Play video: Kayla & Phil · The Casnovia BarnKayla & Phil · The Casnovia Barn
The day
This was one of the largest wedding parties I’ve filmed at Mid-July Media. All of them in black, all of them in on it. The kind of group that picks the couple up off the ground the second the camera turns around.
A party that size is a gift and a logistics problem at the same time. Everyone wants to be in the shot, and the couple can disappear inside the crowd. My job all day was to keep finding Kayla and Phil in the middle of it.
The venue
The Casnovia Barn pairs a restored historic barn with a glass-and-steel event space next door. For a film, that’s close to ideal. The glass walls of the Parlor hold real daylight for the ceremony, the barn’s 21-foot ceilings keep a packed reception from feeling cramped, and the curved roofline tells you where you are in a single frame.
The exit and golden hour
The exit ran on bubbles instead of sparklers, which I will take every time. Bubbles catch the light, they last longer than a sparkler, and nobody has to squint through smoke.
Golden hour held just long enough afterward to walk the white fence line behind the barn with the two of them. A long fence, open pasture, and nothing behind them but sky and treeline. The venue did most of the work.
How it was shot
The same way as every Mid-July Media wedding: I’m the one behind the camera, with no associate shooters and no time limit on coverage. Audio comes first, so the vows and the toasts carry the film. The music sits under what people actually said that day, not over it.
Where to watch
The film is public on YouTube and on the Mid-July Media site: Kayla & Phil at The Casnovia Barn. Planning a wedding at the same venue? I wrote up everything I know about filming there: The Casnovia Barn venue guide.
If you’re getting married in West Michigan, this is what I do. Check your date.
