Hi! I'm Andrew Smith and I am a wedding filmmaker living in Portland Oregon with my beautiful wifey, Chelsea, and our lovable pup, Olive. Oh, and also Benny the cat, but he just kinda exists at our house and does his own thing. I started my filmmaking journey making a birthday video for Chelsea. I asked her closest friends and family to make a small clip for her with either a message or a memory. After many many hours of figuring out how to put a video of clips together, Chelsea's response of appreciation is one that I will never forget. She went through a roller-coaster of emotions all the way from belly laughing to tears rolling down her cheeks. It felt so good to give such a gift filled with the faces and voices of family members and friends of hers that would last a lifetime, I wondered if I would ever be able to create something as meaningful again.
While getting married shortly after, it hit me! I remember thinking, all of our closest friends and family are here! Amazing things are happening! Our favorite people our getting emotional and giving amazing speeches! My nephew is doing the worm on the dance floor! This beautiful day will never come again and all of our favorite people will never all be in the same place again. Why isn't anyone here to capture one of the best days of our lives?! I decided that I wanted to be the person to give that gift to people, and from there, FilmSmith was born.
Falling in love with filmmaking
After Chels and I got married, we moved to Germany to start our new life together. Chels was able snag an amazing position overseas that allowed us access to Europe for about two years. With my new found passion for putting together videos, I decided to start making cinematic travel vlogs, and people actually liked them! I started a YouTube channel and used it as practice to hone my craft to eventually move to the pacific northwest and start my wedding videography business.