I was waiting for so long until I get my hands on this wedding to make a recap! Right at the wedding when Zachery and Heather said vows to each other in sign language, I knew that this is going to be something special and totally unique! I have never seen anyone doing vows like this. Zachery and Heather know sign language even though they are not deaf-mute but they had some friends at the wedding that were.
Their wedding happened last October at really awesome Grand Island Mansion in Walnut Grove with really beautiful decorations! Especially at the decoration table where old wedding dress was hanging and it was real wedding dress of Heather’s mother and also Heather’s first toys next to it.
At that day I worked alone with no assistant and when I was filming Heather’s preparation I have got comments from people like “ohh hi, I love your videos and we watch it all the time”. The crazy thing is that we never know who watches us and our films and it would be so awesome if people would leave more comments here so we would see a bigger picture of our dear visitors and friends! 
Also, I really loved the theme of necklace leafs and real leafs in the ceremony aisle with super cute pumpkins!
I can’t express more description about Zachery and Heather then just to invite to you watch this amazing film about them!
soundtrack is ‘Tonight’ by The Shakespeares licensed through themusicbed.com
We are very excited to share our first Indian wedding. It’s no secret that Indian weddings are the most colorful ones out there. Our wish came true last October and we had an opportunity to film a 3 day wedding. Every tradition that was performed there was so beautiful and it was amazing to capture it. Mihir and Yashada traveled to India to purchase their wedding attire and they were so beautiful. Like Yashada said that she is very detail oriented, it was big thing for us to capture every little thing! So the whole event had such rich visuals that it was so unreal to see all that through camera. We want to thank Mihir and Yashada for letting us be the ones to film and to tell a story about their wedding!
soundtrack is ‘Weekday Escape – Instrumental’ by Moonlit Sailor licensed through themusicbed.com
Our next couple found us at the last moment before the wedding! They were lucky that their wedding was on Sunday and we still were available one week before the Sep 4th, 2011. What we love the most about them that they were not afraid to be themselves in front of the camera. Bob was throwing jokes at the ceremony during vows and Ginger never felt awkward having us everywhere in the morning In the good way!!! This is the good example how are couples feel comfortable while we do our part. Their wedding started early in the morning and ended early in afternoon. I think this was the shortest wedding we had in the while. Despite that locations were amazing and beautiful. Of course the most important is that we still managed to capture their uniqueness and awesomeness of their characters and their story! We are excited to share this next recap with you!
soundtrack is ‘Lovely Day’ by Kathryn Ostenberg licensed through songfreedom.com
This year we decided to make our trip more than just taking photos. With a team of creative people such as Alex and Diana Shik from Shiksa Stuido, Tatjana and Phil who are amazing story tellers and art directors we plan to travel through the tundra and visit multiple tribes, one after another. As crazy as it sounds, we will spend a month traveling over 2000 miles, much of it on snowmobiles in -40 /- 50F weather. We will be filming our trip while photographing and sharing the Love of Christ to the people in the tribes. We hope to bring back a gift from the people of Chukotka to the people of the West – a gift of an incredible story of their lives.
All this won’t be possible without your help. This trip is not sponsored by any company, or organization. It’s a pure desire of a group of people to go and use our talents to serve people who live literally at the end of the earth.
This trip will cost us $20,500. The money will go to cover travel expenses, clothing, food, gas for snowmobiles, purchase of new sleds, gifts for people in tundra, arctic tent and sleeping bags, electric generator, etc.
We are looking for companies and sponsors to work with.
for more information and to donate please visit http://sashaleahovcenco.com/2011/12/12/going-back-to-chukotka/
soundtrack is ‘The Air I Breathe’ by The Candle Park Stars licensed through songfreedom.com
Hello our friends! This time we would like you to meet Michael and Christina!
Our next recap we called “Love At the First Body Roll”. Every time we meet our couples, it always fascinates us how interesting their stories are. Stories of how they met until the day of the wedding. Many times their friends can tell those cute and funny moments when they make the toasts! Michael’s and Christina’s love story was very well told. I hope it feels like 4 minutes was enough to meet them even though they never spoke in the recap I mean of course they did at the wedding but in this recap talking part took their friends. You will see why! Enjoy our next Recap!
soundtrack is ‘I’ll Take Rain’ by Shirock licensed through songfreedom.com
Experimenting with our small toy “GoPro” while traveling by car over Christmas and New Year time we have got this time lapse that we would to share! This camera was installed on the front windshield of the car and it was taking pictures every 2 seconds. More then 16000 pictures were added together into the timeline and it became video. We had to speed it up most of the time because at 2 sec interval speed would give us 23 minutes of high detailed video.
