Another Muslim wedding we filmed this year was Shazma & Omar’s Nikkah, held at the Dorchester Hotel, London in May. Attended by 500 guests, the couple booked our Premiere package which I supervised personally with our videographers Dan & Tunji. Dan began the day in Berkshire filming Shazma leaving her family home, whilst Tunji and I went over to Chigwell to film Omar and his family getting ready and conducting the Sehra Bandi. Its quite rare for us to film grooms getting ready, (usually this is domain of brides!), but Omar’s outfit and preparations were considerably more elaborate than most grooms. Indeed it tends to only be Sikh & Muslim grooms that really warrant the filming treatment, for example see this Sikh wedding video and this Muslim wedding video. Omar’s family were very welcoming and I had a particularly pleasant chat with Omar’s father.

After departing from their respective homes the two families descended upon the Dorchester Hotel in central London. From a filming perspective, the highlight of the day was the Baraat. Behind the hotel in a small street the groom pulled up in a Rolls Royce Phantom and mounted a beautifully decorated horse. 200 guests and a large professional band then proceeded behind the groom into Park Lane to the astonishment of many bystanders. Buses full with commuters were temporarily held up for the jaw dropping spectacle as the band and guests danced their way down Park Lane to hotel’s ballroom entrance. Here the families met and greeted one another, before two Scottish bag pipers took over and led the whole gathering into the hotel ballroom. It was a fabulous setting and after the Nikkah was completed an evening of food, speeches and entertainment provided a treat for all. You can see highlights from Shazma & Omar’s Muslim wedding celebrations below

At the start of May we filmed Toby and Bhupinders Sikh wedding celebrations over 3 days including the family’s Mendhi and Ladies Sangeet events. It was our first job with the newly released Sony Z7 camera and Dan & Dusan had the honour of christening (or should I say Sikhisming?) the new cameras. I came and supervised the filming of the ceremony on the Sunday morning which was at Hounslow Gurdwara. What is unusual about this Sikh wedding is that Toby is a non-Sikh American guy who lives and works in the UK. He and Bhupinder were a really nice couple, representing a cross cultural marriage with a real sense of openness. Both families were very warm and friendly and Toby and his father grew the customary beards for the occasion. The Sikh wedding reception was held afterwards in the secret garden at Syon Park this proved a lovely setting for enjoyable event. To see highlights from their Sikh wedding video, click on the video below:

Whilst Dan & David were filming in Oxfordshire (see this post), I was accompanying Dishad and Eva filming Manjit & Anju’s wedding at Coventry Gurdwara. The day started for Eva and I in Barking, Essex capturing Manjit getting ready before the whole entourage left for Coventry. One thing I always like to do when I am on a shoot to is film the baraat en route. This can be more difficult than you imagine because you not only have to speed after them and cut through traffic, but you then need to keep the camera steady long enough to capture footage from a moving vehicle. For this particular Sikh wedding video we decided to go one step further that we did in Amrita & Benji’s Sikh wedding video and stop at a service station along the M1 and film from a foot bridge. We’d hardly been in position for more than a minute when the bus carrying all of Manjit’s family went past. Although only one shot, it gave a lift to the film which I believe makes it feel like a TV documentary. Thanks to our sat nav we arrived in Coventry just ahead of the bus and was ready to film the arrival of the baraat and milni before the ceremony commenced. The reception was a bit hectic, not helped by traffic diversions on the two centre, but I am proud of the film we managed to pull off for Manjit & Anju. You can see highlights of their Sikh wedding video below:

Another Muslim wedding video we finished editing over the last few months was for Asif and Reshmin. Both of them are from Bengali families, so they found themselves at the centre of a fabulous wedding celebrations that went over for several days! The culmination of this was a lavish wedding reception at the Marriott Grosvenor Square attended by some 500 guests. Reshmin is the ideal bride to film as she always animated and wearing a big smile, she looked fabulous at her wedding reception. I was particularly pleased that she and Asif had a chance to do some photography in the park and it makes a big difference to the visual quality of the film. They are a lovely couple and I wish them well in the future. You can see highlights from their Muslim wedding video below

We recently finished editing an Asian wedding video for Vivek & Anneka, who got married in a civil ceremony at Ealing Town Hall in September 2007 before going to Goa for their proper Asian wedding. Afterwards they held a reception back in the UK just before Christmas at Addington Palace in Croydon. The wedding reception was well attended by over 500 guests and both the bride and grooms families were absolutely wonderful! Dan and Simon filmed the wedding with me directing, we trialled the new EX-1 camera because of its low light capabilities – very wise considering it was the shortest day of the year! The shoot went well and everybody was in great spirits, I particularly liked the speeches, bollywood dancers (with uncle joining in) and the partying! Highlights of their Asian wedding video can be seen below.

One of the first Indian weddings we did this year was for Saj & Nuwan who held a reception at the fabulous Woburn Abbey. Like many of our Indian wedding videos, it was a very visual affair and the guests thoroughly enjoyed themselves. We worked with Aziz from Aira Photography, someone we really enjoy working with and recommend highly. I think that when you have a photographer and a videographer who both enjoy their creativity and get along well you can achieve super results. I particularly like this video because it shows how both the photographer and videographer have pushed each other on to get highly visual material material. It set a benchmark for the other Indian wedding videos we planned to do this year.