Wedding Film Proposal
Alfred & Clair
It starts in two houses.
By evening there are four hundred and fifty people in one room. This is how we'd film all of it — not only the two of you.
What Matters Most
Three things you told us.
Everything below — the coverage, the films, the order they're listed in — comes back to these.
The film
It shouldn't just be the two of you.
You said you didn't want a highlight that's the two of you at a park — you want the guests, the ceremony, the room.
That's a shooting decision more than an editing one. It means crews positioned where the crowd is, not only where you are — the greetings outside the church, the tables during speeches, the floor as the brackets start. Four hundred and fifty people are coming for you. The film should show they were there.
The feel
Natural, without being unflattering.
You're happy to be directed. You just don't want it to look like you were.
There are only two windows in the day where a camera makes anyone self-conscious: preps and the photoshoot. The rest is formality and it runs itself. In those two windows we work off your photographer rather than taking turns with them — so you're never handed between two people asking for the same thing twice.
What you keep
The whole day, not just the edit.
You asked whether the documentary is genuinely cut across every angle, and whether the raw footage comes too. Both yes.
The documentary is a real edit — multiple angles, music where it belongs, proper transitions between the stages of the day. Not one locked-off camera running long. And every original file comes to you on your own drive, so the archive outlives whatever we hand over.
Our Approach
Most of the work happens before the day.
By the time we get to 29 May, the decisions are already made. That's the whole point — it's what lets the day run at its own pace instead of ours.
The brief comes before the camera.
A month before the wedding you'll get a questionnaire that goes well past the basics — what's happening through the morning, whether you're expecting photos with every guest at the church, who's coming to the photoshoot, how the reception is being run. It reads like a lot. It exists so that on the day, nobody has to ask you anything.
The micro moments between the stages.
Every run sheet has five or six headings on it. The day is actually made of what happens between them — the cars, the greetings on the way out, the walk back, the twenty minutes where nobody's quite sure what's happening next. That's where time disappears, and where a lot of the best footage lives. Twenty years of this is mostly knowing where those gaps sit before you reach them.
Three or four angles. One presence.
Through the ceremony and reception we run multiple cameras — often three or four — positioned to hold the core moments without standing in anyone's eyeline. Locked coverage is what frees the rest of us to move and find the unplanned things. And we shoot off your photographer rather than taking turns with them, so the day never stops to accommodate us.
You choose how it gets told.
Once the footage is in, we sit down again. Music for each segment. Whether the highlight is purely music and image or carries dialogue from the speeches and the vows. Whether it runs chronologically or moves around in time. The film is shaped with you, not handed to you finished.
John is on your day personally, from the morning preparations through to midnight — that's Team 1 in every collection below.
The Photoshoot
The light runs out at 4:56.
A late-May wedding gives you the shortest afternoon of the year to work with. It's the one thing on your run sheet worth looking at again before anything else gets locked.
3:30 pm
The church wraps.
Ceremony, exit, greetings, the group shot on the steps, immediate family. Everything after this moves when this moves.
3:56 pm
Golden hour opens.
The hour before sunset — low, warm, directional. It's the light behind almost every outdoor photo you've saved to a folder somewhere.
4:56 pm
Sunset. Not 5:30.
On 29 May the sun is gone before five. This is the fact that everything else in the afternoon has to bend around.
5:23 pm
Last natural light.
Twilight holds for roughly half an hour after sunset. Past this point, anything outdoors is lit by us.
6:00 pm
Canapés at the venue.
You want to arrive changed, settled and unhurried — not walking in as the first guests do.
Whichever way you go, this gets settled properly in the planning session — alongside the location itself, the travel time from Harris Park, and who's coming with you.
Planned Flow of the Day
Where both teams are, all day.
Built from your run sheet. Final timings and locations get refined together as we get closer to the day.
John Poulakis — from morning preparations through to approximately 12:00 am at the reception.
Second videographer — from morning preparations through to the first dance, approximately 9:30 pm.
10:00 am
Two houses.
