Above and beyond!
Jared and the team at Magnolias were amazing and my partner and I couldn't be happier with the videography for our wedding.
To give some context, my partner and I had cancelled and rescheduled our wedding twice before due to the pandemic, and were on our third iteration, so we were pretty burnt out on wedding planning and just wanted to enjoy the day without any more drama. Unfortunately, we had a different videographer and found out one month before our wedding that they were not vaccinated—this meant that our venue wouldn't allow them on site due to provincial restrictions at the time and we had to find a new videographer on very short notice. Having a videographer was important to us since we couldn't invite many of our friends and family and wanted to have something to send them that would allow them to share in the energy of the day, and we were very opposed to live streaming due to the performative nature of that approach.
I sent out inquires to any videographers I could find on Vancouver Island hoping to find someone with availability, and Jared responded very quickly. He was flexible, understanding of our situation, and very professional. He also offered videography options that I wasn't aware of/had not expected for the average cost of videography on Vancouver Island: Jared offered to provide us with three videos (a short cinematic, a longer cinematic, and a "behind the scenes" story of how my partner and I met), aerial footage with a drone—weather permitting, a pre-wedding interview shoot, and all raw footage. This was all at an incredibly reasonable price, much lower than our original videographer quoted (for fewer services, I might add).
Jared was friendly, put both my partner and me at ease while filming the pre-wedding shoot, and above all was professional. My partner noted that Jared's presence could be described as someone who was passionate about creative videography and approached new projects with a keen eye. As a side note, if you follow Jared on social media, you can see just how creative and passionate he is about visual storytelling. During the wedding, he worked in parallel with our photographer and seemed to be everywhere at once, capturing unexpected moments on film, but was never distracting or took away from the experience of the day.
About 3 weeks after the wedding, Jared sent us sneak peek photographs from our first look, which was greatly appreciated considering we still haven't received photos from our photographer at the time of writing this review. The first versions of the short and longer cinematic videos were sent about 5 weeks after the wedding and already looked amazing. We had a follow-up video call to discuss our feedback and make a plan for any adjustments. Jared had thoughtful suggestions and it was clear that he was considering many factors (audience, rewatch-ability, etc.) that only an experienced and intentional creative would.
We received the final videos 3 months after the wedding and they are excellent. Everyone who we have shared them with has commented not only on the quality of the videos but also remarked on the skill of Jared and the team for capturing and presenting the wedding day, especially the wedding party who worked most closely with him. After the last minute stress of losing a vendor due to vaccination requirements, plus it being the third time we planned/rescheduled our wedding, working with Jared took a huge weight off my shoulders and I felt like I didn't have to worry about videography whatsoever. While the disruption of losing our original videographer was stressful at the time, I believe that my partner and I are much happier with the quality of product we received from Magnolias than we would have been had we not had to switch vendors. I would hands down recommend Jared and Magnolias to anyone looking for a wedding videographer in Victoria.
