We Are The Adventure | Crazy Iceland Wedding

We Are The Adventure | Crazy Iceland Wedding

Most relationships are an adventure, but for Sam and Mel the word takes on a different meaning. They built their relationship hiking up mountains, watching sunrises and sunsets and meteor showers, and driving for days on end to get to National Parks. Their friends eventually started calling them “Smel,” a combination of their names in the same vein as “Kimye” or “Bennifer” (the second one).

Not content to leave it at a cute couple name, they came up with the phrase #doyouSMELadventure, and that hashtag is now on every photo and video they post from anywhere they go.

Bald man wearing sunglasses laughing inside a bus with yellow and teal seats, a woman smiling blurred behind him

A Country They Had Never Been To

With spirits like that, is it any surprise Smel decided to get married in one of the most unique and beautiful countries on Earth? A country they had never once set foot in before their own wedding?

Iceland. Glaciers, waterfalls, and volcanoes, all sitting there waiting to be explored. Their greatest adventure.

Woman getting her makeup done in profile, a mascara wand near her eye, soft window light behind her
Snow-capped Icelandic mountain peak against a pale blue sky with scattered clouds

Three Days, One 5am Wakeup, And A Glacier Lagoon

In all we spent three incredible days with them. That included a 5am wakeup on the wedding day to catch the sunrise, followed by a three-hour bus ride out to the Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon, where they picked a spot on the ice and said their vows.

Sam and Mel at the Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon in Iceland

Bride and groom facing each other on a black-sand beach with icebergs floating in the water behind them
Groom in a navy suit and pink tie standing before the glacier lagoon, snow-covered mountains behind him

There was no aisle, no seating chart, and no room. There was a handful of people standing on volcanic sand with icebergs drifting past behind them, and that was the entire guest list.

Bride and groom walking away from camera after the ceremony, guests smiling and clapping on a stony shore

Filming Somewhere That Big

Iceland will happily run away with your film if you let it. The temptation is to shoot nothing but the landscape, because the landscape is genuinely staggering and every frame of it looks like a desktop wallpaper.

The way I handled it was to keep putting them in the wide shots rather than shooting the wides on their own. Two tiny figures against a glacier tells you something. A glacier by itself is just a glacier.

Aerial view of the bride and groom walking tiny across a black volcanic beach beside floating icebergs

Secret Caves And The Northern Lights

We explored with them the next day too, visiting secret caves, climbing mountains, and standing out in the cold watching the northern lights dance overhead.

Couple hugging with their backs to camera facing a massive waterfall, a rainbow arcing beside them
Aerial view of a couple standing on a ridge overlooking braided glacial rivers cutting through black sand
Silhouette of a couple watching green northern lights glow across a night sky

The Adventure Was Never The Places

For Smel it was clear that their adventure isn’t actually about all the places they’ve traveled to. What matters is that they’ve experienced them together, and that their love and their relationship is the adventure.

So while this film does represent the awe-inspiring beauty of Iceland’s landscape, we filmed it and cut it with a focus on who Sam and Mel are together. It may not be your typical Iceland wedding film. It’s something that’s completely Smel.

The Music In This Film

  • 🎵 “Hey Love” by Foreign Figures, licensed from Marmoset
  • 🎼 “SMLE” by Createk, licensed from the artist
  • 🎹 “The Night” by Falling Up, licensed from Musicbed

The Gear I Carried To Iceland

📷 The full kit is here: my favorite wedding filmmaking gear, and my Sony a7S II wedding setup specifically.

Cut in Adobe Premiere Pro and color graded with my LUTs.

Getting Married In Iceland, Or Anywhere Else?

We would love to film it. 🎥 Please get in touch.

And if you’re the one filming: 🎬 my wedding film editing course covers how a film like this gets built, ►► my free guide to booking more wedding clients is a free download, ✌ the Learn Wedding Filmmaking Facebook Group is where the rest of us are, and I offer one-on-one filmmaker consulting if you want to talk any of it through.

Watch the trailer

Today, We Embark On The Grandest Journey Yet | Intimate Backyard Wedding in Virginia

From a love kindled literally while picking kindling for a bonfire, to bonding over sweet tea, and adopting a dog named Maya, Clarissa and Andy have have their share of adventures. Soon after Andy proposed in the brief darkness of the 2017 Solar Eclipse, Clarissa emailed us about potentially flying up to Virginia to film their wedding.

Of course we agreed, and this May we found ourselves in Yorktown, waking up at 4:30am to drive to a Revolutionary War battlefield and film these two lovebirds at sunrise. This was of course followed by one of the most delicious meals of biscuits and gravy at a greasy spoon, a brief food coma, and eventually one of the sweetest intimate backyard wedding ceremonies.

Getting married in Virginia (or anywhere else)? We would love to film it! Please get in touch.

