Buonasera. We thought we’d regale you with a quick story of our time filming a destination wedding in Italy recently
Well this has been a hectic wee month. But on the 10th of June we hopped on a plan to Olbia in Sardinia. The flights were delayed by the ever so considerate French air traffic controllers. Anyway, after a short delay I managed to pick up my hire car at about 10pm and head off into the night on a 100km drive south to the town of Orosei.
I had no idea what sort of wonders were hidden in the dark on the way down. To be honest I was mostly trying to pay attention to the sat nav on my phone and get used to driving on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road. A very late night arrival at the lovely Albergo Diffuso Mannois was met with kind staff who had stayed up late to let me in. Once ensconced in the room it was a kit check and prep for the following day and off to bed at 2am, with an alarm set for 5am in case there was a decent sunrise (I got up, set the timelapse running from the balcony window, and went back to bed until 7am).
Morning brought the wonderful surprise of actually seeing the town I was staying in. Orosei is a rustic patchwork of warm masonry stitched together in a spiders web of very narrow streets. Sitting at the top end of a large bay on the east of Sardinia, it is surrounded by a ring of hills and stretches down to the beach.
After a morning shooting some general visuals around the town, I met with the wedding coordinators Wedding Sardinia and the photographer Ivan at the town hall, where the civil ceremony was to take place. Working with Ivan was interesting. We didn’t really understand much of what each other said (his English was a lot better than my Italian), but it made me realise that good photographers and filmmakers often work well in teams without actually saying anything to each other. I guess in the most part, we’re both hyperaware of everything happening around us, looking for things which might be worth capturing. As such, moving to avoid blocking each others shots is pretty much instinctive.
After that ceremony there was the unusual luxury of having two hours before the next timing of groom prep. I don’t think I should get used to an air conditioned desk to back up morning footage before kicking off the afternoon, as they don’t often come around.
Then we were into groom prep, followed by bride prep. The room for bride prep was full of character, being in the main part of the hotel. The air conditioning didn’t work too well in the room, so it was a hot hour or two but it was a nice, relaxed session none the less.
After that it was a run down to the car and a quick drive to the private beach to set up for the (humanist) wedding ceremony. It was still very hot but the breeze made life bearable. The sea, though lovely, does create a fairly large amount of noise, so as well as putting a microphone on the best man and male guest giving a reading, I also secreted sneaky microphones into the arbour netting (hiding behind some peacock feathers) so well be good for capturing all those important moments.
Nice candids and couple shoot later and it was a race back to the hotel for the evening events; ice cream reception, tea ceremony, speeches and dinner. The light on the roof terrace was phenomenal, as the sun set behind the mountains.
And, with final speeches done, the guests settled down for their dinner and I packed up and sat down for a highly enjoyable multicourse dinner with the lovely duo from Wedding Sardinia.
The rest of the story is roughly a reverse of the start. Drive back to the airport, drop car, plane, plane, bus and back home at 8:30pm on Tuesday.
Filming in Sardinia was a wonderful experience. Destination weddings may seem to be hugely glamorous from the outside but that often misses the slightly frenetic and busy nature of the logistics surrounding the filming. Our job is to ensure that we do all this hard work efficiently in order that the peaceful ambience of the actual wedding is reflected in the edit. We can’t wait to start pulling this edit together.
In the meantime if you’re planning on getting married abroad, whether that be Thailand or Thesalonika, Naples or Naivasha, and want that special time and place preserved forever, then drop us a line today.
