December 2025. We packed cameras into a plane, flew down to Orlando, and shot our first travel wedding at the Howey Mansion in Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida. We came home with a card full of footage, a tan, and a wedding film we still watch on quiet days. That trip changed something for us. The weather, the place, the couple — all of it added up to one of those weddings you keep thinking about months later, when you should be working on something else.
We're the team at Jaymes Media. Most of our work happens in Michigan, but every now and then a couple invites us somewhere new and the whole job becomes a different kind of memory. The Howey Mansion was that.
A House That Hasn't Changed Much (And Doesn't Need To)
The Howey Mansion is the rare historic estate where the owners decided early on to leave well enough alone. Step inside and you're standing in a building that has barely changed since the 1920s. Original woodwork. Original layout. Original everything. And somehow, even after a hundred years, the whole place is in pristine condition — like the prohibition era walked in, set down its drink, and never quite left.
For a couple, that means a wedding day with built-in atmosphere. No need for heavy decor or a styling overhaul. The bones of the house are the bones of the day. For us behind the camera, it means every hallway, every doorframe, every staircase gives us a frame we didn't have to build.
Four Acres, a Courtyard, and a Fountain You'll Walk Past Twice
The grounds are what really pull the day together. The mansion sits on four acres of lush, deep-green Florida vegetation — the kind that looks almost too saturated to be real on camera. There's a courtyard with a fountain at the center — guests gathered around it before the ceremony like it had been put there specifically for that — and a cellar in the basement that's been preserved exactly as it was in the 1920s. Not updated. Not refreshed. Authentic in the way historic spaces almost never are anymore.
"When the rain came, they danced anyway. The only music they needed was their own, and the mansion holding still in the background."
A Small Guest List, and the Right People in It
Thais and Matthew chose the venue, but more than that, they chose the size. It was a small, intimate wedding — just the people who really mattered. There's something about a wedding like that. The day moves slower. Conversations last longer. Nobody's in a hurry. We've shot weddings of every scale, and the smaller ones leave room for moments that bigger weddings can't always make space for.
You could feel it in the way they talked to each other. The gentleness. The quiet attention. We've filmed a lot of couples, and you can usually tell pretty quickly who's performing for the camera and who isn't. Thais and Matthew weren't performing. They were just being two people who genuinely love each other — and that's the kind of footage you can't fake.
Florida Weather Had Other Plans
The forecast didn't cooperate. The rain came. And here's the thing about a wedding day with rain in it — it's only a problem if you decide it is. Thais and Matthew didn't. They walked into it. They laughed in it. They kept moving with the day instead of trying to outrun it.
When they decided to dance in the rain, we knew we were filming something we'd remember for a long time. No music playing through speakers. No careful choreography. Just the two of them, the sound of the rain on the courtyard stone, and the Howey Mansion sitting heavy and beautiful behind them. It's the kind of moment you can't plan for — and the kind that often turns out to be the heart of the whole film.
Why That Day Has Stayed With Us
Travel weddings are different. You leave home, you sleep in a room that isn't yours, and you spend a day filming a couple in a place you've never been before. There's a vulnerability in that — for us, and for them. You have to trust each other faster.
Thais and Matthew gave us that trust right away, and the Howey Mansion gave us a setting that didn't need to be talked into being beautiful. The result is one of the wedding films we're proudest of. We watch it back and we're still moved by it. Months later. That doesn't always happen.
If You're Considering the Howey Mansion
If you're a couple drawn to old buildings, slow days, real history, and a venue that doesn't need much help to look incredible on camera — the Howey Mansion belongs on your list. It's not flashy. It's not trying to be the trendiest venue in Central Florida. It's just confidently itself, and it lets your wedding be the loudest thing in the room.
Whatever you decide, we're rooting for you. Weddings are a big, strange, wonderful thing to say yes to, and you deserve a day that feels like yours. If that day ends up unfolding on a courtyard in Howey-in-the-Hills, with rain on the stone and the mansion holding still behind you — call us. We'd fly down again in a heartbeat.
— The Jaymes Media Team
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