A Scottish Castle Wedding
Rachel and Roy’s WEDDING VIDEO FEATURE
The Venue
Carlowrie Castle is a stunning country mansion located in the village of Kirkliston in West Lothian, Scotland. The castle was built in the early 19th century and has a rich history that dates back to the medieval times. Today, it is a luxurious hotel that offers guests a unique opportunity to experience the grandeur and elegance of a bygone era.
Carlowrie Castle was originally built in 1852 by William Honeyman, a successful Scottish architect. The castle was designed in the Scottish Baronial style and features a distinctive tower, turrets, and crenellated parapets. The interior of the castle is equally impressive, with ornate plasterwork, intricate wood carvings, and stained glass windows.
The castle boasts twelve stunning bedrooms, each one decorated in a unique and elegant style.
The couple also opted for drone coverage of the venue, which was carried out by a local drone operator on my behalf and the venue definitely doesn’t disappoint from the air with Edinburgh airport sitting just at the end of the drive.
Rachel and Roy’s Wedding Day Plans
Carlowrie Castle
As an American, Rachel was drawn to Carlowrie Castle because it had all the fairy tale qualities you would want in a Scottish wedding, and as a Scotsmen Roy felt very much at home in the surroundings.
Both Rachel and Roy got ready at the venue, giving me plenty of opportunities to get some nice footage of them getting ready and some establishing shots of the venue.
Their humanist wedding took place outside and the weather couldn’t have been better. The couple vows were both heartfelt and fun, a perfect blend of tears and laughter. The ceremony ended with the couple following a bag pipe player across the lawn for drinks and confetti at the front of the castle.
The couple were then greeted by a surprise horse drawn carriage which took them on a ride around the grounds and allowed the drone operator to get some great shpts of them riding down the long lane up to the castle.
Their afternoon was spent playing lawn games and mixing with the friends and family before dinner, speeches and a lovely first dance.
The couple and their friends then danced the night away, giving me lots of evening footage and then some pretty epic fireworks. Th evening ended with a traditional Ceilidh dance.
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.
I knew Roy’s Scottish roots were important so when his brother read out a beautiful poem called Tae a Thistle I decided to mix this with some shots of the Ceilidh dancing to end their film and I think it worked really well.
Once I have these all 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.
