Your typical Asian bride goes through a very lengthy preparation for her wedding celebration. From the application of the intricate henna designs on her hands, to the many individual pieces of jewellery, to the wrapping of the sari – there is a slow and steady build up of excitement as each piece of the final picture falls into place. With one final blast of hairspray, she is good to go. When we filmed behind the scenes at Sahar and Jamal’s Muslim wedding, we saw all the care which went into this preparation. The groom is not without his own process and our camera crew was split between the two locations in order to film both proceedings.
After the ceremony, we retreated to the gardens of the Shendish Manor in Hertfordshire where the clear, bright sun of a February day gave us great filming conditions. As Sahar & Jamal enjoyed the landscaped gardens we were able to track them with the camera catching all of their reactions. Once they were back inside, they ceremonially cut the wedding cake before taking to the dance floor for their traditional first dance together. As they swayed to the slow music, we all watched on in pleasure. Best wishes to Sahar & Jamal.
Nirshanthan and Shiyamily chose the spectacular setting of one of Bedfordshire’s most beautiful locations, Woburn Abbey, for their Asian Civil Wedding. On a lovely July’s day, our crew could get out and film the scenic gardens of the Abbey, capturing all of the statuary and lovely foliage. The white Abbey stood out in great contrast to the freshly mowed green grass. As the guests arrived in their finest they lingered outside for photographs in the summer sun. Then our lovely bride and groom made a storybook entrance in a white open-top carriage! They filed into the Abbey’s interior, past priceless paintings and antiques, to take their place for their ceremony. After exchanging vows which they wrote themselves, our couple walked hand in hand back down the aisle as husband and wife.
They retreated outdoors where we delighted in filming Nirshanthan & Shiyamily against all the lovely vistas of Woburn Abbey. While the bride and groom were photographed, the wedding guests were enjoying a drink in the sun on the lawns. We circulated with our camera to get good footage of all the guests. Soon it was time to head into the dining room to enjoy a fantastic meal after which Nirshanthan and Shiyamily fed each other wedding cake. It was a very auspicious start to a long and happy marriage! Congratulations.
Kiran & Kuldeep went all out on their Sikh wedding! It was a fantastic celebration. Early in the day we met up with the bride at the Hilton Hotel as she started her wedding preparations. She certainly wasn’t daunted by the path ahead and seemed to embrace the excitement of it all. Meanwhile our groom was being well looked after by his family who made sure he was dressed and ready for his ceremony at the Ilford Gurdwara. A couple of busses and a handful or Rolls Royce were on hand to ferry the wedding party in style. The ceremony was beautiful, colourful and over too soon!
Then it was on to the London’sGrosvenor House Hotel for a rather elaborate reception. The hotel pulled out all the stops to make Kiran & Kuldeep’s celebration a memorable one. The vast room was draped in a star cloth giving it a really pretty night-time sky effect. Coupled with a brilliant lighting setup and amazing floral displays made quite an impression on the guests. It was great for us to film too as there was so much to take in the with camera’s eye. The bride and groom made a spectacular entrance to the beating of many drums. And that was just the beginning of a long and memorable evening. Thank you to Kiran and Kuldeep for letting us be a part.
Nashreen and Sirish held a beautiful Asian wedding at some of West London’s loveliest venues. The day started for Nashreen at Cannizaro House, the stylish hotel set in leafy Wimbledon, which had great facilities for her to prepare for her wedding. With a top-notch hair stylist on hand to fix her hair, she enjoyed a drink and a giggle with her bridesmaids while undergoing her bridal transformation. It’s always great to film these behind-the-scenes moments; they prove to be very popular in years to come. Meanwhile the guests began to appear at Parkstead House for the civil wedding ceremony. When Nashreen arrived, the contrast between her in pure white and her bridesmaids in vivid red was a visual treat and all eyes were on the girls as they made their way up the aisle. Sirish and his best men were looking equally as dashing in their grey morning coats which vivid red ties – a very handsome wedding party all around.
After the ceremony, the bride and groom took the time to greet all the wedding guests and exchange kisses. This was also a good time for us to capture footage of all the wedding guests so that no one gets left out. The guests enjoyed finger foods while listening to the harpist while the wedding party went outside for some fantastic photographs. The lovely smiling couple filled every frame. We wish them much happiness.