Constitution Hill & Castle Hill
- Groom preparations — to approx. 1:15 pm
- Bride preparations — to approx. 1:30 pm
Both teams start at ten — one at each house — and stay with their own through the morning.
12:30 pm
The Talbiset.
Constitution Hill → Castle Hill
- Alfred's family exit approx. 12:30 pm
- Arrive at Clair's house approx. 12:50 pm
Neither camera moves. The videographer at Alfred's house films the family leaving, then stays with him through to the church. The videographer at Clair's house is already in position for the arrival. Both ends of it, without either crew chasing the other.
2:00 pm – 3:30 pm
Ceremony.
Our Lady of Lebanon, Harris Park
- Ceremony — 40 to 45 minutes
- Exit and guests' greetings
- Group photo with all guests on the steps
- Immediate family — parents, siblings, partners, grandparents
Both teams inside, multiple cameras running. We're at Our Lady of Lebanon often enough to know how this hour behaves — the ceremony itself is the short part, and everything after it is what actually eats the afternoon. It gets planned as a running order rather than organised on the steps.
4:00 pm – 5:30 pm
Photoshoot.
Location to be confirmed together · sunset 4:56 pm
- Bridal party
The window worth revisiting — see the light above. We'll settle the location, the travel time from Harris Park and who comes with you in the planning session.
6:00 pm
Reception.
Le Montage or Doltone House, Western Sydney · 400+ guests
- Room reveal, just the two of you
- Canapés from 6:00 pm
- Guests enter and seated 6:30 pm
- Bridal party enter 7:00 – 7:30 pm
A room this size wants two positions at once — one behind you as you come in, one already on the floor.
Approx. 9:30 pm
Through the first dance.
End of formalities
Entrances, speeches, the cake and the first dance are all covered by both teams. Team 2 finishes here.
Approx. 12:00 am
The rest of the night.
Through to close
John carries the dancing through to midnight — shot continuously, not selectively, so there's more of it than ends up in any edit.
This coverage is the same in all three collections.
The day gets filmed the same way whichever one you choose. What changes is how much of it comes back to you.
The Collections
Choose how you'll relive it.
Three ways into the same day. What separates them isn't the filming — it's how much of it gets edited, and how many ways you get to watch it back.
The Essentials
The core of the day, edited properly.
$6,600
$5,940
Referral rate applied
- Sneak Peek film45–60 seconds, vertical and horizontal, within two weeks
- 5 minute highlight film
- Documentary — Standard editApprox. 2–2.5 hours
- Getting ready — 2–4 min music highlights at each house
- Full ceremony, reception formalities, cake, first and parent dances
- Dance brackets — 5 minutes of each
- Drone at the ceremony
- All RAW footageEvery original file, on your own drive
Optional
Engagement / pre-wedding shoot — $850
Full Story
The full day, morning included.
$7,600
$6,840
Referral rate applied
- Sneak Peek film45–60 seconds, vertical and horizontal, within two weeks
- 8 minute highlight film
- Documentary — Extended editApprox. 3–3.5 hours
- The Talbiset as its own chapter2–4 min at each house, plus up to 10 minutes for cultural traditions at each
- Photo session highlights and reception room reveals
- Dance brackets — 10 minutes of each
- Bouquet and garter, farewells montage
- Drone at the ceremony and photoshoot
- All RAW footageEvery original file, on your own drive
Optional
Episode film, 30–40 minutes — $2,500
Engagement / pre-wedding shoot — $850
Complete Experience
The full day, plus the version you'll rewatch.
$9,800
$8,820
Referral rate applied
- Everything in Full Story
- Episode film — 30 to 40 minutesThe ceremony down to its core moments, the preps, the photoshoot, your entrance and the speeches. For the nights nobody's sitting through three hours.
- 8 minute highlight film
- Documentary — Extended edit, approx. 3–3.5 hours
- The Talbiset as its own chapter
- Drone at the ceremony and photoshoot
- All RAW footage on your own drive
Optional
Engagement / pre-wedding shoot — $850
All prices include GST and the referral rate, which applies to optional additions as well.
