Meet Elena Coyne of Luxury Wedding Films

Today we’d like to introduce you to Elena Coyne.

Elena, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I have always had a burning desire to paint and write books. But all I can paint is rainbow and I am not very patient for writing. So the only way I could get my passion out of my system was by creating short movies. So my paint is the camera that can capture all colors and all emotions. And my words are my clients’ vows… Those words that make even a person who does not believe in love cry…

Instead of making paintings and books – I make videos.

I am also trying to figure out what the love is. My parents were divorced when I was 2. My grandparents we never married to each other until their 60s but had 2 kids together. My grandmother’s mom dies when she was 5. When I go to a wedding it is like a lesson to me about what love is and what it is not. I feel like I can see from the outsider’s perspective what the couple has and how precious it is. I want to capture everything. The venue atmosphere to represent their love, the family and friends support, encouragements and joy, the words they picked to describe the most complicated and indescribable feeling. It’s like being in the middle of my imaginary world. The world I can create in my story and may be one day in my life too 🙂

So I graduated from Russian University with Master’s degree in Journalism and shot my first documentary in 1999. Then I worked at the cable station on beautiful Cape Cod when I started to create little wedding films leaving my mark in people’s hearts. I shot weddings weekly for 7 years full time in Boston. Mostly Jewish and Greek weddings since I had the amazing wedding planner’s friends who specialized in just that. I moved to Orange County 3 years ago and spent first year fighting stage 3 Breast Cancer and rebuilding the business from scratch. I’m so lucky now to be back into this stream of inspiring events, places, people, love and stories!!!!

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My biggest problem is not to sell myself short. Since it’s not a product but a creative service – it is sometimes hard to explain why such simple thing as a small wedding has to cost $5,000 to film. Most people don’t understand all the education, marketing, equipment purchasing, repair and maintenance, time to create and sell that goes in it.

People just look at it as you were there for 8 hours… They don’t see the other 80 that goes in creating their story…

Every time I moved I had to start everything basically over or had to travel back. It took 3-4 years every time to get reestablished and known.

And lastly, I was always afraid what if something happens to me and this whole business is just me. How would my couple can be certain I will show up? And actually, all the worst things did happen. In the middle of the busiest wedding season in the end of August 2013 I had severe strain of my right driving leg two day before I had to shoot 2 weddings that week and every following weekend till November… My head was spinning not from pain but what does it mean to my customers. I cried all night because I thought I will not be able to deliver on what I promised. Then I started making phone calls to every other talented videographer I knew in the area and hire them to help me. I was losing money since I didn’t price for hiring another lead shooter. I still drove to each wedding and had a knee scooter to get me and my camera on mono-pod around. The clients actually ended up with a better footage since I had two shooters now for weddings where only one me was contracted and 3 shooters when there was only supposed to be two of us.

And then a year later the worst news stroked my business. First, I decided to move from Boston to California (my lifelong dream). And trying to move before the school for my kids starts again in the middle of the business wedding season… Well everything was planned and done except the unexpected. The day my ex-husband with my kids got on a plane to go across the country and never come back and I had to stay behind for 3 more months to finish all my weddings. The day I didn’t sleep all night because we had the going away party and then I drove my loved once to the airport at 5AM. As soon as I got back home and was juts ready to take a nap and climb another mountain shooting 15 more weddings and work extensively on editing so they don’t have to wait for longer than 2 months… I got a phone call. It was from my doctor who did biopsy couple weeks prior. And he said: “We found cancer. I am here for when you can come and talk. Can you come now?” I couldn’t believe it. I mean that moment was beyond shock. And beyond pain that I was going to go thru. I thought what would it mean to my customers? They booked me years ago and they counted on me being there for them. And here I am might be dying from cancer in couple weeks and not being able to see or film those weddings….

I took a day to cry and call everybody and get support and the next day I started to call my couples. I only got thru one phone call and I realized I can’t talk about it. The only way for me to communicate it was an email. It was easier less emotional way for me to make myself sound confident that I can either refund them if they can find somebody else to do the job or I would still take care of everything by hiring other videographers to replace me on the day of and I would still take care of all the editing. Only one couple asked for refund and they said they just didn’t want me to worry about their wedding instead of focusing on my health… I left Boston and started Chemo a week later while staying on top of hiring other videographers and making sure they back everything up and ship all footage to me so I can edit it right away…

Then there was couple weddings I was bold so I had to wear a wig and it was hot in CA. But I look at these pictures now as the biggest moment of strength. There is nothing that can scare me now. The words Obstacles/Challenges are not even in my vocabulary any more.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Luxury Wedding Films – what should we know?
Luxury Wedding Films won multiples awards over the years. Usually filming with a team of 2-3 other talented experienced film makers of Orange County and Los Angeles, CA.

Our vast experience with all types of wedding ceremonies, customs, and traditions (Jewish, Greek, Catholic and more). Our home office is located in Aliso Viejo, CA.

Photographers love working with Elena as she is always wonderfully collegial instead of competitive when it comes to getting a shot.

We make truly amazing films of the wedding day with crystal clear sound too!

Fast delivery time: 2-4 weeks delivery time.

Depending on a complexity of your project and when you send us all information we need to complete editing

More Footage: Capture every detail (even if you only order the short film so in the future you can edit full documentary). Capture every emotion (in addition to the beauty shots).

Capture every sound (we use up to 7 microphones that we synchronize in editing).

Custom Editing: Your vision for editing style (send us link to video style you like and we will match it).

Your choice of songs for editing from www.SongFreedom.com and www.MusicBed.com

Your preferences for short film (speed, sound bites, length, style)

All packages come with:

Every Short Form Film /Feature Films include the following:
Story-line development
Multi-cameras and audio synchronization
Sound leveling, color correction, suggest your own music
Slow motion, coloring and artistic effects added to every video clip
Choose from slow or fast pace

The Best Coverage
3 cinematographers all together, designated cameras focused on bride, groom and family/friends up to 12 hours coverage
4K Footage (double HD)
Drone (Aerial Footage Coverage)
1 min trailer online
15 min feature film
Long Form Documentary of the whole wedding including Bridal Preps, Cocktail Hour and Dancing as separate Chapters.

Pricing:

• Legacy 6K+ Drone (Aerial Footage Coverage) • Movie Trailer (Sneak Preview) • 15 minute feature film • Long Form Documentary of the whole wedding day including Bridal Preps, Cocktail Hour, Photo Session/Creative Session and Dancing as separate Chapters
• Heirloom 4K+ Theatrical Movie Trailer (Sneak Preview) • 9 minute feature film • Studio Edit of Full Ceremony + Reception Key Events as it happened

Contact Info:

• Website: www.LuxuryWeddingFilms.com
• Phone: 617-271-5121
• Email: Elena@LuxuryWeddingFilms.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ElenaCoyneWeddings

Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.