"Beauty pierces her heart and draws her into the sacred. She wants not only her wedding, but her marriage to reflect this in every way: through awe-inspiring liturgy, decor, and photographs, each infused, above all, with the radiant beauty only made manifest in sincere holiness. No matter her past, she has a love for all that is pure. She desires nothing more or less than to make a complete gift of herself. She chases fearlessly after virtue, knowing excellence is the path to true freedom, and freedom is for love. Deeply, profoundly, she is in love..."

Introducing Spoken Bride's 2020 Vendor Week! Tips, Education, and Exclusive Planning Info from Catholic Wedding Pros

January 10, 2020/ Editor Spoken Bride

This January 11-19 is our annual Vendor Week: days dedicated to showcasing the best of the Catholic wedding industry through Spoken Bride’s blog content and social media.

Videography: Visual Rose Films by Nick DeRose, a Spoken Bride Vendor. The bride, Kate Capato of Visual Grace, and wedding photographer, Emma Dallman of Emma Dallman Photography, are our vendors, as well!

The Catholic wedding industry? Yes, it’s a thing! We are proud to offer the Spoken Bride Vendor Guide, the first wedding directory specifically designed to connect brides and grooms with planners, photographers, florists, artisans, and more who share the same faith and bring a distinctively Catholic outlook to their client experience.

Don’t miss our first vendor takeovers, featuring Evan Kristiansen of Evan Kristiansen Photography and Nia Husk of Prolific Services, a certified fertility education resource, over this weekend! Follow us on Instagram @spokenbride.

At the start of this post-holiday engagement season, we invite you to browse the Spoken Bride Vendor Guide as you begin booking your wedding vendors. Each of our vendors is a true gift, offering their talents for the glory of God and sharing of themselves, their stories, and unique personalities.

Are you a Catholic wedding vendor interested in learning about Vendor membership? Read about membership benefits and join our waitlist here.

Follow along on our blog and Instagram this week for exclusive and personal education, tips, Days in the Life, and Q+A you’ll only find from Spoken Bride vendors. Forthcoming topics include…

Tips for planning a pre-ceremony “First Prayer”
Considerations for marrying at a church that isn’t your home parish
Vendors’ tips for first steps in finding, choosing, and booking your wedding professionals
Ways to communicate the importance of your Catholic faith with your vendors
Instagram takeovers by a marriage therapist, a jeweler, an NFP instructor, wedding photographers, and more

Recently engaged and booking your vendors? Browse the Spoken Bride Vendor Guide:

Above all, weddings are about the personal: who you and your beloved are, and the professionals you invite in to help tell your story for generations to come. Our vendors are single, engaged, and married, alive with passion for their craft and their Catholic faith. They, and we, are so eager to share and correspond with you this week! Don’t hesitate to engage online and on social media with your questions and thoughts—it’s our hope that this week is mutually enriching, informative, and fruitful as you prepare for your wedding and marriage.

January 18, 2019

5 Tips for a Meaningful and Cinematic Catholic Wedding Video

January 18, 2019/ Editor Spoken Bride

LAURA KUAH

Each day from January 13-20, Spoken Bride's distinctively Catholic wedding vendors will be featured through Instagram takeovers and written contributions on the blog.

Are you recently engaged? We invite you to learn more about the gifted wedding industry professionals who partner with us through the Spoken Bride Vendor Guide.

In his 1999 Letter to Artists, St. John Paul II writes, "Artists of the world, may your many different paths lead to that Ocean of beauty, where wonder becomes awe, exhilaration and unspeakable joy..." for “beauty is a key to the mystery and a call to transcendence. It is an invitation to savor life and to dream of the future.”

Photography: LAURENTINA PHOTOGRAPHY — Photography: *LAURENTINA PHOTOGRAPHY*

Art, in any form, has the ability to add value to our lives. Our lives, in any vocation, comprise an intricate weaving of finding, creating and preserving beauty, which can save the world.

Videography is a unique, creative, and powerful way to capture the significant words, sounds, and movements of your wedding. Beyond cherishing your video in your own home, modern wedding videography can serve as a beautiful testimony of your faith journey and love story.

The role of a Catholic wedding videographer is to not only help document the most important day of your life, but to also create a film that captures the essence of your love for each other and Christ. The beauty of the sacrament of matrimony is most effectively captured when it is preserved in still images, sound and motion. Your wedding day will pass in the blink of an eye, and reflecting on video can reignite the emotion of the wedding day in a unique and powerful way.

A carefully curated video captures the big movements, as well as the little moments, throughout the day. From my videography and photography experience in the wedding industry, I offer five matters to discuss with your videographer for a meaningful, cinematic Catholic wedding video.

Letters & gifts

Many couples choose to share a sentimental letter and gift with their spouse on their wedding day. This usually takes place when the bridal parties are getting ready before the Mass. Wedding videographers often use this opportunity to include a voiceover and to capture the candid reaction of the gift recipient, adding an intimate touch to the final video.

Prayer

Maybe it's your bridesmaids getting together to pray over you after your dress reveal, praying with your parents in the rectory, or doing a "first touch" to hold hands and pray with your fiancé before walking down the aisle. Whichever prayer you decide to include on your wedding day, schedule these events and determine whether you’d like these moments to be private or recorded for your wedding film.

Tripods during the Mass

Each parish may have different guidelines for videography. I recommend that the bride, groom, priest, and videographer have a conversation about how to best collaborate for the wedding ceremony. I like to visit the church ahead of time to see the space and to speak with the priest about my intentions, so I can best respect both the liturgy and the couple.

