Photo by With Love & Embers

For as long as I can remember, I have been obsessed with stories.  My mind is always in another place, another time. As a kid, I’d earmark and underline pages upon pages of lines in books and daydream about characters I couldn’t get out of my head. On Sundays, before I was old enough to really understand, I’d kneel on the floor in church and use the pew as my table to write and draw my own stories. As I grew older, I came to discover my words were always accompanied with images. As if the two couldn’t live without each other, and now, for me, they can’t. Words and images. The peanut butter and jelly of my soul. Somewhere, between a childhood romance with a yellow brick road in a technicolor dream world and witnessing life through the eyes of a hopelessly romantic french girl named Amelie, my fate was sealed in filmmaking. Words and images. And sound. As if peanut butter and jelly couldn’t get any better. Then, it met chocolate milk and the heavens rejoiced.

Make-believe always seemed better than reality. (Talking animals, flying cars, time travel. That’s what Heaven is, right?) Make believe always seemed better than anything we could possibly live out. Until I knew two soulmates from different countries who met sitting next to each other on an airplane. Until I knew a bride who wrote a letter to her future husband before she knew him and had him read it on their wedding day. Until a couple exchanged “Til death do us part” at the ironic crack of thunder on a muggy, summer day. Until I filmed all of these things and reality became better than anything I could have ever dreamed up. Because

Once you witness real magic, the make-believe kind seems less magical.

And now the real magic is all I live for. Stories so powerful, their truth knocks you off your feet. Emotions so raw you feel them, too. People so complex but humbling, you’d rather meet them than anyone famous.

People. Emotions. Stories. These are the roots of our films. We like to think we’re in the business of connecting perfect strangers to one another through powerful stories and overwhelming emotions. So, now, we’re giving back, because a wedding is not enough. Because that’s only the beginning of the story.

Two weeks ago, we launched a BIG CONTEST over on our facebook page. We’re giving away a 4-6 minute life film  to one of our first 50 couples and a 32 GB iPod Touch  loaded with all of the music from our first 50 films + all of our favorite apps to capture & share your stories with the world to one of our lucky voters. All you have to do is like our page, vote for your favorite film by selecting it from the list and enter your email + hit submit at the bottom. We’ll be announcing the winners on Friday, February 14 – Valentine’s Day! (Get to voting! There’s only 11 days left!)

And in case you need some inspiration or motivation, here are a few of our favorites from the first 50…

HINT: One of these is in the lead…!!