Personal
I'm a proud lifer of WRCA. It's an incredible school. For the past 5 years I've been making films of the graduation banquet and this year we decided to make a little highlights. It's been a lot of fun to go back year after year and see how the school is growing and to see people I remember from my high school days graduate. It's a reminder how fast time goes by. Take a look at the highlights below.
This past weekend we took a road trip to Red Deer Alberta for my cousin/life long friend Drew's wedding. I was honoured to be in the bridal party with a great group of close friends and family. So many good times on the road and in Red Deer.
Early wednesday morning we headed out with my sister and brother in law. Driving from Surrey to Red Deer is about an 11 hour drive so needless to say we had to find ways to entertain ourselves while on the road. For me, one of those ways was by taking a few snapshots and shooting some video. You can view a little brief video along with a 'techy stuff' blurb at the bottom of the post. 
We made a few stops along the way and one of them was to Lake Louis. We really wanted to see this gorgeous lake, but also my bro-in-law Steve and I really wanted to watch the Stanley Cup Final and we knew we had some family staying at the Fairmont Hotel. So we crashed there room and watched the game. After the disappointing game we got back on the road.
I've known Drew my whole life. Besides being cousins, we've been extremely close friends and even roommates. I'm the youngest and he is the third youngest out of our huge batch of cousins so naturally we were pretty close growing up. We have always been in to the same music and are even in a band together. It's rare that Erin and I get to attend weddings, let alone one of us be in the bridal party. We had so much fun enjoying the festivities and living it up in Red Deer. It was so awesome to see him and Danielle tie the knot and I can't wait to hang out with them as a married couple.
||TECHY STUFF||
Here is the little video I shot on the road trip. Please pardon the shaky cam... didn't have the monopod with me. I put this together mainly to test out the new Final Cut Pro X. Great system but not quite there yet. Hopefully Apple will listen to their pro users and implement changes in future software updates. One thing that is an absolute game changer for me is skimming to preview clips. Huge time saver. I also wanted to test out our new iMac. We've been wanting to upgrade for a while from our 2006 Mac Pro but we wanted to wait for Apple to release there updated iMac. The second I saw that it was available I put my order in. The specs are... 27 inch iMac 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7 16 GM RAM 250 GB SSD & 2 TB HDD This is an amazingly powerful machine. The SSD is a huge performance boost, along with the i7 chip. Our processing and editing times are drastically improved. This tool will be a huge help in this years weddings.
Oh man these past two weeks have been incredible. Let's start from the beginning… On May 21st I married the love of my life Erin. It was an incredible day that started off with a big breakfast for the boys and an early hair and makeup session for the girls. It was reaaaally weird knowing that later in the day I'd be a married man but I was getting antsy like I do at Christmas time, I couldn't wait. The guys then got ready and drove over to pick up the ladies. Once we arrived, Erin and I had our first look. When I turned around to see my wife to be, I was floored. I think my jaw literally dropped and I remember just being in utter disbelief that this was to be my wife… oh how blessed I am. We're so used to being the ones filming the wedding so it was definitely trippy being on the other side of the camera. We then drove out to North Vancouver to have a photo session with the always lovely Jamie Delaine. Check out her blog post for all the photo awesomeness. Then came the ceremony which was held at Highlands United Church. Erin was practically raised in Whistler so we chose this church because it had a very quaint, lodgey type feel, and also some really interesting lighting. For the decor we of course got the amazing Wedding Design studio. As you probably know, Erin and I are huge Harry Potter/ Lord of the Rings fans, so we told Kim of Wedding Design Studio that, and she put together some absolutely amazing decor inspired by our obsession. Now one of the big reasons we decided to do a first look was in case I cried. I come from a big family of blubberers so we thought we'd see each other before the ceremony to get it our of my system. I didn't cry during the first look but the ceremony was a different story. I don't think any tears actually fell but when Erin walked down the aisle right on cue to one of our favourite songs (Transatlantcism by Death Cab) I was trying SO hard not to cry. My Uncle/Pastor Dave shared an awesome message, and then we shared personal vows as well as the traditional ones. We then walked out to Baby We Were Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen (the boss). I remember my face being in physical pain from smiling so much. So happy to finally be married.
We then headed up to Grouse Mountain for the reception. The weather was dry but definitely cloudy which worked perfectly with our Harry Potter vibe. Some very touching speeches were shared by loved ones and an incredible dance party led by my band. All in all it was an incredible day that I will reminisce about extremely frequently for the rest of my life. Check out very own highlights film below.
Special thanks to…
All of our family and friends that came from out of town. My cousins Drew and Scott for arranging and performing the ceremony music. My cousin Kris for saving the day twice. My cousin Melynn for designing our programs and menus. The reception band for bringing the dance party - Adam, Denver, Dan, Scott, Drew and Danielle Kim and her team at Wedding Design Studio for their amazing work Andrew Noon at Clear Horizon Productions for filming the wedding Jamie Delaine for her incredible photo skillz! Joy Mitchell and Karen Millidrag for hair and makeup All of our family and friends and of course my amazing wife for marrying me.
PS Stay tuned for a montage of the dance party. The band killed it and it would be a shame not to share it with you.
After a few weeks of our own wedding craziness, we are back. After our wedding we vacated to Hawaii and had an amazing, relaxing time in the sun. It was so awesome to get some down time in after all of the planning and moving that we were doing.
We went to the big island and stayed there for 12 days. Most days consisted of a lot of relaxing, walking in to town, driving to Hapuna beach, reading and maybe a movie. Of course we couldn't travel all the way to hawaii and not bring a camera along… so check out the brief video below of a typical day in the life of our time in Hawaii.
Be sure to check back soon for a full blog post on our wedding :)