For almost 9 years driving this road many times every year, I always wanted to capture it for myself. Before marriage Diana used to live in Vancouver and I was visiting her almost every month. We dated for 4 years and it was our long distance relationship. Even after our wedding on 07-07-07 we didn’t stop driving back and fourth. We have relatives and friends that we miss and want to see. So this road is in my memory now. I remember most of turns and what come next. I remember where is good gas stations and where rest areas are. So, I tried to capture this road with DSLR before but they are too heavy and it needs very strong support’s arms to keep camera in one place for 10-11 hours. GoPro was a perfect choice! Total distance is about 633 miles / 1012 km. Oregon in January was supposed to have snow in the mountains but this winter it had very little of precipitation but it still showed true difference between Oregon and California in the winter or spring.
Enjoy!
Soundtrack is ‘When I Am Old And Gray (Cinematic Joy Mix)’ performed by The Candle Park Stars and licensed through songfreedom.com
Another emotional journey happened not far away from Lake Tahoe in California on Sep 17, 2011! When we met Brian and Mina over coffee they told us how they fell in love with our films. In first night they watched almost entire blog until 3 am. It’s no secret, we (Diana and I) love when couples get addicted to our short films on the blog! It means for us that we find a way to make every film interesting, engaging and emotional. Speaking of emotions, I think the best compliment we get from our couples or from our friends when they say they cry watching weddings of people they don’t know but it feels like they get to know them at the end! In my mind I was like ‘yes. We nailed it’ It’s not an easy task to build emotional roller coaster from a wedding day. It takes a lot of observation and a good feel who our couples are. It takes more energy to build relationship with couple to achieve more depth in the our films and it takes a lot more strength to find and to build the story in short 3-5 min recaps rather then to stack side by side meaningless most beautiful shots from the wedding. At the end it pays off when couple find themselves in beautiful emotional short film where they are the focus of the film and not the wedding itself. Enough of bragging LOL JK. But seriously, our goal is to get to the level with every film where people would care about it. In this film when I saw how Brian reacted when he saw Mina for the first time in her wedding gown, I was speechless and amazed. Wow. I was like ‘that’s it’. This is my strongest piece of the puzzle at this wedding And it’s so exciting when we see other smaller stories throughout the day that we would add them to the recap like when Brian was making special drink for guests. It says a lot about the personalities and who they are. Also I have to say how much attention to details Mina took with all decorations. It was very beautiful with combination of the amazing location of the wedding!
In the end, we wish Brian and Mina all the best in their life and many blessings to their new family!!! Enjoy your own wedding recap!
soundtrack is ‘Light Me Up’ by The Kathryn Ostenberg and licensed through songfreedom.com
special thanks to Alex Vakulin
Next wedding recap was shot in Vancouver on September 3rd, 2011 at our really good friends wedding of Max and Galina! Max himself is the photographer and the cinematographer which made our job really interesting! We had previously filmed photographer’s wedding but never cinematographer’s. Who else knows, like a cinematographer, how important is the wedding film? There is one Russian saying that says ‘Show me your friends and I will tell you who you are’ is very true and applies to us too. We cinematographers have many friends cinematographers and photographers and we all would talk between each other ‘how often wedding cinema is overlooked these days!’ Photography is a must for every wedding but video is not. It is true that many young couples after watching someone else’s insanely long and boring wedding video from old school videographers, that some still refuse to implement the newest technologies and equipment, do not wish to waste any money on their own wedding in the future. We completely agree with them but we ask them to give us a chance on behalf of the most progressive wedding cinematographers in this industry and watch ours.
