Austin, Texas Intimate Wedding Day Film | Austin Wedding Videographer | Annie & Josh

As the wedding industry shifts gears from traditional large scale celebrations and into a season of toned down, intimate and micro-wedding days, there has never been a better time to invest in wedding videography.

Intimate wedding days typically entail less than 50 guests, a simplified timeline and order of events, and are a much smaller financial investment. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a significant story to tell. If anything, that story just got a whole lot less convoluted and a lot more meaningful.

We love intimate wedding days because they strip away a ton of the pressure, distractions and overall hectic energy of a larger wedding celebration, leaving all the room in the world for genuine emotions, tender moments, and opportunities for couples to make the day their own by incorporating in personal touches that resonate with them.

Our central job as wedding videographers is to tell good stories. To tell your story as true to you as possible. We crave the authentic and genuine moments that intimate wedding days are all about, and those moments are worth memorializing in audio and video, not just a still image. Intimate wedding videography is what we do best.

A film of your intimate wedding celebration, allows those not in attendance to feel like they were there with you, but more than that, it is an heirloom that will continue to serve as a reminder of the greatest investment of your life, your relationship and commitment to each other for many many years.

We had the privilege this past June to film the sweetest couple, who had originally booked us to film a 200+ guest wedding day at The Greenhouse at Driftwood in December 2020. Annie & Josh live in New York, and have many friends from all over the world who would have been coming to Austin for their wedding celebration.

Needless to say, when the pandemic hit the United States, everything was thrown up in the air. I sat down with Annie & Josh to talk about their experience navigating matrimony during a pandemic, and how they arrived at the decision to scale it all down to an intimate backyard wedding with just 12 of their closets family members here in Texas.

What were your original wedding plans? 

We originally planned to get married in December at the Greenhouse at Driftwood with 250 friends and family members. 

How did the pandemic throw a wrench in those plans? 

We were wedding planning from quarantine in Brooklyn during the thick of the NYC spike back in the Spring. As we were approaching that 9 month mark in March, we knew that Save the Dates were in order and by April, larger deposits were coming due. However, from that early vantage point in NYC of the wreckage that COVID can bring to life as you know it, we knew in our gut that it would be irresponsible to spend any more money on a big wedding -- especially knowing the economic state of the world and the unknowns of what was to come. It was already going to be a longer engagement and there is nothing like a pandemic to bring you together to evaluate what's most important. We just wanted to be family already! So, we pulled the plug on a big fall wedding and decided to head to Texas with immediate family to tie the knot while things were starting to open up in June. 

What were your initial thoughts and feelings when you considered the impact of the pandemic on your wedding day? 

First, we initially weren't sure if we were being dramatic. At that early point, Texas hadn't been hit hard yet and so much of our non-NYC community put into question whether or not this decision was necessary so early. But we had to just go with our gut and felt we saw the writing on the wall. We were so eager to come together as a family given everything that was happening in the world, and we didn't want to risk not getting married this year because we waited too long and found out too late that it wasn't safe. Our biggest heartbreak and point of debate was losing out on sharing the day with our huge community of family and friends that are so important to us... but as soon as we put our live stream plans in order (and Hereafter took the logistics off of our plate), we felt immediately at ease. 

Second, was the big question of how do we do this safely. Josh's grandfather helped raise him and it was very important to have him there, so keeping everything in Austin where his grandparents live - and where we originally planned to marry - was ultimately a must... That said, ensuring our other family members -- coming from Houston, Dallas and even the UK -- felt like they could get there and stay there safely was of top importance. This meant renting a house big enough for everyone to stay together (but also spread out) as hotels felt a bit iffy at that stage.... and agreeing as a team to all quarantine for 2 weeks in Texas leading up to the wedding to ensure we could come together unmasked with big hugs and really enjoy the weekend together. Everything had to be very planned out and coordinated, and everyone had different levels of comfort so we had to be both diligent and flexible at the same time!

Third was, how do we get out of our original plans without breaking the bank AND do that safely? And ultimately this is where our incredible wedding planners, Bird Dog Wedding, came in and encouraged us to use our deposits towards honoring the experience we originally planned. They truly empowered and inspired us and our amazing vendor team in a way that made the big day feel like it was exactly as it should have been -- from florals and food to makeup and hair to capturing everything on photo and video. There was a lot of work at play to ensure the vendor team felt safe, which at times made it a bit stressful in unexpected ways... but every minute of it was worth it. 

What were your favorite parts of your wedding day?

 Such a hard question! Ultimately this most epic thing was getting down to the ceremony area with each other to look back and see all that our family had done to make it happen for us within less than 2 months of making the decision to shift gears -- my sister came all the way from the UK to walk me down the aisle and quarantined on both sides of the trip, my brother became our officiant without batting an eye and absolutely killed it with the most meaningful ceremony, the moms all played host in making meals and activities easy and joyous for 3 days, and Josh's grandparents came out in the Texas heat in their 90s (and his aunt who got them there!). Not to mention the vendors, masked up, taking the risk and doing the work -- trusting us and each other -- to safely bring together the most perfect day. It was early enough in the process that we all were each others' guinea pigs and the gratitude was UNREAL.  In the middle of a pandemic, where we had all been so isolated, we had something so beautiful to bring us together and celebrate. 

Beyond that, oh my we must shout out THE FLOWERS -- Valerie Wolf of Davy Gray is a true artist and served TOTAL VIBE for the day. Her unique touch transformed the space in a way that honored the celebration we had originally planned and made it feel like a real (super dreamy) wedding. Royal Fig also stepped up on food last minute in a major way and it was insanely delicious... other caterers wouldn't consider a group so small, but their team didn't bat an eye and made sure we were completely taken care of throughout the wedding.

Do you have any advice for couples navigating their own wedding plans in the midst of the pandemic? 

Go with your gut and don't shortchange yourself just because it's a "COVID wedding". We originally were going to lose our deposits and pull the plug on the whole thing with a simple elopement, but I'm so glad we didn't. If you have a planner, let them in on making your original hopes + dreams  "micro" with you -- Bird Dog really made it happen for us and there's not one part of the day that didn't feel intentional, inspired and unique to us. We went for the big wedding cake, which I have no regrets about... we may not have had the invitees to eat it all, but it made it feel more like the wedding we dreamt of. We found safe ways to do hair and makeup onsite so that my family could feel confident and dressed up in pictures, which is something that easily could have gotten lost in a pandemic wedding but really made the day feel special. And we captured everything on photo and video (with INCREDIBLE partners like Hereafter and Feather & Twine), which made this wildness of a pandemic wedding mean so much more when put on record to share with those who couldn't be there (and for family history's sake!). If you have the budget, go for it and if not, try to find ways to honor your original plans in new ways. AND FILM IT!!! 

If you’re planning an intimate wedding or elopement in Austin, Texas or anywhere else in the United States, we’d love to capture it for you! Contact us for our 2021 availability!

Vendors : Bird Dog Weddings | Feather & Twine | Royal Fig | Davy Gray | Polkadots Bakery | Third Space Salon | Jen Krause Paper Co | Loot Rentals | Above Vacation Residences

Music: “Whole Wide World” by Bahamas | “Mexico” by Husbands

To read even more about this backyard intimate wedding, check out the slideshow featured on Martha Stewart Weddings!