In the sixth of our series of ‘real weddings’ it’s time to tell you about an amazing and unforgettable wedding I filmed this June at La Fortaleza, overlooking the bay of Pollensa in Majorca and a key location for where the BBC thriller, The Night Manager, was filmed.
I’ve filmed at some very exclusive wedding venues in Europe. including Castle Howard in Yorkshire and Château de Chenonceau in the Loire Valley. Both beautiful settings but where the wedding party shared the venue throughout the day with the public.
I also have had the pleasure of working on weddings where the couple had exclusive use of the venue for their wedding… Anna and Adam at Alnwick Castle, the location where Hogwarts School of Wizardry in the Harry Potter movies was filmed, and then there was the celebrity wedding of Vicki and Hayden in September last year at Le Palais Garnier in Paris.
But this wedding was especially unique because it’s been in the spotlight recently. It’s had a starring role, with tens of millions of viewers in the UK, in The Night Manager.
From the off I knew this wedding was going to be ‘epic’… three days of events for more than 100 guests to enjoy. My sole direction from the couple was to capture the essence of the weekend and in particular the party vibe of their wedding.
After arriving in Majorca, I spent the first morning with the couple and the planner, Mandy from Alago Events, familiarising myself with the venue and the individual settings within La Fortaleza where the ceremony, cocktail party, banquet and the dancing would all take place.
The importance of this recce was to ensure that on the wedding day itself I could work as a solo camera director as effectively and discreetly as I possibly could… moving from one ‘scene’ to the next and always knowing what to expect. Which actually means I am always ready and in a position to film the unexpected.
The afternoon was spent filming establishers within the fortress and also the surrounding coastline – some of the locations took some real commitment to reach on foot …
The evening before the wedding all the guests were invited to a White Party in Port de Pollença. It was a relaxed evening giving the couple time to catch up with family and friends. The wedding itself started late in the afternoon the following day but I began filming, as always, first thing.
With a finish time of 0300 it meant a 20-hour day, so it was fortunate that the following day’s pool party was a late start and a very chilled day of filming. None the less I gathered a whopping 39 hours of footage from the three days in Majorca.
The thing about this wedding is that it highlights that whatever style or type of day you’re planning, my job is the capture what actually happens.
I often have clients say they love the ‘romantic style’ of some of my films but they say “we just aren’t romantic”, “we’re not outwardly affectionate” or “we don’t feel comfortable having anything staged”.
No problem. Yes, I do have couples who are keen to spend time with me on a pre-wedding shoot but even then nothing is ‘staged’. We throw some ideas together in the planning stages of what we might do and where we might go but during the filming there’s no direction involved.
But you might not even want that… you might have only left yourself the minimal amount of time alone with the photographer for ‘portraits’ with a preference for candid filming and photography.
That’s exactly what this couple had in mind too… The photographer Adam Riley and I took the couple off in a golf buggy for literally five minutes between a glass of champagne and the bride’s speech. We simply asked them to walk out onto a pier for a few moments and we left them to it. No more direction or requests further than that.
My job and what I am experienced in doing is following the wishes of my clients to ensure that however they visualise their film being I deliver just that.
My expertise lies in filming your wedding celebrations and bringing them back to life in a beautiful film in a way you remember the day. It’s a reflection, a bringing back to life, of your wedding day. Capturing your story for a film to last you a lifetime of memories.
All I ask you to do is relax and enjoy your day and trust me. I’ve got this.
If you’d like to talk about how you envisage your dream wedding film to look like and how we can make that happen, then get in touch and we can start making those plans and turn your ideas into a reality.
