Our wedding was everything we dreamed it would be.
My wife and I had the wedding we always imagined — the right people, the right place, the kind of day that feels impossibly full. We had a wonderful photographer, and we still love those photos. But there's something photographs can't hold onto — the sound of her voice when she was trying not to cry, the exact words the officiant said that made everyone exhale at the same time, the music, the movement, the feeling of the whole day in motion.
We didn't have a videographer. And sitting with the memory afterward, the gaps became real. Things we knew happened but couldn't quite bring back.
I didn't want another couple to feel what we felt.
Long before wedding videography was on my mind, I was the kid with a camera making ridiculous skits with friends — filming silly videos, laughing ourselves hoarse watching them back. Life moved on and the camera got set down. But the love for it never really went away.
Not having a wedding video brought it all back. I picked the camera up again because I realized I didn't just want to record events — I wanted to discover and capture people's moments, both the memorable and the wonderfully ridiculous, before they're gone. I learned the craft properly, found I was good at it, and found I genuinely loved it. Every time I deliver a finished film and a couple watches it for the first time, I remember why I started.
Because some stories can't wait.
COVID-19 made the other kind of irreplaceable deeply personal. I watched my grandparents — the ones who raised me — fall to the illness within two months of each other. First my grandfather. Then his rock. Our family glue. Our grandmother.
She was a storyteller. She'd bring up memories out of nowhere and I'd always tell her: one day, I'm going to let the camera roll and we're just going to talk. I wanted to hear her laugh at the things she looked back on with fondness. I wanted to capture her voice saying the names of people she loved.
That day never came. And that loss — more than anything else — is why Memento films exist. If your person is still here, please don't wait. The camera is rolling — let's listen forever.