The Coolest Engagement Video…

Save the Date - August 26, 2010 from t davis on Vimeo.

is ours! (If I do say so myself :)

The genius hubby-and-wife team of Lance Wagner and Trixie Lane at Seattle's Old School Pinups helped Todd and I recreate our meeting and engagement into the niftiest ever proposal/save-the-date video for the small wedding we're having late this summer and we couldn't be more thrilled. A while back we took some dress clothes to their studio (housed in an old mid-century-modern kindergarten) where Trixie brought out a spread of yummy snacks and cocktails before completely transforming me into a spitting-image version (humor me, please) of my Golden Era screen goddess idol, Myrna Loy, and then styled Todd into a retro-dapper version of himself. As you can see
in the still photo below, my hair and makeup are impeccably 1930s glamour-chick chic!

I wore my own late 1920s beaded flapper dress in "part one" of the video, while Trixie lent me the adorable beret, beaded purse and "part two's" early-1930s gown from her mind-boggling vast dressing room of vintage clothing and accessories. (For the uninitiated, Old School Pinups is a neat business that does full retro dress, hair and makeup makeovers and photo sessions for brides-to-be and their bridal parties for groom's gifts and bachelorette party photo shoots, among other things, like this video.) It took about an hour to set my hair and do my makeup and about 15 minutes for Todd to get a little powder and touch up :)

For his part, Lance was a real pro and so much fun to work with. He took hundreds of high-res photos in their Tiki Bar while gently directing us in our "roles," and then stitched them all together into what is essentially a flip-book movie, silent-era style. He and Trixie worked together researching old flapper sayings and making the caption cards placed throughout, and scoured the web to find authentic period music to score the film. Lance borrowed Todd's grandfather's watch from his Freemason days to show the passing of time, which nicely pairs with my grandmother's emerald ring my mother gave Todd for the proposal. When the video was all finished they invited us back to their studio where we were treated to the premier screening on their flat-screen TV! I have to say, we were pretty much freaking out. I've seen some cool save-the-date videos during my years working with brides, but I've never seen anything like this.

As my excess of exclamation points proves, we just had a blast working with Lance and Trixie, and are so excited to star in our very own silent movie mockumentary!