We spent four days in the mountains of Colorado with Mallory and Clay, and by the end of it we felt less like their filmmakers and more like family.
Whitewater rafting in the ice cold San Miguel river. Cheesy hot dogs, which are a Clay family tradition and are not optional. Off-roading over mountain passes. Celebrating all over the town of Ouray. Four days is a long time to spend with a couple before you film their wedding, and it is the single best thing that can happen to a wedding film.
Mallory opens the film with something out of Buddhism: that whenever you meet someone, your heart pounds and your knees go weak and your hands shake, and that person is not your person. Whenever you meet the other half of your soul, you feel calm. No anxiety. A stillness takes you over.
And then she tells him he’s her tranquility. That she was scattered into a thousand pieces whenever they met, and that he showed her every piece doesn’t have to be perfectly in place to make something beautiful.
His letter goes somewhere else entirely. He talks about the promise made to young boys and young girls, that one day they’ll meet the love of their life and share a great love story, and that the love between them will be special and powerful and beyond the understanding of everyone around them. Then he says: we both know this is that. And he vows to make his life worthy of it.
The line the film is named for is hers. She says she’ll always use their love as her compass, and because of that she can never be lost. Then she goes further, and this is the part I keep coming back to: she didn’t unconsciously fall in love with him. She walked into it with her eyes wide open, choosing every step. Love is a choice, and she vows to keep choosing it, in a hundred lifetimes and worlds yet to come.
The Vows To Gavin And Holden
Clay didn’t only marry Mallory. He also stood up and made vows to her two sons, and I want you to watch that part specifically, because I have never heard it done better.
He calls them a gift. Three for the price of one. He says they’re his boys now too and he’ll love them as a father, and then he goes through them one at a time. Gavin, passionate and kind. Holden, strong and smart and loving. He vows to love them and stand by them through all of life’s great adventures, and he tells them they’re his family now, and part of the great love story.
There’s no filmmaking trick in that section. It’s one microphone, one angle that holds, and two little boys listening. That’s it. Whenever somebody says something that good, the only correct decision is to stay out of the way and let it run.
Watch their film and you’ll see two people who were a bit lost until they found each other, how her free-spirited streak fits his adventurous one, and what an immeasurable, never-ending love actually sounds like whenever people try to put it in their own words. By the end you might feel like family too.
Planning on eloping to Colorado, or anywhere else? We’d love to film it. Get in touch at filmstrong.com. The gear I carry to weddings is at kit.co/whoismatt.
And if you’re a filmmaker, my whole 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 here whenever you want it.