The 3 craziest things I’ve experienced at weddings

You know, I have been doing this a really-really long time, weddings that is.

In my long career as a wedding expert and wedding filmmaker, I’ve literally seen and heard it all in my career and nothing tends to surprise me anymore.

I usually try to provide educational blogs to give couples insights to the wedding industry, how to best navigate it and how to save the most money too.

Well today, I want to share with you the 3 most craziest things that I’ve experienced in the wedding business in my 21 years as a wedding filmmaker.

Me in the 1990’s with my camera.

No, she didn’t?!! Yup, she truly did!!!

The year was 1999 and I had worked at WSLS for the last few years as a broadcast engineer. I had just started my career as a wedding videographer and I was starting to learn the ropes with my boss, Rick. After a few weddings I finally got the chance to start filming on my own and man was I excited.

Back then, I used large over-the-shoulder style cameras, just like you see the local broadcast stations use and I remember I needed to head into the bridal suite to get b-roll of the prep. Well, this wedding ceremony was actually as a church in Roanoke and the bridal suite was one of the Sunday school classrooms.

I remember walking into the room where the bridesmaids were getting ready and I started getting various shots for the video.

Some clips of the wedding dress, the make-up, the ladies doing their hair and hanging around a bit and then I noticed the bride wasn’t in the room.

When I asked about her whereabouts, the maid of honor told me she’d be back in a minute or two. I thought that was a bit odd but being new to the wedding industry, I thought that maybe it was somewhat normal.

Then all the bridesmaids and the maid-of-honor all got up and left and said they’d be right back.

Weird.

Here I was 20 years old and completely clueless. Well, the classroom was actually one of those rooms with an accordion door and the door cracked open and guess what?

Out came the bride.

Completely naked. Well, high heels, pearls necklace and her veil.

Yup, honest to God. I was completely shocked. She stood there and wanted me to get video of her for her soon-to-be husband, you know, to surprise him in the video.

Well, I told her that we didn’t do that kind of things, our videos were clean and everyone could watch them. She, didn’t care, she demanded that I videotape her prancing around.

So, I did.

I told her that the footage wouldn’t be in the video and that she’d need to chat with my boss about that. After about 10 minutes of her sorta dancing and prancing a bit, the bridesmaids came back in and the bride put on her robe and everything went back to normal.

The rest of the wedding day went off like nothing ever happened. Was this something that I was going to deal with on a regular basis or some fluke?

Well, turns out it was a fluke. When I got back into the office that Monday morning, the boss and I were going through the footage and he was critiquing my shots. That shot was good, this was was off, that sort of thing. Then we got to the ‘footage’ at hand. He stopped the VTR (video tape recorder) freezing the image of her on the large TV screen.

He simply turned slowly and looked at me and said, “…well, I see you’ve had an interesting weekend…”.

I didn’t get in trouble after I had explained what happened, he dealt with the couple after the fact which I was glad I didn’t have to bother with it.

$110,000 wedding at the Hotel Roanoke, completely wasted

Sometimes, I film some over-the-top weddings and I remember this one very well. Back in 2003, I had filmed a wedding at the Hotel Roanoke with a nice Jewish couple that was getting married.

My friend and nationally known Florist Mark Newcomb was working the wedding with me. He had put together on of the most amazing indoor arbors I had ever seen in the C & D section of the Roanoke Ballroom.

My friend Elvis was also working the room, (yes, that’s his name) he was and still is to my knowledge a bartender there at the hotel.

We were all stunned at the amount of money the couples family was spending at the wedding, it was just one of a handful of weddings I’ve ever filmed where the couple spent more than $100,000+.

Needless to say, I was gathering all sorts of footage for the wedding video and I also needed to gather some b-roll of the couples getting ready up in the hotel suites. So, the photographer and I went up to the top floor where the men were getting ready at. We were able to get access to the rooftop suite and when we came into the main room, which was more like a fancy living room, there was no one there.

“Hello??”, the wedding photographer said.

Nothing. We started to walk around the suite to see if anyone was there and we got to the main bedroom, the door was open.

Well, there was the groom and a lady friend, achem, just doing their “business”. The photographer just turned and looked at me and I him, we both chuckled and left without saying a word.

The groom and the lady didn’t know we were there and in the elevator, it was complete silence.

A few seconds into the ride, I turned and said, “that wasn’t the bride was-..” Before I could finish the sentence, he told me “nope, definitely not her”.

Well, we didn’t speak of this to anyone, at least I didn’t.

Turns out a few months after the wedding, she eventually found out about his other love interest and the couple got divorced. It was an extremely expensive lesson that didn’t turn out so well for the couple of the families bank account either.

Virginia Beach Streaker

The year was 2011 and I was filming a wedding just south of Virginia Beach in Sandbridge Beach, a quiet little beach house community. The couple was having a small wedding evening ceremony right on the beach front with a bout 20 friends and family.

About 45 minutes before the wedding was to begin, I was setting up my camera gear for the wedding and gathering some b-roll shots for the pre-wedding footage.

Guests started to arrive about 15 minutes before the ceremony and my cameras were rolling in preparation of the bride and groom to be wed.

Well, all of a sudden a jogger ran by the arbor in nothing but a hat and running shoes!

The guests started laughing as he ran by waving to everyone.

It was definitely an ice breaker for me and the wedding photographer, the officiant and the DJ that evening! We had a great time with the wedding that day and it was very, memorable too.

Well, there you have it, the 3 craziest things I’ve ever experienced at wedding sin my career. With more than 500 weddings in my career, every now and then you run across one with some ‘eye-opening’ things that are funny, surreal and just plain shocking.