyler that morning, and it is the spine of the whole thing. She starts by telling him she can’t believe the day is finally here, and that after tonight she gets to call him her husband for the rest of their days, and then she adds, “I told you I would cry.” Which she does. And which means, in her words, infinite snuggles, unlimited hugs, goodnight kisses, and never having to say goodbye at the end of the day again.
Then she gets to the part that gave this film its title. She thanks him for encouraging the artist in her, and says she never imagined she’d find a man who could be as excited as she is about her passion for documenting life through a camera lens. When I light up, you light up too. She promises to help him develop his own dreams and to encourage him every day to chase them, and she wonders out loud what being married is going to do to both sets of dreams, whether they’ll collide and turn into one big dream instead of two.
She closes by telling him to enjoy the day and to try to slow time down, the way they used to talk about doing back when they were driving to visit each other that first summer they dated. That’s the line I think about most. Everybody says a wedding day goes by fast, and she said it out loud to him before it even started.
The Omni, And A Dallas Skyline
I’ve heard it said, leave it up to the people that film weddings to have the best ones, and this definitely holds true to Ashley and Tyler’s. From the massive Omni Hotel suite overlooking the Dallas skyline while they got ready, to the trolley ride to the venue, to the vintage camera centerpieces and Edison lightbulbs, everything looked amazing in front of the camera. The only thing better than all the beauty of the locations and decorations was the joy of Ashley and Tyler.
The suite was high enough up that the window was doing all the work for me. Whenever you get a getting-ready room with a wall of glass like that, you have a soft light source the size of the room and a skyline sitting behind whoever you point the camera at, and honestly the hardest part becomes not shooting every single thing against that window.
A Trolley Across Downtown
Instead of a limo they took a trolley from the hotel over to the venue, which meant that in the middle of a very full day the two of them got a few quiet minutes on a wooden bench with nobody else on board. Those in-between moments are usually where the best footage of a wedding day hides, because nobody is posing and nobody is being announced, they’re just sitting there together.
The Ceremony
The blessing over them asked that they be pulled together stronger than ever before, that they find their love in God and their strength together, and that they live this life in a way that carries into the next one. Then came the part everybody waits for, delivered with the full weight of the great state of Texas behind it, and a kiss to seal the vows.
333 First Avenue
The reception venue is an old brick and timber building with heavy wooden posts running down the middle of the room and strings of Edison bulbs hung the whole length of it, which means the room lights itself. There were vintage cameras on the tables as centerpieces, which for these two is not a decoration, it’s a biography.
And then a vintage car at the curb in the dark, everybody outside on the sidewalk, and the two of them gone. Perfect.
Special thanks to Taylor Stanley and Kylie Best for helping film this wedding. And if you want to see more of Ashley’s work, visit Sun7Studios.
These two weddings landed about two weeks apart in the same spring, and they could not have looked more different, which is honestly one of my favorite parts of this job. If you want to see the other one, I filmed Courtney and Mitchell out at Pecan Springs in Brookshire.
Interested in having me film your wedding? Please contact me!