We enjoy destination weddings and traveling to tell visual stories from different cultures. The Muslim Wedding of Afeef and Moniza in San Diego, California was no exception.

Arriving in San Diego a day earlier, we started capturing a cultural ceremony “mehndi” – a celebration with close family and friends where the bride is presented gifts. The party finished off with some amazing dancing and gave us an opportunity to experiment with some new shot styles. Our goal was to recap this day and simply give the wedding film a feel of the cultural aspects that this wedding presents.

For the wedding day, we had a full San Diego Wedding Cinematography team capturing the celebration. The day started off peacefully, with us capturing the Hyatt Mission Bay Hotel venue to build some atmosphere shots for the film. However, that presented us with issues. The seagulls in San Diego don’t like drones, so they started to attack our drone and, surprisingly, us. We got “pooped” on pretty fast by the seagulls, so we barely had any flight time before we landed the drone. Luckily, the seagulls actually added to the dynamics of the shots and gave us some “foreground” objects in our beautiful cinematic opening shots. It was pretty fascinating and scary at times working with the seagulls!

Throughout the morning, we captured Moniza and Afeef getting ready for their big day. Once we got ready to film the first look and walked Moniza to the coast, I felt the love that the two had for one another. They were ecstatic to see each other. It was very visible from the moment Afeef saw Moniza and gave her a tight hug, that they are simply in love.

The ceremony was beautiful and cultural, the cocktail hour had tacos (very different) and the reception had churros (not a wedding cake). We loved that touch of uniqueness that Afeef and Moniza applied to their wedding.

Hyatt Regency Mission Bay Spa and Marina Hotel is a perfect place to get married. And our San Diego Wedding Cinematography team did an outstanding job capturing this beautiful wedding. Enjoy the Short Film.

Song choices: Vital Shift – Luke Atencio (Licensed with The Music Bed), Motion – Roary (Licensed with The Music Bed)

Cinematography: Aperina Studios
Photography: Aperina Studios
Venue: Hyatt Mission Bay Spa and Marina Wedding
Wedding Planning: Hannah Smith Events 
Decor: Concepts Event Design
Florist: Gaslamp Floral
Hair: Victoria G Hair Design
Makeup: Farhana Baig
Taco’s: I Love Tacos Catering