Miami, Florida

I couldn't get to the wedding, so we mailed a camera.

Hi,

People ask how a company that mails cameras to parties gets started. It wasn't a plan. It was one wedding I couldn't get to, and I still remember it. Rebecca and Arnold, in Sonoma, California.

Before any of this we were a small crew in Miami, filming weddings, quinceañeras and birthday parties around the city. We carried the gear ourselves and edited late. One family would send us their cousins, and their cousins would send us their friends. A couple of months in we had more videographers than we'd meant to hire. My husband's background is in digital marketing, so a website went up slowly, in the evenings, mostly so people could find us without passing a phone number around.

Then Rebecca's wedding came and I couldn't be there. I was more upset about it than I let on. Sending nothing felt wrong, so we sent a camera instead. Her guests filmed the whole day, mailed it back, and we cut it together.

What came back wasn't a videographer's wedding film. It was the day from the inside. Shot from the tables, in the hallway, right up close on the dance floor, by the people who were actually in it. We watched it twice, and somewhere in the second pass I stopped watching it as an editor. I was just at the wedding. That is when we understood we'd been doing this the hard way.

Since then we've added more cameras and more editors, and we've been careful about what growing does to the work. Every film is still cut by a person. There is no template and no automatic edit. We would rather turn an event down than send back something weaker than what we'd want for our own family.

I've watched people cry at their own wedding film. At a laptop, in a kitchen, months after the day, when they thought they already remembered all of it. Usually it's a face they'd forgotten was in the room, or a grandparent laughing at something off camera. That part I've never got used to. Knowing a family keeps this for years is humbling, and we don't hold it lightly.

Thank you for even considering trusting us with a day you only get once. It isn't a small thing to hand to strangers, and we know that. If you do, you'll get everything we have.

XOXO, Olivia

Olivia · Recorderly · Miami, Florida