Amit & Onima’s civil wedding was a family affair through and through. The groom’s family were in attendance at the family home in order to send him off with their blessings (and make sure he was in tip-top form, including placing the turban on his head). They also had a spectacularly decorated car ready to whisk him off to Syon House, in the suburbs of London, for his wedding service. The honey-coloured stone building was a great choice for their celebration and the guests all remarked on how lovely it was as they arrived. We were able to get out in the sunshine and film the guests as they arrived and made their way into the venue – but not before participating in the welcoming of the groom with drums and dancing! The groom met his bride at the altar in time to take their wedding vows. Smiling throughout, they make a gorgeous couple.
The reception took place in the stunning glass house (conservatory) behind Syon House. Flooded with daylight, it was simply brilliant. We don’t recall another wedding banquet where the guests wore sunglasses throughout! The next day, at the Chancery Court Hotel, they had a second celebration. Amit & Onima made a fantastic entrance, dressed in beautiful clothes, and once again celebrated their union. We wish them a long and happy marriage.
Nighat and Naveed had an Asian civil wedding ceremony at the Dunkenhalgh Hotel in Lancashire on a lovely July day. But there was no time to enjoy the sun for our bride – she was busy with makeup, hair and getting dressed in her elaborate dress. Even in black & white her radiance shines through and you get a sense of her enjoyment of the process – especially with some of her girlfriends on hand. Meanwhile in room 708 the groom was busy with his own preparations with his mates there to lend moral support. The guests began to arrive and take their places in the chairs (wrapped in white and tied up with ribbons). With all the beautiful saris there was plenty of colour about the room. When the civil ceremony was completed the flash bulbs started going as all the guests made their way up to take photographs with their cameras.
There was a complete change of dress for the reception with our newly married couple making quite a grand entrance for their reception. Our newlyweds took to the dance floor and gave a very polished showing for their first married dance – our camera was able to follow them around and capture all the angles. Thank you to Nighat and Naveed for letting us be a part of their big day.
A R Rahman for Asian weddings! Probably one of the hardest and relentless professionals working in the film industry today: A R Rahman is now getting recognition for his work here in the west!
After watching the BAFTAS I began reflecting on how relevant and widespread his work is, particularly in the field of Asian Wedding videos.
We always ask our clients to supply some choices for the music they want for their wedding video and they tend to choose popular, romantic songs from recent Bollywood films. These very frequently are songs composed by the man himself and we have found his work to be brilliant for enhancing the emotion in our films making them engaging even to viewers who did not attend the wedding!
It really adds that “Bollywood Love Story” element to the work we make here at Bloomsbury Films. Another huge plus is the sheer range of the music he puts out, music that goes well with dancing, the actual marriage ceremony, people socializing and the wide variety of special performances young people put on for Asian Weddings.
The other great thing is that many of the most popular movies have weddings in the story and so in turn the songs contain well suited lyrics that are relevant to work. Recently the most popular requests have been songs from the soundtracks of: Guru, Jodhaa Akbar, Rang De Basanti & of course Slumdog Millionaire… all composed by A R Rahman.
This allows us to give every Asian couple the Bollywood movie experience for their wedding video!
To me some of the most exciting projects we undertake are Asian Wedding Videos. I remember how excited I was when we received our first two Asian wedding video bookings in early 2007 – the same weekend Aatish & Amita booked us for their Hindu Wedding Video at the Hare Krishna temple in Watford and Sohit & Vandana booked us for their Indian Wedding Video at the Four Seasons in Hampshire.
I remember meeting Sohit for coffee a week earlier to discuss the possibility of us filming his wedding and him saying “so I guess you know I’ll be coming in on a white horse?” Not sure whether it was a trick question to test my knowledge of Indian wedding videos, I cautiously shrugged in manner suggesting ‘yes of course!’. As soon as I got back to my partner that evening I shrieked out my disbelief at the idea of a groom appearing on a white horse! After looking up the facts online to check I hadn’t inadvertently blown my cover, I was thrilled at the prospect of a wedding video with something REALLY filmic!
To make the most of the opportunity, I decided to hire in a Glidecam 200 crane at my own expense and to shoot the whole wedding in super widescreen. We were lucky with the mid-April weather and I was able to create my first Asian wedding video in a way that evoked the cinematic qualities I wanted to offer. As soon as the film was edited and online, it had an instant impact on our business with several other Asian couples booking us to film their wedding with a similar aesthetic.
The peak of this rise came in Autumn 2007 we went to Newcastle to film what is still the grandest wedding I have ever done – Surita & Sumita’s double wedding celebration at the Sage centre. During 2007 we produced many other Asian wedding videos including Amrita and Benjis Sikh wedding video which was the first to use three cameras. Needed for the sheer scale of the wedding, this enabled us to film multiple perspectives and simultaneous action. Personally I think you need at least 2-3 videographers for any type of live event filming.
