Filmed another lovely wedding.
There were lots of fantastic little details, especially in the way people interact with their hands, but my favourite moment is when the pastor does a little tilt, mimicking the kiss between the new husband and wife.
I’m still catching my breath from the awesomeness that was the second House Show. So much planning, preparation, and practice went into one night that I felt like I’d given birth when it was over; I didn’t know how to feel, or what to think.
Darren came up the day before to hang out, and along with Shane, Blais (his son), and Chris, stayed until Sunday. After the show we stayed up talking, picking Shane’s brain about his composition process and influences. Everything went better than I could have planned, and I’m thankful that so many of my friends were there to share the experience with me.
Black and White (Belgian dark chocolate cake with vanilla frosting and chocolate sprinkles), strawberry (pure strawberry cake with sweet cream cheese frosting and red sugar flower on top), hazelnut chocolate (hazelnut-chocolate cake with Belgian dark chocolate frosting decorated with a toasted hazelnut on top), vanilla (vanilla cake and frosting, flavoured with Madagascar bourbon vanilla with sprinkles), and key lime pie (lime-infused cake and cream cheese frosting with lime zest).
It’s been a good weekend, full of resolution and epiphanies and hugs and delectable food and wonderful surprises.
I’m running on autopilot again. Sleeping well and feeling good. It still hasn’t sunk in that I’ll be in France in less than a month. There are so many projects I’ve put off until I get back.
Shot with a Canon 5D Mk II, mostly using my new 70–200mm f/2.8 IS II. Be sure to watch in high definition, and let the video load completely before playing because the pacing and momentum are crucial.
Editing took about 25 hours, and I’m super happy with the way it turned out. There were so many great moments, and the footage has a wonderfully visceral feel to it. The most challenging part of post-processing was colour balancing all the footage, which I had to do shot-by-shot. When you’re filming for an entire day, you tend to get a huge variety of light sources and temperatures.
A note about the tea ceremonies. The first one was the Chinese version, which allows relatives to hand red pockets or jewelery (usually gold and jade) to the new couple. The second one was Korean, named Paebaek, and is much more elaborate. Relatives line up for a formal bow, tea serving, then throw a handful of dates (representing girls) and chestnuts (representing boys) to be caught by the bride and groom with a blanket. The number of dates and chestnuts caught signifies how many children they’ll have. No surprise that grandpa only grabbed chestnuts.
Then the bride is given one of the dates they caught, and the groom has to take a bite out of it from her mouth. The person who ends up with the bigger piece is the one who will wear the pants (which is why you see the bride tenaciously trying to keep the bigger piece for herself). At the end, the groom has to carry his mother and mother-in-law around the ceremony table, then carry his new bride out of the hall.
Also, this:
Owing to the success of last year’s house show, I’ve invited both Shane Watt and Jesse Dangerously to come and perform again next month. Not only will there be awesome music and an assortment of mini-cupcakes hosted in my living room, it’ll also be Jesse’s birthday party.
This will be a collaboration across Eastern Canada, as Shane will be coming from Montreal (with a potential secret guest), and Rosie will be traveling from Halifax on mandolin to join Audra, Nic (also coming from Montreal, as Rockefort F. Loopfrog, the beatmaker), and I as part of the Dangerson Famile. However, I don’t think Dolly will be making an appearance because the sheer number of people in the house last time really freaked her out.
I had a lot of fun making this flyer, featuring Mr. Cupcake. The great thing about Avenir is that it supports so many variations of the typeface, which lets you make movie and concert posters in the classic style of a full-justified column of information.