When T and I were engaged, we wanted to share the news that we’re getting married in a fun and informal way. This stop-motion video was created a couple years ago for our Save The Dates but the same concept can be used by future brides, mom-to-be’s, party planners for an eco-friendly alternative to party invitations, announcements, Thank You notes, etc.
Visualize your story or message. Once you have an idea of what you’d like to display in your video, you may use Photoshop or simply free-hand the individual cartoon-like sketches. The sketches in our video were created using oil pastel. Select a suitable background for your video, I ended up using one of our spare travertine tiles for it’s smooth surface.
Set up the photoshoot. We situated a tripod above the tile, after tweaking the camera attachment, T was able to configure it to take photos from above.
Snap away. Similar to old cartoons, the video consists of still images strung together to create motion effects. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a smooth transition from one image to the next, the imperfections give it character.
Edit. You can then use Photoshop to edit any of your photos for added effects. The fireflies at the end of our video were simply added in this way. Using a video program found online, the individual images were strung together with our song of choice to create the stop-motion video.
meticulous mrs. 
This is so cute and creative! I think I’d like to give it a try for a future occasion. Was it very time consuming? ~M.
Thanks M! The longest portion of this project was the creative aspects, coming up with what we’re actually going to take photos of. I went through several ideas before I settled on a story of “where we met to where we’ll be married.” After the sketches were created, it was a breeze after we figured out how to set up our tripod to take photos from below. Overall, I think it took us a weekend to complete. Let me know how your project comes along!