Kelmarsh Hall is a nice red brick manor house set in the countryside between Leicester and Northampton. Paul & Ruhi thought it a suitable venue for their Anglo-Hindu wedding ceremony. The spacious interiors were well suited to a wedding with plenty of space for the guests to mingle about. This also afforded us the room to circulate with our camera and shoot lots of video of the wedding guests in the finery. There were some great hats on display! The civil ceremony was brief and ended in warm applause for the newly married husband and wife. The entire wedding party then moved outside to explore the luscious parklands and take wedding photographs (not to mention enjoy a glass of champagne). We particularly liked shooting everyone together on the stairs of the Hall – a nice memory of all the guests who shared in Paul & Ruhi’s day.
Guests moved inside for a spectacular dinner. The food was piled on the plate like a work of art and it seemed to go down a treat. Having been married in a civil ceremony, the couple now had a Hindu ceremony which was beautiful. Now married in both traditions, our couple took to the dance floor. The beaming smiles on their face make it clear how much they enjoyed their special day. Thanks for letting us be a part of it.
Nirshanthan and Shiyamily had two separate events as part of their Sri Lankan style wedding. The first took place at Addington Palace, in Surrey, where they held a Hindu wedding. Filled with ritual, there were a series of blessings which the family & priest bestowed upon the couple. It is fascinating if you aren’t familiar with it, and we always enjoy filming all the various elements which make up an Asian wedding. Both our bride and groom were dressed in extraordinary rich outfits, covered in intricate detail and made of lovely fabrics. There were live musicians who filled the ceremony with music and entertained both before and after.
The couple then had a civil wedding service at Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire. This was a totally different affair, with the bride in a white dress and the groom in a top hat and tails – and both arriving by a horse-drawn coach up the long drive to the venue! A beautiful civil service was followed by plenty of photographs in the stunning grounds of Woburn. Meanwhile the guests were enjoying a drink out on the lawns (and taking in the July sun). One lovely moment was when they released a bunch of white doves and our camera was able to follow them as they flew up into the sky. Congratulations to Nirshanthan and Shiyamily on two very successful weddings!
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!