Documentaries can be extended after the wedding — we shoot the night continuously rather than selectively, so the footage is always there if you decide you want more of it. Full inclusions for each documentary edit are on the long video edit page.
Four ways to watch it back.
Most couples choose a combination, so different parts of the day are preserved in different ways. Here's what each one actually is — and where it sits across your three collections.
Teaser Film
The ExcitementA short, emotionally driven snapshot of the atmosphere, energy and anticipation of your wedding day. Forty-five to sixty seconds, vertical and horizontal.
With you within two weeks — while everyone is still asking how it went.
Included inAll three collections
Highlight Film
The EmotionA cinematic retelling of your day, crafted with music, movement, natural audio and emotional pacing. Whether it runs chronologically, and whether the vows and speeches carry through the audio, gets decided with you in the creative session.
Best for reliving the essence of the day.
Included inAll three — 5 minutes in The Essentials, 8 minutes in Full Story and Complete
Episode‑Length Film
The ExperienceThirty to forty minutes. A deeper, more immersive film preserving more interaction, atmosphere, dialogue and natural flow — a forty-five minute ceremony down to its strongest eight, the preps, the photoshoot, your entrance and the speeches.
Deeper than a highlight, and short enough that people actually sit through it.
Included inComplete Experience — available as an addition to Full Story
Documentary Film
The Memories in FullLonger-form coverage preserving the full ceremony, every speech, the entrances and the dancing with live audio, cut across every angle rather than left running on one camera. In the Extended edit, the Talbiset becomes its own chapter instead of a moment.
Best for preserving the day in its fullest form.
Included inAll three — Standard edit in The Essentials, Extended edit in Full Story and Complete
Every edit is different, because every day is — style, pace, music and structure all come out of the creative session before we cut anything.
Prewedding & Engagement Film
A short film made before the wedding — the same idea as a prewedding photoshoot, but in motion. A way to capture who you are as a couple at this exact moment, held onto for the years to come. It's also the easiest way to find out how you both feel on camera long before it matters.
Available with any collection — $850.
Before · The Day · For Life
You experience your wedding three times.
Once while you're planning it. Once while it's happening. Then for the rest of your lives. Only one of the three lasts a day.
The wedding you plan.
This one is already underway. Where the photoshoot sits against the light, how long the church steps really take, who travels with you — none of those are filming decisions. They're decisions about how the day will feel from the inside while you're living it. Get them right and it carries itself. Get them wrong and you spend it being moved from one thing to the next.
The wedding you live.
It moves faster than anyone can prepare you for — two houses, a church, a photoshoot and a room with four hundred and fifty people in it, and by the end you'll hold maybe a third of it clearly. Which is the whole point of the first one. On 29 May nothing needs deciding and nobody has to ask you anything. You get to be a guest at it.
The wedding you keep.
Some moments only reveal their value with time. The grandparents on the church steps. Thirty seconds of someone doing something completely ordinary that you'd never have thought to ask anyone to film. The years ahead don't decide what was precious — they just show you what already was. That's what the documentary and the raw footage are actually for: not the moments you'll remember, but the ones you didn't know to look at.
You'll only get the second one once. The other two are what we're really talking about.
Looking Ahead
Whenever you're ready.
Alfred, Clair —
Thanks for the half hour. Almost everything on this page came out of that conversation rather than a template, which is why it's fairly specific about your morning and fairly opinionated about your afternoon.
Adriana and Jarod sending you our way means a lot, and it also means you already have a fair idea of what the work looks like. Everything above is just the detail.
I'm free on 29 May, so it would be me with you — from the morning through to midnight at the reception.
Still open — none of it urgent
The reception venue
Le Montage or Doltone House. Both work for us. Let us know when you land on one and we'll rework the run sheet around it.
The photoshoot window
Earlier for the golden hour, or hold your times and we light the back half. Worth deciding before the venue locks your arrival time.
Your photographer
Whoever you land on, send us their work before you sign with them. How a photographer directs changes what the film can do — better to know that now than work around it in May.
Have a look through, take your time, and tell me which one feels right.
Happy to walk through any of it on a call.
John Poulakis
CineMotive