Watch the trailer

Smiling, Rain or Shine | FUN wedding in the Texas Hill Country

Smiling, Rain or Shine | FUN wedding in the Texas Hill Country

One of the reasons Rachel and I love filming weddings is that we get to witness the collision of planning and reality, and whatever emotions come out of it.

Couples plan for months, sometimes years. Then the day arrives and the plan changes anyway, because of things nobody controls. That collision gives you a glimpse of who somebody actually is, and it produces some of the most real and raw moments we’ve ever captured.

Bride smiling with hair half-pinned as a stylist works on the back of her head

The Forecast Turned

Emily and Mike planned an outdoor ceremony. In the days leading up to the wedding, the forecast turned to clouds and rain.

Groom in a white dress shirt looking down and smiling as he gets ready
Bride smiling and looking off to the side, soft light through blinds behind her

Ten minutes before the ceremony, with a fine mist falling over the perfectly aligned chairs, Emily made the call: they were going ahead outdoors. Rainy reality and all. And with a smile on her face, she walked toward her groom.

Groom in silhouette adjusting his collar in front of a window with slatted blinds
Man carrying a closed umbrella walking beside a woman in a sequined dress across a covered brick patio

And Then The Vase

At the end of the aisle stood Mike, dealing with expectations of his own. There was banter going between him, the officiant, and his best man, including a whispered discussion about whether he was going to start crying the moment he saw Emily.

Mike’s expectation of having a tough time watching her walk down the aisle was, pun fully intended, shattered by the reality of Emily knocking over and very loudly breaking a large glass vase on her way toward him.

They both immediately started laughing. Because regardless of how any part of that day went, they were together.

Bride cheering with arm raised beside the groom during the recessional, groomsmen in dark suits looking on behind them

Smiling, Rain Or Shine

Emily and Mike kissing in the rain

These weren’t isolated incidents, either. Plenty of things across that day didn’t go the way anybody drew them up. Emily and Mike’s response was the same every single time: a smile and a laugh.

Close-up silhouette of bride and groom smiling nose to nose with visible raindrops falling between them

Plans, even ones you’ve been building for over a year, rarely land the way you think they will. It’s in those moments that who you actually are shows up. If we all met reality the way Emily and Mike met theirs, we’d be alright.

A Note On Filming In The Rain

Rain is not a disaster for a wedding film. It’s a gift you didn’t ask for.

Overcast turns the entire sky into one enormous softbox, so faces are lit evenly and nobody is squinting into hard sun. Wet stone and wet grass hold color and reflect light. Umbrellas give you something to shoot through. And every single guest is more present, because weather makes people pay attention.

What it costs you is caution. Keep a cloth on you at all times, keep a bag over the body between setups, and get your wide establishing shots in early, because you won’t be able to leave the couple later.

Bride with arms raised laughing on the dance floor, bridesmaids in gray dresses dancing behind her
Bride laughing up at the groom while dancing, both wearing glow-in-the-dark headbands lit purple and blue

The Gear I Filmed This With

📷 My favorite wedding filmmaking gear, and my Sony a7S II wedding setup specifically. Color graded with my LUTs.

Getting Married?

Rain or shine, as long as you’re okay with things maybe not happening exactly as you planned, we would love to film it. 🎥 Please get in touch.

And if you’re the one holding the camera: 🎬 my wedding film editing course, ►► my free guide to booking more wedding clients, and ✌ the Learn Wedding Filmmaking Facebook Group.

Watch the trailer

Keep Holding On | Groom Sings To His Bride As She Cries

Keep Holding On | Groom Sings To His Bride As She Cries

Clarissa and Andy have spent many mornings of their relationship watching the sunrise together over the Atlantic Ocean, so it makes sense that we wanted to fly up to Virginia to meet them at 5am to film the sunrise on their wedding day. None of us got much sleep, but we were treated to one of the best moments ever when Andy brought out his guitar and sang a song he wrote for Clarissa. She cried. Rachel cried. I didn’t cry. Okay, maybe I did a little bit.

Groom lifting his bride off the ground nose to nose in a sunlit field, her hand resting on his shoulder

 

Regardless, this was one of the most special times we’ve had with a couple, and Rachel and I loved every second of it. Keep an eye out for Clarissa and Andy’s full wedding film coming soon. 🙂

Getting married? We would love to film your wedding, and will even get up at 5am if you wanna watch the sunrise. Get in touch!

Iceland Wedding Full Of Adventure

Iceland Wedding Full Of Adventure

📷 Filmed with this: https://whoismatt.com/gear/
Adventures are always better with someone! Frodo has Sam, Han has Chewie, Spongebob has Patrick, and Sam has Mel. Those last two built their relationship on discovering new places, so when it came time to get married it makes sense that they would choose Iceland, a country they hadn’t ever explored.
With their closest friends along for the ride, they adventured across the entire Southern Region, visiting waterfalls, dancing in lava fields, and saying their vows at the glacier lagoon. It was a wedding unlike anything we (or probably anyone else) had seen before. We loved it. You can watch the full Iceland wedding film here.

