Smiling Toad Films

Smiling Toad Films is a Chicago-based wedding videography studio founded by John Severson in 2005, serving couples across Chicago and beyond. The studio assembles custom teams from a collective of videographers, content creators, and drone specialists, blending unscripted moments with structured storytelling; they also produce short-form edits for social media sharing. Founded in 2005, Smiling Toad has over two decades of experience and has worked with hundreds of couples across Chicago; team members include cinematographers with credits on Emmy-winning productions and videographers with 15 or more years filming weddings. Based in the Chicago area, with work extending across Chicago and beyond. Couples highlight the team's professionalism and unobtrusive on-site presence, competitive pricing relative to comparable vendors, collaborative post-wedding editing process, and footage that captured moments couples had not noticed in the moment.