My breath of life, my other half, my Cinderella // Two ceremonies, one wedding day, at the Joule Hotel in Dallas

My breath of life, my other half, my Cinderella // Two ceremonies, one wedding day, at the Joule Hotel in Dallas

When I was young, I didn’t like trying new things. I wore the same clothes, ate the same food, read a lot of books, and didn’t get out much. Thankfully this all changed around the time that I left for college, when I made a conscious decision to break out of my shell and attempt to be cool. Whether I was successful at being cool is debatable, but I did manage to make some friends and find a wife, so I consider that a win.

These days, I try to put myself in the position to try new things as often as possible. For example, when we go out on a date, my wife and I have a rule that we can’t go to the same restaurant twice. Another example: I create tutorial and review videos to help random strangers on the Internet.  I still do enjoy wearing the same clothes and reading though, so I guess everything hasn’t changed.

Now why am I telling you all about my awkward younger years? What does me trying new things have to do with Suneera and Amos’ wedding? Quick answer: Because their wedding was something new that I haven’t done before.

Two Ceremonies, Together

Longer answer: This wedding was a major step outside of my comfort zone. Instead of one wedding ceremony, I would be filming two. The first of which would be a traditional Indian ceremony, with all the outfits, music, and flower petals (so many flower petals!), that I had never experienced before. But due to my desire to try new things – and especially film new weddings – I was glad to do it.

Thankfully, Suneera and Amos were patient with me, as I learned all about Saris, Sherwanis, Garlands, and Talis. There was so much to keep track of, but throughout it all I was grateful for the chance to experience another culture’s traditions and ceremonies. Suneera and Amos, as you can see from the video, are such a sweet couple and I am glad I was able to film their wedding.

One Hotel, One Day, Two Weddings

The whole thing happened in a downtown Dallas hotel, which turned out to be the only reason the day was physically possible, because two full ceremonies plus a reception means you are running on somebody else’s clock all day long and you cannot afford to lose forty minutes to a drive across town.

Street view of the glass-fronted Joule Hotel entrance in downtown Dallas with a car parked out front

And here’s the thing I want to say to any filmmaker looking at a two-ceremony day and feeling their stomach drop, because mine did too. You are not filming two weddings. You are filming one day that happens to contain two ceremonies, and the couple is the same couple in both of them. Once I stopped treating it as double the work and started treating it as one story told twice, the whole day got a lot easier to hold in my head.

Getting Ready

Suneera’s morning was the longest getting-ready I have ever filmed, and it was also the most interesting, because there was constantly something happening with somebody’s hands. Braiding. Pinning. Jewelry going on. Family members moving in and out of frame the entire time.

Bride seen from behind in a white robe having flowers pinned into her long braided hair

Whenever you’re used to a getting-ready room that’s quiet for long stretches, this is a genuinely different experience, and I loved it. There is no waiting around for a moment. You just point the camera at whatever is going on and something is going on.

Bride in an orange and gold sari being dressed by bridesmaids in navy and green saris in a hotel lobby

The First Ceremony

This is the part I had never filmed before, and I did a lot of asking beforehand so I would know roughly what was coming and where I needed to be standing when it did. That is the entire trick, by the way. Whenever you’re filming a tradition you don’t know, ask somebody in the family to walk you through the order of it in advance, because the moments are just as important as the ones you already know how to anticipate, and you only get one pass at them.

Close-up of a bridesmaid's arm raised mid-dance, showing gold bangles and an embroidered sari sleeve

The color in that room was unbelievable. Reds and golds everywhere, in the clothes, in the flowers, in the drapes behind them, all of it saturated in a way that a typical wedding simply is not. And the flower petals. So many flower petals.

Groom in a beaded cap and bride in gold veil pressing foreheads together during the Indian ceremony
Bride in a red veil walking down the aisle past red rose arrangements as seated guests turn to watch

The Second Ceremony

And then everybody changed, and the same two people got married again in a white dress and a black tux, and the room went from red and gold to soft window light and cream.

Close-up of a beaded lace wedding dress hem hanging in front of a bright window

What I did not expect is how much I would like cutting between them in the edit. Two completely different palettes, two sets of clothes, two sets of traditions, and the same couple looking at each other the exact same way in both. You don’t have to say anything about it in the film. The images do it.

Bride reaching to touch the groom's hand as they sit together on a patterned sofa, both smiling
Close-up of bride and groom leaning in for a kiss, her veil visible over her shoulder

The Reception

By the time the dancing started, everyone in that ballroom had been together for the better part of a day, which does something to the energy of a reception that you cannot manufacture. They were not strangers politely finding the dance floor. They were a couple hundred people who had already been through two ceremonies together and were ready.

Bride smiling over her shoulder while dancing among guests at the reception, motion-blurred lights around her

I learned a lot that day, and I’m looking forward to learning more in the future. So if you are planning a wedding and it looks like something that I haven’t filmed before, please get in touch. I would love to try something new.

Watch The Highlight Film

Check out Suneera and Amos wedding highlight below:

The dance floor footage from this wedding also ended up as one of my examples in how to film incredible dancing footage in your wedding films, if you want to see how I lit and shot it.

