First Floor Films Wedding Videos | Philadelphia | San Francisco | New York

Our 1st Anniversary

This Sunday will be Dawn & my 1st wedding anniversary! I just wanted to share a few short videos that I put together over the last year. Some of you may have seen these clips already. The first one is the "Coming Soon" trailer for our wedding video that......I will......eventualy......get around to editing. :0 Dawn has been very patient with me on the video editing front, and as of now these short clips are all that I have gotten finished. I promise it's "coming soon" as the trailer says, as long as you keep in mind that "soon" is relative. Happy Anniversary Dawn. I love you always. "217"

Photos from Our Costa Rican Honeymoon

Dawn and I traveled South to Costa Rica after our July 5th, wedding. We stayed in Manuel Antonio National Park on the Pacific side of the country. Our INCREDIBLE hotel was Hotel Si Como No. We were there for 10 days and loved every second of it. I have been a bit busy with photos, videos and everything else that would generally keep one from working on their honeymoon memories. But, over the past week or so I have been inspired to create a honeymoon film and edit a ton of photos from our trip. Costa Rica and Hotel Si Como No could not be more highly recommended for a honeymoon. If you're looking for a place to go, definitely check out Costa Rica. Dawn and I can't wait to get back. Enjoy the photos!

This bottle of Champagne was waiting for us when we arrived in the honeymoon suite. I classed it up with a can of Imperial, Costa Rica's national beer of choice.

My new Ring.

A view from our balcony.

Dawn and I ate a plate of these chicken nachos nearly everyday. They were served at the swim-up pool bar. You gotta love pool bars. That's how you can tell that you are definitely living it up!

One of the pools at our disposal.

The butterfly garden across the street from our hotel.

Dawn is loving all the butterflys.

Crocs also in the butterfly garden.

In town, Queppos.

This is a citronella berry. This berry really smelled like a back yard picnic in the summertime! I never knew that citronella candles were made from a berry!

The beach in Manuel Antonio National Park.

Dos pour uno Hora de Felice!!!

Slow for women, coyotes, sloths and monkeys.

"Our" beach.

Dawn got to meet one of these monkeys by shaking his hand. You can see the actual film footage in this clip.

Lizzy hung out with us every day at our pool.

The beach that we went to daily was right by the hippie hangout. Some "interesting" pipes were available for purchase.

This bowl now sits in our living room.

Dawn's friend, Manuel Antonio....no relation to the park we were standing in.

Palms on the beach before the nightly storm which always came in off the ocean around 5:30 or so.

We miss you Costa Rica.

Our Honeymoon on Super-8 Film

Now that Christmas and New Years has come and gone, all of us (in the Northeast) are in the cold dregs of winter. The holidays of December always give you something to focus on other than the cold a gray weather. But, once New Years has passed, you are just forced to face the fact that there are months and months of winter ahead. Well, I took some time this weekend to focus not on the cold and gray ahead, but on our warm and sunny honeymoon from this past July!
Dawn and I spent 10 days in Manuel Antonio National Park near Quepos on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. We stayed at Hotel Si Como No.....a hotel/resort that I would recommend to anyone for their honeymoon! We relaxed at our 2 pools, made friends with some lizards, we surfed, hiked, white water rafted, snorkeled and really had the time of our lives.
Of course, I had to document the event. I brought along my Super-8mm film camera to capture our honeymoon in true nostalgic form on Super-8mm film. There are also many photos as well. I will post those later in the week. Please enjoy our honeymoon film.

Our Wedding on Super-8 Film

With the risk of being a bit self indulgent lately....here is another clip from our own wedding. This was shot with our "new" Canon 814 Super Zoom on real Super-8 film! James of James Ryan films, my groomsman Jon and myself all took turns behind the camera that day. Jon did a fantastic job with the footage at the reception.
Super-8 film looks phenomenal! It really has such a unique, vintage feel. That being said, the web conversion and compression of this clip doesn't do it justice. The original, uncompressed clip looks a lot richer and much more colorful. But at least you can get the general idea of what your wedding on Super-8 film can look like. Enjoy!

Coming Soon...Us!!!

That's right.  Us...as in our wedding.  The trailer for our wedding is now online!
I really enjoy creating these preview trailers. I was actually a bit nervous when I started this one because I thought that it would be too difficult to edit my own wedding.  But, thanks to the absolutely incredible camera work by my video idols, James and Andrea of James Ryan Films, this was actually a breeze AND a lot of fun to edit.
Our wedding in July really was just the best time.  We had so much fun with all of our friends and family.  Thank you so much to all of you.  If Dawn and I have one regret from our wedding it's that we never got on the microphone to express how much it meant to have all of you there celebrating with us.  Really, Thank you so very much everyone.  You made our wedding day the best day of both our lives.  We love you all and we feel so lucky to have been able to share our special day with each and every one of you.
Lots of love.....Dawn & Pete
PS: Thank you cards are on their way! We are ordering special cards that are taking a while to get here. Well, because we haven't really ordered them yet. But they ARE coming........once we order them.

Shout Out...DJ Mike Scott of Superior Sound Productions

We had one goal in mind for our wedding reception. One goal, two words.......DANCE PARTY!  Dawn and I both love to dance.  But with our busy schedules and weddings almost every weekend, we rarely get a chance to show off our moves.  This is why having a bumping dance party was of utmost importance to us.

We didn't really have to look too far to find a great DJ.  Our friend Vinny regularly DJs with his cousin Mike on Friday nights in Manayunk.  Vinny hooked us up with DJ Mike Scott of Superior Sound Productions and we immediately clicked.  Mike even met us on site about a week before our wedding for a run through of the ceremony, announcements and dancing requirements.

I usually judge a good night of dancing by how tired and sweaty I am at the end of the night.  By the end of our wedding, I was exhausted and my blue sweat band weighed abut 3 lbs.

Mike delivered exactly what we were looking for, a full fledge rock your socks off dance party! He played all our old school hip-hop favorites, some oldies for the oldies, and some contemporary hits. So many of our guests approached us throughout the night to let us know how great the music was! Our friends would try to leave the dance floor for a drink or a break only to come right back in a few seconds as another "must dance" song was played. Almost a month later we are still hearing from friends and family how great the music was at our wedding.

DJ Mike Scott and Superior Sound Productions made our wedding the party that we wanted it to be. Mike, we can't thank you enough. Dawn and I didn't leave the dance floor all night. Our guests had a blast. You helped make our wedding memorable. Thank you.

Once again, thanks to DollFace Studios and Jenn Childress Photography for providing the above photos.

Shout Out...Cakes by Suzy

At first Dawn and I were planning on not even having a wedding cake.  We had the grand idea to buy a bunch of Butterscotch Krimpet Tastykakes and stack them up on a table.  I thought this idea was pure genius!  But, my Mom kept making a sour face every time we mentioned the idea.  And even our friend Jessica said, "No, I can't let you have that". 

So, on Jess's advice we called Suzy Vanhoose of Cakes by Suzy.  She had created a custom chocolate cake to fit the fall theme of Jess and Andrew's November wedding at The Lake House Inn in Perkasie.

 

For our garden themed wedding we were looking for a fun, whimsical yet delicious cake.  We met Suzy at her home. She suggested that she could give us not 1 but 2 summer flavors in our three tiered cake.  We chose Strawberry Shortcake and Lemon Raspberry Poundcake.

Suzy customized the design of our cake to fit with our wedding colors.  The pink, orange and green of the cake dressing was a perfect accent to the colors of the wedding reception. But enough about the look...let's talk taste!!

This was THE BEST cake that we have tasted! Really. All our friends and family were raving about the flavor, freshness and the moist texture of our wedding cake.  No one could believe that it was actually wedding cake!

When we returned from our honeymoon in Costa Rica, we couldn't bare the thought of having the top tier of our cake stored in the freezer for a year.  So we ate it with our families only 2 weeks after the wedding!  And my mom was definitely NOT making a sour face.

Thank you so much Suzy! Your cake creation for our wedding was magnificent.  We will be calling Cakes by Suzy for all or birthday, anniversary or weekend BBQ cake need from here on out!

PS: The wedding topper has been getting rave reviews lately.  For your information, Dawn's mom bought us that cake topper from Wedding Star.  Go check them out. Cake toppers and wedding favors galore!!

Shout Out....Monday Morning Flowers

We are back in the swing of things around the First Floor Films office!  After the final weeks of prep for the wedding, the wedding weekend, 10 days in Costa Rica, back to back weddings when we returned and a day of decompressing....we are up and running again.

So, we wanted to start off a week of vendor reviews from our own wedding.  Everyone that we hired for our wedding exceeded our expectations.  All of our vendors were talented, professional and very friendly (which is important to Dawn and myself).

Today's highlighted vendor is our florist, Georgianne of Monday Morning Flowers.  We met with Georgianne at her Princeton, NJ location back in February.  We immediately enjoyed her and the meeting which was scheduled for an hour ended up taking about 3 hours b/c we all just got to talking about any and everything.

I didn't realize how important the flowers at a wedding truly are until we arrived at our ceremony and reception site.  We were married in an outdoor garden setting. Georgianne's arrangements from the arbor to the rose petals in the aisle, the flowers and ribbons tied to the chairs, the bridal bouquets and even the boutonnières for the groomsmen really made the natural setting of the garden pop with vibrancy.

My favorite part of Georgianne's creations were the centerpieces. Just look at the creative use of the limes in these centerpieces. The colors matched perfectly with our menus, place settings and all the other little details. My groomsmen even commented on how nice the flowers looked under the tented reception!

Thanks so much Georgianne! Not only was everything beautiful but, your professionalism, and organization was evident by the efficiency of the floral deliveries and set-up. Dawn's mom still has a centerpiece at her house! She said that they lasted all through our honeymoon. You are our go to flower professional from now on!!

PS: Thanks to Jenn Childress Photography and Dollface Studios for providing the photos.

We're Back....We're Married!!

It's official.  Dawn and I are now husband and wife!  What a whirlwind the past few weeks have been.  Our wedding was in a word, FANTASTIC. We had absolutely the best time. Really....it was so much fun and just truly a great day.  Then our honeymoon in Costa Rica.  Again....FANTASTIC. Dawn and I kept saying that everything from the wedding through the honeymoon was just better than we even expected. It is very rare when your expectations of something are met let alone when those expectations are exceeded.

We are very lucky to have so many people who love us in our lives.  It was incredible to feel all of that love concentrated in one place on our wedding day.  Thank you to all who attended. And thank you to my beautiful wife, Dawn.  We did it baby...or I should say...you did it. Everything was beautiful and perfect. Dawn planned it all. She did an amazing job and it really showed.  I love you 217 Baby.

I am just getting through all of the e-mails from the past 2 weeks.  I'm sorry that it has taken me a while to respond.  There has been so much to catch up on in the past few days.  But, I promise, I will respond to your e-mails ASAP.  Thanks to all for your patience.

Now for pics.....First we have wedding photos from our wonderful and super talented photographer Siobhan of Dollface Studios in Philadelphia.

The next set is from my good friend, class-mate of 15 years, photography partner, Philadelphia wedding photographer and superstar, Jenn Childress.

Out of the Office...Getting married!!

Yes!
We will be out of the office starting on Friday The 4th of July until Mid-July.  Dawn and I are getting married on Saturday at Bartram's Gardens in Philadelphia.  Then it's off to Costa Rica for our honeymoon!
Dawn and I have been the best of friends since she sat in alphabetical order, behind me in 8th grade homeroom. (M-A-Lone...M-A-Rtesi).  Now, almost 20 years later to the day, we are getting married. So crazy. Through 20 years and, at times, thousands of miles between us we have remained close.  It is in every sense of the expression "a dream come true" for me to marry my best friend. 

I love you Dawn. 217 xoxo

Junior Prom....1992.

Damn! Teenage Grease-Land!

In San Francisco last year.

We leave from Philadelphia to Filadelfia on Monday. Pura Vida!