If this film got into you and you feel like you know this couple, feel free to watch other ones and see if we can do it again Our point is that the wedding industry is now at least for 4 years has been going through amazing progress. There is finally films that talk about couples and interpret their stories and not just wedding itself. Finally there are things in the wedding films that you cherish. Emotions, story, strong visuals and all this combined makes it worth so much for the couples at their the wedding day! The beauty of our films are that they are full of emotions and they show true character’s representation and nothing is staged. We would not ask someone to repeat something. We let it flow and come to us. That’s why every film is different because all couples are different. They are telling us they would not be able to stop watching almost all recaps on this blog and they would cry and get emotional for those couples that they don’t know. We tell them if recaps do that for you, for us it means that we succeeded. Imagine how much more couples cherish their own recaps after a wedding that is only a memory. So, we cinematographers often would say to couples that most of what you do for the wedding day is very important and will last only for one day. Wedding gown will last longer. Wedding rings will stay with the husband and wife for entire marriage. Photographs and film might last even longer and for many more generations. Than how much is the wedding film worth if it will last longer then anything else? It might be a cheesy example but it will only make sense when you invest into real and true wedding cinema! We also are not saying that we are at the top of the game but we are doing what we love and hope to grow every year with the whole industry and even someday bring something new for this industry. We love photographs and we know how much they are worth but not to have film from the wedding will be the biggest regret. Photos in all their worth will not be able to bring back motion and feel of the wedding with tons of emotions and sounds and voices from dear people! It is absolutely essential to have the right cinematographer’s team for every wedding!
soundtrack is ‘Night Stroll’ by Moonlit Sailor licensed through themusicbed.com
Hi.
For the first time we had a chance to shoot Chinese wedding! It was very exciting We love to explore and capture some interesting and new for us traditions. But most important of course is not a wedding itself or traditions but a couple! Jeffrey and Elaina in one word would be described as sweet! We heard “sorry” from Elaina million times and it was her. Jeffrey’s best man spoke about Jeffrey that before he met Elaina, he never smiled or laughed. His life changed by her. The only time Elaina was not smiling is when moments were very emotional and teary. We love openness of emotions of the couple and it was like a roller coaster from tears to laughs and from seriousness to fun! Enjoy!
Little bit about our process.
We have to confess when we shoot wedding, we usually have more technical state of mind. We can’t miss things, have to think of the right light, compositions, sound and many other technical things. All these things are good and important but when wedding is done and the editing begins, we start to see a bigger picture of the day! We see something it was not clear at the wedding. We see how the story evolves about them throughout the day. Recap becomes like a poetry or small pieces of a lego become into a big canvas! I get excited about the proccess more then it’s done. It’s weird but true From experience, when we shoot, we know there is a story goes but it’s not clear yet. We stay with open and active mind on all things that happens around us! To be actually present with active thinking at the wedding for 8-12 hours is very tough, so the next day after a wedding we take mental and a physical day off to recharge! To get creative mind back, rest is a must! Same thing applies to the editing process. Many people ask us how do we find music and songs that we are using? Many love our selections! Simple answer is our taste matches yours Our taste is not universal for everyone but to build our library of music takes a very, very long time! Constantly listening to Pandora, Itunes and radio gives us most of the ideas and of course search and experiment with our taste to see further what we like and what we don’t. Me personally, when I listen to music I try to play in my mind with my imagination and try to hear what music is telling me. I do it often and I become very picky with the music! It takes hours and hours to satisfy myself with the selection for our films. Why? Couples are all different and their personalities and energy have to match the music! And then we match energy of the day with the energy of the music. Visuals bonds with the music and it becomes what you guys can watch more of that here on the blog!!!
If you guys have some questions, please write them in comments, we will try to answer them!
Thank YOU!
Hello our friends!
Next wedding took place in Berkeley back on July 16th and it was really special! Eric and Laurena were simply extraordinary couple that was fully alive and in love! This makes our passion more exciting and they rocked all day long!!! It was like a roller coaster of emotions from hilarious moments to a very touchy “I can’t cry today” time. Relationship between their friends, relatives and parents were so close that it felt like it is one big family. When we heard speech about the song that had lyrics “Home is whenever I’m with you….” we knew right away that this is their main theme of their love story! This recaps talks about home where they were raised and going to the new home when they are together. It is very clear that parents feel so emotional letting them go from their home and also very happy for their kids to have their new home of relationship that they will make together as husband and wife! It is amazing to witness those moments in couple’s life and there is no other way to tell a story about them in the way we put together this new recap!
Enjoy!!!
soundtrack is ‘Without You’ by Ben Rector licensed through themusicbed.com
by Shiksa Studio
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