Getting married in Iceland or anywhere else? We would LOVE to film it! Please get in touch at http://www.filmstrong.com.

🎥Want to learn to film weddings? I’m now offering one-on-one filmmaker consulting! Check it out at https://whoismatt.com/consulting

😃My Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/whoismattcom

😉My Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/whoismatt

👰My Wedding Film Company Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/filmstrong

Music used in this film:
🎵 I Want You by Flagship
Song licensed from Music Bed

Music licensing sites I recommend:
🎷 – ART LIST – http://geni.us/artlistmusic (free extra 2-months when you subscribe using this link!)
🎧 – Sound Stripe – http://bit.ly/sound_stripe (use the coupon code “WHOISMATT” for 10% off a yearly or monthly subscription!)
🎤 – Filmstro – http://bit.ly/filmstro (use the coupon code “WHOISMATT20_ANN” for 20% off all yearly licenses)

Edited using Adobe Premiere Pro. Download a free trial at: http://bit.ly/premierepro_trial

SEND STUFF TO:
Matt Johnson
PO Box #451602
Garland, TX 75045
US

I’m required to state that I’m a part of affiliate programs for Amazon, B&H, SoundStripe, ArtList, Musicbed, and Adobe and that some of the links above are affiliate links.

You are my most treasured dream & most often prayed prayer | Adventurous Colorado Wedding

You are my most treasured dream & most often prayed prayer | Adventurous Colorado Wedding

When she was 12, a young girl named Tory started writing love letters to her future husband.

She didn’t know who he was. She didn’t know when she’d meet him. She just had faith that one day they’d be married. So she wrote to him often, sometimes several times in a day, and she always signed off the same way: “XOXO, your wife.”

Bride smiling while a stylist curls her hair, other bridesmaids visible in soft window light behind her

Many Years And Hundreds Of Letters Later

A young man named Henry walked into the gym where she worked. He was insightful, he was kind, and he insisted on calling her “Victoria,” a name befitting a princess.

More than any of that, though, Henry was persistent.

Close-up profile of the bride looking down, backlit with loose strands of hair blowing across her face

At which point you’re thinking, this is him. This is the guy she’s been writing to all these years. And you wouldn’t be wrong. But nothing is ever that simple.

Victoria and Henry started a friendship, which eventually became a first date. On that date Henry asked her, “Do you see a future with us?”

Victoria immediately and directly answered: “No, I do not see a future with us.”

Close-up of hands fastening the groom's cufflinks over his white dress shirt

But as I said, Henry was persistent. That first date led to another one. And somewhere in there, Victoria’s letters and her prayers started being directed at a specific person.

The Wedding

This film is the culmination of both halves of that: Victoria’s letters and Henry’s persistence. A wedding to a husband long dreamt for, and to a wife who was persistently pursued.

Bride in her veil seen from behind, walking toward large wooden double doors
Groom reading his vows from a note card as the bride in a lace veil listens

Henry and Victoria together

Close-up of the couple kissing outdoors, her hair backlit against a pine forest

There’s One More Part To This Story

Victoria and her dad have always been close, and he knew that growing up she’d written all those letters to her future husband.

Two women at the reception sharing a microphone while one reads a speech from paper

What he did not know is that she had written something for him, too. A song. She wrote it, she recorded it, and she played it while the two of them danced together at her reception.

A man in glasses giving a toast at the reception, gesturing with a raised fist

That’s the kind of thing you cannot plan for as a filmmaker and cannot possibly ask a couple to recreate. All you can do is know it’s coming, be in the right place with the right lens before the music starts, and then stay out of the way. Everything else about a wedding day is repeatable. That is not.

A young boy watching a woman in a maroon dress dancing at the reception, close and blurred

“The Best Wedding Ever”

That’s how Henry put it, and I would agree. Partially because it genuinely was wonderful, and partially because Henry is Rachel’s cousin. We are thrilled to be related to such an incredible couple with a story like this one.

Why This One Runs Long

This is a full film rather than a highlight, and it earns the length. A four-minute highlight is built out of the best images of a day. A film this long is built out of the best talking, and that only works whenever the couple has given you enough of it: letters read out loud, vows in their own words, toasts from people who actually know them.

Victoria and Henry had all of that plus a story that had been building since she was twelve, so the film could take its time and let the story tell itself instead of cutting hard to keep the energy up.

The Gear I Filmed This With

📷 My favorite wedding filmmaking gear, and my Sony a7S II wedding setup specifically. Color graded with my LUTs.

Getting Married?

Rachel and I would love to film it. 🎥 Please get in touch.

And if you’re the one behind the camera, 🎬 my wedding film editing course is where I teach how a film like this gets built.

Watch the trailer