A Sheffield wedding video company is taking its first steps into international business in 2017. Tregoning Weddings was established three years ago by husband and wife team Andrew and Hannah Tregoning. The Norfolk Park-based firm has already produced upwards of thirty wedding highlight packages, capturing special moments for couples from all over the UK. And this year, Tregoning Weddings will travel to France to film the wedding of a famous Sheffield musician (we can’t say who it is though, we promised!).
Andrew hopes it’s the first of many forays into the destination wedding market.
“The first couple of years have been about finding our feet in the industry, stumbling our way through tax codes, project management systems and drunk uncles. A year after we began, our first child Oscar arrived and we’ve had to negotiate the work-life balance conundrum. In the last twelve months we’ve really settled into a rhythm and built some momentum, picking up more bookings, becoming a little more well-known locally and really focusing on defining our style. The destination wedding in France is a real landmark for us, it feels like the natural next step for the business.”
Originally from Leicester, Andrew married South Yorkshire’s Hannah in 2013 in Kelham Island. He speaks highly of his adopted city, to which the pair returned after two years in London.
“The local creative community has been really helpful. We’ve had a lot of referrals and a lot of encouragement from like-minded Sheffielders in the wedding industry,” he said.
“I worked with some top professionals in London earlier in my career and I’ve found the Sheffield creative scene to be on a par with the capital but a lot warmer and friendlier. People in this city are genuinely very good at what they do.”
Modern day wedding videos are a far cry from the shaky, grainy two-hour long VHS specials from the 80s. The packages that Tregoning Weddings produce are more akin to a music video than a documentary.
Andrew said: “We found that when we first started out no-one actually wanted a recording of every minute of the day, they wanted to watch the best bits. Our challenge is to capture the highlights, the crucial parts, but also the little moments that will have escaped the attention of the bride and groom in the blur of what is such a hectic day. We make those moments look great and try to produce a video that is personal and full of emotion but really watchable. Random strangers have told us that they’ve cried watching videos of people they’ve never met tying the knot.”
The videos are between five and seven minutes long, set to music and the Tregonings believe that by assuming full creative control, they take some of the stress out of wedding planning.
Their ideal scenario is that the happy couple hire them and then forget all about them until it’s time to watch the video.
“I don’t direct anyone on the day, I want to blend into the background so that the moments we capture are as natural as possible,” he said. “What you don’t want on the big day is a full camera crew taking up space with masses of equipment, tripping up the mother-in-law with a cable or knocking the bride’s veil off with a boom mic. It’s just me and a small camera, but what we produce looks like a full professional production.”
Andrew might be the one attending all the weddings and capturing the footage but Hannah polishes every edit and has her say in all the decisions along the way. But in capturing everyone else’s wedding bliss, is their own marriage ever put under stress?
“Of course it is, we’re a married couple who work together but we’re a good foil for one another,” said Andrew. “Our strengths complement one another. Her background in management has helped fill in the gaps in my business experience. It’s been a fun adventure up to this point and we’re excited about building both our family and our business in this city.”
Words: Phill James & Graham Smyth