For non-Catholic videographers, the restrictions at many parishes can be unfamiliar and challenging to navigate. Most of the time, the priests and wedding coordinator at the parish will happily work with you and your videographer to discuss creative, respectful ways to film the Mass. Consider how multiple tripods in varying areas of the church can capture different angles and perspectives. The primary intention of video at the nuptial Mass is to capture the liturgy and the couple’s encounter with Christ.

Collaboration with other vendors

When you hire a videographer, it is helpful to connect them with your other wedding vendors. When vendors can coordinate their timeline and discuss shooting styles or other important details, they can work together to minimize distractions on the big day. If the photographer and videographer come from different teams, it is important that they plan and work in harmony with a spirit of community, rather than competing for the best shot. Your introducing them to one another facilitates the best outcomes for collaboration.

Audio & music

The audio and music soundtrack will be added to your video during the editing process. For spoken audio, many videographers use wireless microphones—this will also need to be discussed with your priest, so he can plan to wear a small microphone in his cassock during the ceremony. You can have a dreamy wedding video, but if the audio is off, the whole video can fall apart.

Bear in mind many videographers are not able to use popular music due to licensing restrictions. There are plenty of romantic, cinematic instrumental songs your videographer can choose to showcase the mood of your wedding. If there is a song or genre you prefer, speak to your videographer about using original music. And remember our Church’s rich tradition of liturgical music is an amazing accompaniment for video!

With a coordinated plan and strong communication between the bride, groom, priest, and vendors, your wedding day can be preserved in a way that captures the essence of your love for each other, cultivates your devotion to Christ and the beauty of the faith, and elicits strong emotion for years to come.

I encourage you to prayerfully consider the suggestions above when working with your Catholic wedding videographer. I wish you joy, peace and patience as you prepare for this sacred sacrament of marriage!

Recently engaged? Consider including a "How We Met" engagement video during your engagement photography session! If you desire to share your story, a video is a creative and fun way to invite others to witness your relationship and journey towards holiness.

VIDEOGRAPHY: LAURENTINA PHOTOGRAPHY

About the Author: Laura Kuah is a wedding photographer + videographer and owner of Laurentina Photography, Spoken Bride Vendor, and Catholic convert from the Washington, D.C. area. She was introduced to the Catholic faith during a semester abroad in Orvieto, Italy while living with Italian Catholic Sisters. When she is not behind the camera, Laura enjoys being outdoors, visiting art museums, growing succulents and playing with her sweet tabby cat, Gioia.

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December 15, 2016

Vendor Spotlight | OC Media

December 15, 2016/ Editor Spoken Bride

Attend a wedding, and you're given the opportunity to know the bride and groom in a new way, even if they're old friends: their ceremony and reception convey their values, their tastes, their style. On a day when all eyes are on the couple and the love they share, you're bound to observe something new about their relationship and interactions, not least of which is the fact that in the sacrament, a husband and wife have, in fact become a new creation, one before God and man, transformed and sealed by grace.

The dress, the meal, the decor, and other wedding details do offer major understanding on the surface. Rightly so, that surfce can be beautiful and telling. What sets a Catholic wedding apart, thought, is the richness residing beneath the exterior. We are a sacramental people: the sights, smells, sounds, and tastes of the Mass are invitations to the divine; the intangible made accessible, the Word made incarnate. The interior, brought to light, is a revelation.

It's that interior knowledge Keenan and Brianna Fitzpatrick are chasing. A few years ago, they showed up to a wedding empty-handed, with only their camera in tow, and decided to capture the day in a real, memorable way. Hours of footage and editing later, they presented their first wedding video as a gift to the couple, and the response let fall the Holy Spirit. Brianna and Keenan felt the pull to share their talent, and their husband-and-wife photography and videography business was born.

The OC in OC Media stands for Oculi Cordis, Latin for "eyes of the heart." The Fitzpatricks' work embodies this invitation to share in the inner life of their clients, to see with more than just what the eye can know. Yet it's the immediate beauty that first draws the viewer in and demands a closer look: photographs that are glowy, flooded with light, and often showcasing the landscapes of their native Colorado, and videos combining imagery, music, and speeches into something truly tender.

Clicking through a couple's wedding album or video as soon as it's posted can make it easy to forget these glimpses of the day will last far beyond the news feed scrolls and the excitement of early marriage. These images will be viewed, re-viewed, and experienced for decades. Brianna writes that she and her husband "can't help but be drawn into the present by appreciating the past." Creation is eternal.

From Keenan + Brianna: We call OC Media a ministry because we believe it is a tool and gift God has given to us to express to others the beauty that exists in their life--a beauty that is an undeniable gift from their Creator. So many moments in life, whether it's a marriage, graduating from high-school, or a baby's first steps are opportunities for us to encounter our God, ourselves, others, and the world around us in a profound way.

We desire to convey this by engaging in others' lives through relationship and by capturing moments that will hopefully be constant reminders of the giftedness of this life!

We also desire to develop real relationships with each of our clients. When we take clients, we are not just contracting a job with them, we want to get to know the couple or the individual beforehand and continue that relationship after their session. This, we believe, is the call of every human being: to encounter another in a real way.

If we are to truly capture events and important moments in people's lives, we need to know who we are capturing. We're eager to learn about each person's dreams, desires, wants, needs, loves, and even pains. We hope this sets us apart, and we hope and pray others witness the difference.

Our job and privilege is to enlighten others hearts through our eyes and your own. To be enlightened means having greater knowledge of and understanding of something. We hope that you are enlightened by the work we do, to not only see just photography or videography, but to see the beauty, truth, and goodness behind every shot, and in every video. May it open the eyes of your heart!