My Wedding Filmmaking Kit

People ask constantly what I shoot weddings with, so here’s the current list. This film is from 2016 and the bag has turned over a few times since, so treat this as what I reach for now rather than a shot list of what was on my shoulder that day.

The full list lives on my favorite wedding filmmaking gear page, and everything is color graded with my own WhoisMatt LUTs.

Where The Music Comes From

  • Sound Stripe (use the coupon code “WHOISMATT” for 10% off a yearly or monthly subscription)
  • Art List (free extra 2 months when you subscribe using this link)
  • Musicbed

For Filmmakers

If you’re trying to book more weddings, I have a free quick tips guide on how to book more wedding film clients, and my wedding film editing course covers the edit start to finish. There’s also a free Learn Wedding Filmmaking Facebook group, and whenever I need help with an edit I use Archaius Creative, who’ll take 10% off your first project through that link.

Here’s a free watermark for your Adobe Premiere Pro CC Proxy Files

Here's a free watermark for your Adobe Premiere Pro CC Proxy Files
A gift from me to you!
A gift from me to you!

Since last November, I’ve been filming weddings exclusively with the Sony A7Sii in 4K. Due to the large file sizes this produces, I often end up with hundreds of gigabytes of footage from a single wedding. As I edit these weddings, I’ve realized that I will soon need to either buy a new computer to help handle the high-resolution footage, or implement a proxy based workflow where I edit lower quality video clips, then re-link the high-quality clips for final rendering.

That is why I was incredibly excited to see that the 2015.3 update of Premiere Pro added a built-in proxy workflow. Instead of having to watch as my computer bogs down from playing back the native 4K files of the A7Sii, or having to implement a round-trip through Da Vinci Resolve to create proxies, Premiere now lets me create them in Adobe Media Encoder and automatically links them to my existing footage. Once linked, it is a simple button press to switch between the native file and the proxy.

As I was working through implementing the update, I realized that it was a little TOO good. Due to the high quality proxies I was generating in Premiere Pro, it was impossible to at-a-glance tell whether I was working with the native file or the proxy file. I needed an immediate way to tell, and after a bit of research, I hit upon this a solution.

Adobe Proxy Watermark

By adding a PNG file I created to the proxy export settings in Adobe Media Encoder, all my proxy files now include a transparent “Adobe Proxy” logo on the final rendered video. This makes telling the difference between native and proxy incredibly fast and easy.

To save you the work of creating your own transparent PNG logo, I’ve included a download link below. Simply download this file and follow the steps below to incorporate it into your Adobe Premiere Pro CC proxy workflow.

Download Watermark PNG:

Adobe Proxy Logo

Follow these steps to add the adobe PNG logo to your Adobe Premiere Pro proxy workflow.

1. Open Adobe Media Encoder and in the “Preset Browser”, select the “Plus” sign and select “Create Encoding Preset.”

If you can't see it, go to "window" at the top and make sure "Preset Browser" is checked.
If you can’t see it, go to “window” at the top and make sure “Preset Browser” is checked.

2. Create your proxy preset. In my case, I use GoPro Cineform at 720p.

Proxy Preset

3. Open the “Effects” tab, and check the “Image Overlay” box. Click the drop down menu next to “Applied” and browse to the Watermark PNG file. Make sure you put the PNG file in a place where it will be consistent between video projects. For “Position” select “Bottom Right” or wherever you would like it to appear over your proxy video. Select “OK” and your Encoding Preset will be saved.

Image Overlay

4. Select the “Plus” sign again in the “Preset Browser”, and this time select “Create Ingest Preset.”

Create Ingest Preset

5.  Name your Preset. I named mine the same as my Encoding Preset but added the word “Ingest” at the end. Check the “Transcode files to Destination” box.

Ingest Preset Settings

6. For “Destination” navigate to your current video project. Note: It really doesn’t matter where you tell it to navigate to, because when generating Proxies, Premiere will ignore this location and by default put the proxy files generated in the same folder as the native files. For “Format” and “Preset” select the Format and Preset you created as your encoding preset. In my case, it was “Quicktime” and “GoPro Cineform.” Click “Ok” and your Ingest Preset will be saved.

Destination Format Preset

9. Right click on your Ingest Preset in the “Preset Browser” box and select “Reveal Preset File.” Make a note of where the file is in your computer’s file system.

Reveal Preset File

10. Open Premiere CC 2015.3, import your native video files, and in the “Project” window, select your video clips, right-click, and select “Proxy > Create Proxies…”

Create Proxies

11. In the “Create Proxies” window, select “Add Ingest Preset” and browse through your file system to the Ingest Preset that you created. Select it and click “Open.”

Add Ingest Preset

12. The “Format” and “Preset” should now match your ingest preset you created in Adobe Media Encoder. Under “Destination,” select “Next to original media, in Proxy” folder, which will cause Premiere to ignore the destination you set in step 10.

Format and Preset

13. Click OK and sit back as Adobe Media Encoder opens up and renders all your proxy clips with the settings AND watermark that you added.

That’s it! Now all it takes is a quick glance to see if you are editing the native video files, or their proxies.

If this video has been helpful to you, you may also enjoy my wedding filmmaking training videos and tutorials. If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to leave one below, or get in touch.