emotional wedding
 

Yesterday I did one of the most emotional weddings so far, the grooms brother killed himself one week before the wedding and was burried one day before the wedding. The couple had decided to go ahead with their wedding anyway but to cancel the evening party and just do a short reception.
I really felt like an intruder that day with my camera, it started in the morning when the family gathered and several people were crying, because I didn't found it appropriate to film that I just stopped and waited outside.
In Church the ceremonie was quite emotional as well, especially when one of the 2 kids the grooms brother left behind brought flowers to the groom in the name of her father. I didn't dare to come up close and just zoomed in to get the shot.
I'm finding it difficult to choose my shots for the editing now, the only thing I can show completely is the ceremony in the church and the fotoshoot, but what I shot in the morning and the receptions contains a lot of footage with people crying and I'm not sure if I should show that, when filming I found myself keeping a lot of distance and using my zoom to get my footage during the reception.
Another "problem" is that the couple asked for a full coverage of their day untill midnight a half year ago but now I bearly have half the footage I normally have during a wedding so I will charge them less for it anyway, seems more then normal to me.
I was very impressed about the speech of the groom when he spoke about how close saddness and happiness can be to eachother refering to his brother dying and they supossedly having the happiest day of their life. A wedding like yesterday puts thing a bit more in perspective.

Wow. That's a tough assignment. Sounds like you were an ultimate pro though. Good job. I think you're wise in not focusing on the crying. However, there's no way to completely avoid it. To edit it with just happy moments wouldn't be true to the reality of that day. You can't avoid the elephant in the room.

If it were me, I would try to do a section on the wedding with all the good stuff and then surprise the B&G with a tribute section to the brother. Maybe you can get some picks from a family member. I would try to honor his memory. It would probably mean so much to them. His death will forever be tied to their wedding, but it sounds like they wanted to go ahead with it instead of postponing the wedding.

No matter what it's a hard gig. Good luck!