From the Eyes of My Sister

Caleb had expressed his desire for a wedding video. I had expressed my desire to not really wanting a high quality video. He asked about the feasibility of filming with Super 8 and I tried to find a camera online so we could just make our own video with our family’s help.

My sister was home for one of the weekends leading up to the wedding and I happen to ask her, “Hannah, do you know anyone with a Super 8 camera that they’re not using?”

“Oh, I have one upstairs.”

From the truck on our way to get married.

She brought it downstairs for us to see if we could figure out if it might work. Watching a YouTube video on how to check it without having film, it passed the test. We ordered film that night and I asked Hannah if she would want to do that for our day. I was happy to give her something to do and another way to be involved in our day since we chose not to have bridesmaids or groomsmen at all.

I took the camera in the morning to document our non-successful fishing trip and then passed it on to my sister for the rest of the day. She walked around and took some clips of me getting ready in my childhood bedroom, downstairs while my parents and grandparents were preparing food and spending time together and then joined us while we took portraits with Austin & Jenna.

Something I love about our film is that it’s messy, it’s lower contrast, it’s not very defined or clear. It is what it is, and I enjoy that. It wasn’t a production and it certainly wasn’t something that we spent a lot of money on - just the cost of film and development - and that’s what we received, a film that was a little scratched up, blurry, and dusty…but filmed by our family. Just add in the harsh cold wind, a view of Hannah in a bright pink puffer jacket and it would’ve been our day in a tangible hold.

The video clips we have of our day are short 3-7 second clips that do not include sound, only showing the bare day and emotion. I go back and forth from posting some of the clips because to me, it means everything and I could not care any less that there are scratches and dust on the film or that our faces are out of focus half of the time due to the beginner nature of the camera. But to us we have a physical film of our day, showing conversations with our families, some clips during our short portrait time, and a few snippets of our ceremony - all we need. A film we have in our safe, that will be passed on to the generations we create and can be played on the wall, or on the front of a curtain. It will not live on a digital drive or a DVD. It will be played on the wall, maybe even our kid’s walls one day, with no music playing. That’s why I have not added music to the clips here. It’s too hard to pick just one song and I like the freedom to be able to change it as time goes on.

It was special to receive the film back and to watch my wedding day from the eyes of my sister. Thank you for letting us see your perspective of our day, Hannah.

From the moments before.

From our portraits with Austin and Jenna.

From our family dinner following the ceremony.