Meanwhile Aatish & Amita’s wedding in July 2007 offered similar spectacle, hosted as it was in the grounds of Bhaktivedanta Manor in Watford. I remember meeting the couple at the venue a few months before their wedding and being struck by two huge bullocks transporting visitors around by cart. The venue features a beautiful temple in the main house and one of my favourite moments in the film is ‘Feeding the Holy Cows’. For me, this was something I never expected to see in a wedding video! Raising the bar from the Asian groom entering on a horse, I was delighted to film something that was as visual and interesting as I had hoped.
During the course of 2007-2009 we have filmed many Asian weddings – many of these amazed me for the sheer scale, spectacle and sense of occasion. I have also been very touched by how important they are to the families and the wider Asian community that is frequently invited to participate. I hope that as more couples see our Asian wedding films that we have produced for our clients, we will be invited to film many others – as I have come to love creating Asian wedding videos!
This time last year I remember spending the first days of January reviewing the edit on our first major Sikh wedding video. Created for Amrita & Benji, it covered a five day extravaganza which we had filmed the previous August. This epic project started with the bride’s Mehndi party & Sangeet in London on 1st August, followed by the groom’s Maiya and Jago party in Brighton on 2nd August. On 3rd August, their main day, we had crew in both places from 6am filming the families preparing for the big day and making their journeys to Southall Gurdwara. Its was a very visual wedding day with a baraat and milni outside the steps of one the biggest temples outside India. The main wedding day was followed on 4th August by a grand open-air banquet at Bearwood College in Wokingham and a gala dinner a week later on 11th August in Mayfair.
As you can imagine the film was quite an epic – the first cut weighed in at a hefty 3hrs 30! Since I always meticulously review all our editing work personally, it took quite a while to complete this. My main focus at that stage was to ensure there a clear story arc to their Sikh wedding video. This meant ensuring that individual chapters were coherent and made sense to viewers (a wedding film usually has to make sense of random events!). As always I went through the cuts with fine tooth comb looking at the quality of the shots and editing choices. Indeed, before the raw footage even went to the editor I had already reviewed it and provided notes on dialogue editing and music score. However it is only when you look at a first cut, can one be sure decisions previously made fit the intention. Occasionally I decide to change background music or trim dialogue. Of course, with a wedding film of this length, there is a big music score to decide upon! Clients usually request some tracks and where they fit, I include these, however I often specify around 2/3rds of the music myself, which can involve spending hours listening to Bollywood, Bhangra, Shenai & other Indian music!
We had Amrita & Benji’s Sikh wedding film completed by the end of January and no sooner was it shown online we were inundated with enquiries from other Sikh clients! I must say, looking back at the video, the open-air wedding banquet section looks especially good and I am always a big fan of filming outdoors rather than indoors – the light and sense of spectacle are always much greater! On this job we used a Glidecam 200 jib crane to capture the sense of scale – imagine 500 people sat around tables on a manicured lawn with cedar trees and a Jacobean style mansion providing the backdrop, plus the most wonderful weather anyone could hope for!
Having since made over a dozen more Sikh wedding films, I can honestly say I enjoy making them very much and have had the pleasure of creating some wonderful films. After making Amrita and Benji’s film I no longer find a three and a half hour film quite so daunting!
Perhaps this a reflection of being based in London, but perhaps also it shows the growing acceptance in our society for marriage based on love and like-mindedness, rather than seeking a cultural safety net. A particularly good example of this is Shahara & Christophers wedding which we filmed at York House, Richmond in early August. Shahara is from a Muslim Bengali family and Christopher from a traditional English one. In marrying Shahara, Christopher not only adopted a new family, but a new (Muslim) name. When I met them both months prior to their wedding, it was clear they were both very much in love and that whilst Christopher may not have have grown up in a Muslim/Bengali lifestyle, he was more than willing to adopt one.
I like their video very much, and the trailer shows their coming together well. They had splendid weather on the day and I am glad that there was a lot of opportunities for filming outdoors – which I always believe looks so much better than filming indoors! We have done several Bengali wedding videos of late including a stunning Bengali wedding in Newcastle, but this is the first mixed Anglo-Bengali marriage I am aware of filming. I therefore wish Christopher and Shahara all the very best in the future! Below are highlights from their day:
