The North Plat te Telegraph Bridal Guide 17
By Susan Szuch susan.szuch@nptelegraph. com
still supported each other. I was brought to tears by that, watching it all unfold.” Despite some changes, Nebraska wasn’t hit as hard as the rest of the nation. Here, McGarrick said, people were less discouraged and focused more on how to improvise. “I honestly didn’t have a single couple that booked us that canceled their wedding,” McGarrick said. “I was amazed because here am I talking to those videographers from other states and they’re like, ‘All of our weddings were canceled or postponed.’” at the front of their minds: shrinking their guest lists, having the ceremony For many couples, adaptations were without grandparents in order to keep them healthy, or making changes to accommodate directed health measures. One bride married in October was in constant communication week- to-week with McGarrick
Especially
during
the
novel coronavirus pandemic, “there are days in everyone’s life where they question what they’re doing,” says videographer EmilyMcGarrick. McGarrick owns North Platte-based RA Productions with her husband, Brad, and they film weddings and commercial shoots. A couple’s May wedding amid the strictest directed health measures reaffirmed her confidence. “I was like, what I’m doing really matters. It made an impact. It was really special to see that,” McGarrick said. The date was significant to the couple. The bride’s grandparents’ anniversary was that week, and they were determined to have their ceremony then. “So they just decided it’s not about the wedding, it’s about the marriage,” McGarrick said.
There were still sparks of normalcy that McGarrick captured. She played the couple’s first dance song on her phone and recorded them as they danced outside. And family and friends found a way to wish the newlyweds well with a drive- by parade. People drove as much as a couple of hours to honk and hold up signs. “It was so cool to see how people weren’t mad about it, they weren’t bitter about it,” McGarrick said. “Obviously the day didn’t go as planned, but they
about how they’d change and adapt. But McGarrick’s video made it so that the pandemic didn’t overwhelm their wedding day memories. “(The bride) said afterwards that she really loved having her video because she said 10 years from now, she’ll be able to go back and watch it and the focus of the video isn’t on the pandemic,” McGarrick said. “So that’s what’s on the forefronts of our minds right now, but when you watch the video, you can’t really tell anything weird is going on in the world. The focus is on them, on their story, their celebration.”
It was unlike any other wedding she’d shot. With the event restricted to 10 people in the church at a time, McGarrick came early to set up “four or five” tripods and then stood outside the church door to film the ceremony. “That was pretty crazy to see this momentous day in someone’s life and there was hardly anyone there,” McGarrick said. “It was heartbreaking, but also inspiring to see that (the wedding) wasn’t what mattered to them — what mattered was the commitment they were making.”
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