Chiswick House and Gardens, Chiswick | Shayda and Yusuf’s Wedding
Shayda and Yusuf’s WEDDING VIDEO FEATURE
The Venue
Shayda and Yusuf’s Instagram Teaser Film
Chiswick House is a glorious 18th Century wedding venue in West London. The house is a beautiful example of classical architecture and looks like a building that wouldn’t look out of place in Italy. Inside, the house has been beautifully restored and it’s a great place to have wedding portraits taken.
The venue also has some stunning Italian gardens and a beautiful conservatory where wedding ceremonies can take place.
Shayda and Yusuf’s Wedding Day Plans
Shayda and Yusuf wedding guests outside Chiswick House and Gardens conservatory
Shayda got ready for her day at a nearby hotel while Yusuf and their guests gathered at the venue.
It was a gloriously hot day (almost too hot!) lending the Italian Gardens an appropriately Mediterranean feel. Shayda arrived in the gardens and the wedding took place in the conservatory. It was a short but very sweet ceremony.
The afternoon was a mixture of mingling with friends and family in the gardens and couple portraits in the beautiful Chiswick House. My favourite moment of the day was probably all the guests posing for a photo in front of the house with the couples beautiful vintage car parked out front.
The day then moved to a lovely hotel on the Thames in Richmond where the couple arrived in style with traditional Turkish drummers leading the procession.
The scorching day turned into a beautiful warm evening, with the sun setting over the Thames providing a last chance for some couple portraits.
After an immaculately curated wedding breakfast the first dance and entertainment started and the couples night ended with sparklers outside, which always looks great on film.
Wedding Videography Approach
My main aim as a wedding videographer is to produce cinematic, yet authentic, mementos of a wedding day. I want them to be stylish, filled with all the emotions of the day while being infused with a classic cinema flair, which I always have in the back of my mind when choosing which lens to use in a certain moment, how to frame a shot, the sounds and music I will use to tell that part of the story and thinking always about the edit.
Me filming a wedding in Portugal with my minimalist set up.
Shayda and Yusuf’s day was a highly personal and elegant one, with a strong attention to detail so I knew it was important to highlight all the details in their film as well as the beautiful surroundings. The couple didn’t have any speeches and a very straight forward legal ceremony so I knew music would need to play a strong part in the story telling of their day, as well as using other elements like the Turkish drummers. I also knew I had some great portrait shots inside Chiswick House as well as the sparkler shots, so I was spoilt for great moments.
Once I have these story telling elements in place I make sure my films are as cinematic as possible, and what I mean by that is I use every tool and technique at my disposal, from the filming style on the wedding day, to the editing and colour grading techniques afterwards, to create a piece of work that feels like a mini-movie, like a short piece of classic cinema, with a proper beginning middle and end, establishing people, place and story as elegantly as possible, woven together with music I choose carefully for each project.
Most importantly though, I use equipment and a filming style on the day that allows me to capture these moments without leaving a heavy footprint on the day- I use very minimal equipment, similar to a photographer, and avoid stage managing the day in any way because the most important element of making a great film is authentic moments and emotions and the only way to achieve these is allow them to happen naturally, unhindered by over posing/staging and manufacturing the events.
