To the Bride & Groom to be:
The year is 2058. This evening you celebrate your 50th wedding anniversary. You are still as much in love with each other as you were the day you wed. Your friends, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren have gathered from all over the country to honor you and to reminisce. How wonderful the years have been to your marriage. How quickly they have passed.
Your five children have spent months in preparation for this event. The rented ballroom is beautifully decorated. Photographs and memorabilia of your life together are displayed throughout the room. After dinner and a toast, the highlight of the evening is presented on a large high definition screen. It is your wedding video, which years ago had been transferred permanently from tape to computer disc.
Your guests are awed as they view your stunning dress as you walked down the isle with your father, the tear streaming down your cheek as you took your lifelong vows together with your handsome groom, and the first of many married kisses together. How young you both looked. Many of your guests are overcome with emotion as they view you and your wedding party- then in their youth or in their prime: Your parents, swinging to a 1950's tune on the dance floor at your reception, Aunts, uncles, and members of the wedding party sending best wishes in personal interviews, your bridesmaid sister lunging successfully for your bouquet. Your guests roar with laughter as your new husband proudly confides to his best man that you will have no children, at least not right away. The sights and sounds captured on your wedding day are priceless. This is the first time many of your guests have seen the production that you have enjoyed many times over the years.
As the disc ends you turn to your husband, sitting close to you in the darkened room and whisper, "honey, I'm so glad we chose to get a quality video of our wedding day." Your husband gently replies, "Yes, dear, but I'm even more fortunate to have chosen you."
The year is 2008. I'm exhausted as I stand in front of my wedding booth on the last day of a three day wedding show at Sunrise Mall. I am encouraged that some brides have stopped and shown interest in having a professionally produced wedding video, but many pass our booth and the booths of our video competitors' with hardly a glance. A number of brides that do stop balk at our prices, not realizing the endless hours of shooting and editing and thousands of dollars in equipment necessary to produce excellent quality wedding video. Most will rely on 'Uncle Charlie's' questionable video skills to capture the most important day of their life. Other brides will hire a low-end videographer as an afterthought after spending the rest of their wedding budget on 'more important' vendors.
The booths to my right and to my left are jammed with brides eagerly shopping for a Florist, a Baker, a Disc Jockey or a Photographer. An elderly couple stops at my booth and watches intently for several minutes. "We really wish our wedding many years ago was recorded, and with this quality," say the saddened couple. "All we have left is just a few photos and the memories."
The show is nearly over. The last group of Brides rush hurriedly pass my booth to visit other vendors. And I can't help but wonder as I shut down the weddings displayed on my monitors- how will they be celebrating the year 2058?
No comments:
Post a Comment