Welcome to our first official personal post. This year we want to include you on more than just Couture Motion weddings. We want to let you in on who Couture Motion is outside of weddings. We want to bring you into our home, our experiences, and moments in our daily lives. Thank you for joining us and reading about more of these moments.
We define our lives by the moments in our lives. Ian and I have made it our passion and our profession to document and create films about one of those moments in life. The wedding. But there are more moments beyond the wedding. Ian and I have been married for over 6 years and we have had some major moments in our life occur. We have moved across the country to NY. I went on a national tour with a musical while Ian got his MFA in Film from Columbia University. We rescued a dog in Brooklyn. We moved back to CA and left our careers in theatre and film to start this business. My father was diagnosed with cancer. We moved to LA. My father (aka Rambo) lost his battle with cancer. We rescued another dog, this time in Bakersfield. All of these life events really shape a person. It made us question what we find the most important in life. The answer we came up with was family and home. We wanted to be near our family and we wanted to create a home for ourselves.
Enter the house on Linden, which is located in a part of Bakersfield where every home has its own character. After walking through dozens and dozens of houses we started to get discouraged that we would never find our home. After one terrible open house in particular I walked out the front door, looked across the street and said, “Now why can’t that house be for sale?” A week later it was listed. As we went room to room it became clear that we were falling in love with this house. By the time we reached the amazing backyard we knew we found something special. We put an offer on our home that same day and luckily we got it!
Now started the fun! Our home on Linden was a “changer upper,” not quite a “fixer upper.” While the house had nothing huge that had to be redone, we wanted to make this house OURS. And we did. We are sooooo thankful to everyone who helped us get here (and the list is long). Enjoy our Before & After photos! If you have any questions about the process or the products, ask them in the comments section and we will be sure to reply. Also, have fun pinning these images…then come for a visit!
We like Grey. And apparently Grey likes us!! We are so extremely honored to be a part of The Collective over at Grey Likes Weddings. We discovered Grey Likes Weddings three years ago. On a whim we submitted Jackie & Jamison’s wedding film and it was featured! Later we had submitted Jayme & Mitchell’s wedding and we were honored (and totally agreed) with the title “Why a Videographer Should be On Your Must Have List.” Fast forward to today and we are ecstatic to announce that we are now a member of the Grey Collective! We love this blog and this collection of wedding professionals. Grey Likes Weddings is such a wonderful, smart, stylish, chic, and cutting edge place for brides! Check it out while you are checking out our profile!!
Imagine this perfect little pocket of Idaho, a mix of sunshine and rain, around 30 family and friends, and the most amazing food you have ever tasted. That was the setting for Wes & Kimi’s wedding. Lynn Canyon Ranch is located in Victor, ID which is very close to Jackson Hole, WY. The entire guest list traveled for this destination, ranch wedding. on the morning of the wedding we were very worried about the weather. The sky looked like it was about to open up and flood the sky. In fact, when we first drove up to the venue hail was scattered on the ranch grounds. But Mother Nature did not let us down. Minutes before the wedding started, the sun graced us with its presence. The sun kissed our skin for the entire ceremony in the amazing aspen grove, family portraits, and a few portraits with Kimi & Wes. As we shot the final photo the thunder, lighting, and rain chased us indoors. Kimi & Wes really wanted to give their guests a wonderful meal…and boy they did. Ian and I have had some amazing meals, but this was hands down the best filet and lamb we have ever had. We now dream of going back to Linn Canyon Ranch to eat the food again. You might wonder where the photo is of said food….I didn’t do it. I was that amazed with the food that I didn’t even think about snapping a photo. Now that I have made myself hungry thinking about the food, I will leave you with the wonderful images from this day. Stay tuned for their Day After photoshoot!
We’re baaaaaaack! It never fails. Every year we get our “summer vacation,” only it’s in the winter. It’s when Ian and I have a quiet few months of no weddings. But during that time we are feverishly editing feature films, working on the business, spending time with family, and working on our new house (blog post to come soon!). We also have a couple random shoots here and there. This on features Matt & Hollie. We adore Matt & Hollie. Not only are they amazingly cool people and drop dead gorgeous…but they are also family. Matt is my youngest cousin and Hollie has been a part of this family for years. The two of them together have to be the most easy going couple that has ever existed on this planet. No joke. We cannot wait to photograph and film their wedding at Calamigos Ranch in June. Until then, please enjoy their Santa Barbara engagement photos.
Music Licensed from The Music Bed
Our final wedding of the year! We could not be more thankful to finish our busy and eventful season with Ian and Melissa. I have known Melissa for years. Back in my previous life as an actor, Melissa and I did summer stock up in scenic Coeur d’Alene, ID. Summers at CDA were amazing. I made some wonderful (and talented) friends up there and Melissa was one of them. I looked up to Melissa so much with her talent, her professionalism, and her gut busting humor. She’s basically awesomely brilliant in a tiny package. So when Melissa got engaged to Ian I was over the moon for her. I hadn’t met Ian, but I had a hunch that he was a good guy just based on his name. Then when we met each other over Skype a little over a year ago, my suspicions that he was cool were confirmed. (I mean how can you not love a guy whose love of Christmas goes so far that he decorates his bike with Christmas lights and hangs it on the wall?)
