Wedding venue catches fire while filming the newlyweds’ first dance
Apr 19, 2018
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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Some couples want a nice low key wedding. Others, however, want it to be somewhat extravagant. But sometimes that extravagance comes at a cost. In the case of one couple, pyrotechnics during the happy couple’s first dance caused the venue to go up in flames. It starts off as many first dances do. The happy couple is happily dancing away with friends looking on, cheering.
But then the cheers turn to screams as they notice the decorations above have caught fire. And it all goes downhill from there, really. The whole thing was shared to Facebook, where it’s already received a few comments criticising the venue for not having fire extinguishers handy.
At first, I thought it was just shot inside a dimly lit indoor venue, but later videos of the fire spreading show that it appears to be an outdoor affair. So, it’s likely that all of the guests managed to survive unscathed.
It’s not the way that most people would want to remember their wedding day. But at least it will be one most of the guests won’t forget in a hurry.
I always find it odd in events like these that, although there is obviously a professional video guy there (you can see him walking around with his gimbal), the only video we ever see from events like this is from phones. Where are those epic slow-motion shots of flames licking through the air while the guests all flee in horror?
Perhaps they should’ve played Metallica for their first dance. That might’ve been more fitting.
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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7 responses to “Wedding venue catches fire while filming the newlyweds’ first dance”
John – you made my day : „where are these epic slow nothin shots „ ?
Thanks!
I photographed weddings for over 20 years, and saw more stupid cases of ” my wedding is going to be better than anyone elses” than I could count. This has to be the right of stupidity. Both by the bride who wanted it, and the venue for allowing it. Wouldn’t surprise me if the bride wanted a refund even though she was the reason the place burnt to the ground.
No, she wasn’t the reason. The reason was the venue allowed it while not having adequate fire protection and the installer of the fireworks was criminally careless in the installation. Don’t know where it happened or local laws, but I guess that either the venue bites the cost or the insurance company is furious at the fireworks “specialist” if there was one.
The bride might request live tigers to roam the hall free, someone has to tell her “no can’t do”.
professional pyrotechnician here. this the fault of the venue and the “technician” who set those gerbs (spark shower effect). I can see electronic matches connected to those effects, so these are professional grade. those gerbs are indeed criminally close to human spectators. in the united states they’re required to be at least 15 feet away (at the barest minimum, 75 feet for aerial ones) from the closest audience member, and the effect trajectory has to be verified to be clear of flammable materials (obviously). Water and/or CO2 extinguishers must be adjacent to the effect too.
I’m thinking that this may not be the USA, but this is still criminal. hopefully everyone survived unscathed.
Amazing fireworks..
I’d say the same for the photographer. I would assume it would be unprofessional to post, like if it was an unflattering photo of a drunk uncle and it would be at the discretion of the couple that paid for the service. No need for a jab at the videographer just doing his job. :(
I almost had this happen. Thankfully, some quick thinking on my part meant that the the only way anyone knew was because of my proficient use of four letter words…