I was afraid to watch our wedding video.
After the YAY New York video went up, there was some back-and-forth on Twitter about the awkwardness of hearing recordings of your own voice. I noted that I’m unusual in that I actually prefer the way my voice sounds in recordings—which I suppose means the real world—to how it sounds in my head. In my head, I sound like Bart Simpson, so it’s nice that in real life I sound like an adult woman, at least sort of [I realize that an adult woman does the voice of Bart Simpson, that's part of the joke/part of why this is true].
So I wasn’t so much nervous about confronting myself on film, even though I’m less familiar and comfortable with that entity than I am with Photographed Robin, but I was still really apprehensive about watching our wedding video. I was nervous about the filmed evidence clashing with my happy, perfect, VERY GAUZY memories of the day. I didn’t want those memories being torn to shreds by the reality shrapnel from the truth bomb of VIDEO EVIDENCE.
But after some afternoon celebratory drinking (Collin’s meeting went very well), Collin and I felt ready to watch the wedding video. And I’m so glad we did.
For one thing: a wedding video is not a straight-up presentation of reality. The editing and the music pull it away from strict documentation. It’s more concrete than memories, sure, but it’s still soft around the edges and easy to swallow.
And it made me so happy. I was crying happy tears before we even got through the first minute. I loved being able to relieve those moments, and getting new “memories” of the day in the tiny details I’d forgotten, like how the first thing I said after the emotional overload that was reading and signing the ketubah was “I really wanted to CROSS THAT T!” and everyone laughed with tears still in their voices.
So I’m glad we forced ourselves to watch the wedding video in spite of my fears. And I’m so glad Collin’s cousin just happens to be a filmmaker and we just happen to co-own a fairly decent camera, because videography is something we NEVER would have bothered hiring a professional to do.
[And yes, I will try to share some more video of our wedding online, but I need to sort out the technical end first. Stay tuned.]
September 15, 2011 at 5:27 pm
I’m so glad you watched it. I’m also incredibly jealous. The day after we got married we were driving in the car and I blurted out “I wanted to hire a videographer or something, darn it”. That plan got lost somewhere in the planning and it is the only thing I am sad about still.
September 16, 2011 at 6:13 am
I had kind of a different experience. I had my gauzy floaty perfect memories of pure joy, and then the pictures came and the first thing I saw was the raw files, so I was like, wow my face is super shiny and it looks like I have a third chin in half the pictures and it was like a little disappointment. We did not have a professional videographer but my sister took some with her handycam, we managed to have the speeches and dance and other memorable moments and when we saw it it all came back it was like being there and it was like I remembered, without the awkwardness of strange poses, closed eyes, and silly things that you get when looking at un edited, raw files, specially when you look at everything and not at the final selection. Because of course 1 good picture, takes 10 bad ones…