Their wedding day was particularly special. The thrill of this union spread beyond Ian and Melissa. It should be mentioned that Ian and Melissa’s parents have known each other for forever. Seriously. They live just blocks a part from one another up in Washington. Despite their parents’ decades of friendship, Ian and Melissa had never met each other. It was one fateful day at Sea Fair in Seattle where they met. So on the wedding day it felt like family reunion. Even I felt like part of the family! The love and support that Ian and Melissa had coming at them from their friends and family was overwhelming. It even reached as far as London when Melissa Facetimed with a friend of hers who is performing in Chicago on the West End while she was getting into her dress.
The love that Ian and Melissa have for each other was undeniable. I think the words spoken at the end of their film say it all. We were so honored to document this day from start to finish.
Music Licensed from The Music Bed
I love that John & Adrianna’s film is premiering on the blog right after Thanksgiving. At a time of year when the word “thankful” is in all our minds, that word popped into my mind several times while watching the footage from their day. You would have to be blind to not notice the gratitude that John & Adrianna have for each other and how thankful they are to have each other as a partner. You can see it in every tear and every smile. You can see it how they rush to kiss each other after being pronounced husband and wife. You can see it in the way John kisses Adrianna on the nose and how Adrianna hugs John. Thank you for letting us capture this thankfulness John and Adrianna. You two truly are special people and have a very special relationship.
Music Licensed from The Music Bed
Oh Kelsay & Michael…where do we begin?! There are some couples that we just completely feel a friendship with and Kelsay and Mike are one of those couples. It felt like I was hanging out with my best friends from college while Kelsay was getting ready and Ian felt like he was just chilling with the guys. So needless to say we were emotional when they delivered their amazing personal vows and laughed with them as the night went on. We wished we could have stayed and partied with them all night, but alas we could not (due to our double header weekend). We had such a fun time on this wedding and even more fun editing it. Congratulations Kelsay & Michael. Thanks for making us remember why we love our jobs so much!
Music Licensed from The Music Bed
It’s always fun when we get referrals from past brides. It’s almost like a Couture Motion reunion. On this particular wedding, Leah heard about us from one of her bridesmaids and one of our past brides Kori who we filmed back in 2010. It was so fun to see Kori (who is expecting!) and her husband Mark at the wedding. But not only was it great to see Kori and Mark, it was fun to recognize past bridal party and guests from other weddings. It really does make us thankful to be a part of our clients’ lives and thankful for the ‘word of mouth’ part of the business. Leah and Michael are such a sweet couple. The way that these two people look at each other is so heartwarming. We felt that on the day when we captured the footage and it was only proved further when we edited the film. Thank you Leah and Michael for warming our hearts with your looks!
Music licensed from The Music Bed
We love interviews. They have really become a signature of our films and we are stoked when a couple decides to sit down and tell their story. We get to hear such amazing things from them. From fantastic first impressions to hilarious quirks they put up with, we get to hear it all. Editing a story into their highlight film is such a great way to personalize the film, however we are always forced to leave out some amazing stories. Kristen and Ross fall into this category. Their proposal story was too good to not share, so you can enjoy that when you watch their film. But one of my favorite stories is when we asked Kristen how she when from just “knowing” Ross to realizing she wanted to date Ross. Here is what she had to say:
“I kind of knew I was really into him because I went off to Europe with my sister to celebrate graduating college. And it was really late, it was my first night there, I had a couple glasses of wine, had one of the best nights out in Italy. And my sister is kind of laughing because she sees me on the pay phone and I have a calling car. And the only person I called on that trip was Ross.
Here is what Ross had to say about that:
“I think that’s the first time I actually realized that she liked me because she actually called me from Europe. She was just babbling on about anything and everything and it was the cutest thing. I didn’t want to get off the phone with her because I was fixated, infatuated with her.”
I just love how these life long journeys begin. Congratulations Ross & Kristen!
Music licensed from The Music Bed
Weddings can be a lot of things. They can focus on the details, the party, the extravagance, or the experience. But one thing that all weddings have in common is that they are all ultimately about two people coming together. On the day of Chris and Serein’s wedding I didn’t notice it, but looking back over their footage and editing their film, what I saw was two people who were already together. When they are holding one another and looking each other in the eye, it’s as if the world around them disappears. They have an unbreakable bond that we should all be so lucky to have. We, as artists, have always believed that the details of the wedding do not matter near as much as the love that is experienced on the wedding day. No matter what the day looks like, or what goes right (or wrong), as long as love is the reason, the wedding day will be perfect. Watch this film and tell me this day wasn’t perfect.
