This weekend 4 of us went out to shoot Polina and Taras’s wedding. Polina and Taras are a very cool Russian couple that we had the pleasure of working with this past weekend.
The day started off with me dropping Prashanna off at Harbourfront, DT Toronto, to shoot an engagement walk with Annie and Oneil, who are getting married in 2 weekends from now. From there, I drove up the street to the Westin Harbour Castle to meet up with the Frame of Mind Photography guys and the Bride.
As usual, I was shooting the HDV format with my Sony FX1 and Prashanna was armed with his XH-A1. Prashanna actually finished the engagement shoot and walked back to the hotel before the bride was even ready for us to start, so we ended up with alot of coverage of Polina getting ready.
We got to the church and did the detail shots inside and out and while I miked the groom. The Frame of Mind guys shot stills of the decor and guests getting seated while we took some really nice footage using the tripod and Glidecam 4000.
As the ceremony ended, the rain started. The plan was to go to the Guildwood in Scarborough. If you haven’t been to the Guildwood, it is an amazing place with a lot of stone structures and very geometrical shapes to shoot with. Almost like shooting architecture and live subjects at the same time. The only problem is that when it rains, the whole place is wide open. Anyways, we were on the brink of going to the Tannery Mall but the bride said that she put in request with “the Man upstairs” and she was sure that it was going to be fine. Well, sure enough we drove through the storm (and yes…it stormed), to the Guildwood where it hadn’t had a single drop of rain. We had a lot of fun there, shot with 2 cameras (we had to bring the Glidecam back out for this place), and just as we said it’s time to pack up and got in the cars…the rain came. Talk about timing.
We finished our day at Russian Nights in Thornhill. Cool little spot that holds about 100 people. The food was great and the entertainment was really good. There was a cover band and these 3 Russian dancers that entertained the guests throughout the night. With a small lighting kit we were able light the place very nicely for speeches and some of the entertainment. We did a Speakers Corner outside using a wireless handheld mic, which let’s us hear the person speaking extremely clearly while providing just enough ambient sound so that you know there’s a party going on (sounds natural).
The night ended at about 12:30a and we hit the road, ready to do it again next weekend.
