If there’s one day that takes months, if not years to plan and is all over in what feels like minutes, is your wedding day.  Whilst nearly every bride and groom will hire a professional photographer, don’t forget that you can also video your big day.

Yes, your uncle could do it or your best friend might offer but the chances of wobbly snippets, uneven horizons and out of focus shots are high.

So what’s the benefit of a videographer?  Well with so many things happening on the day you will miss (and forget) certain events…who danced?  How did you look as you walked down the aisle?  Investing in a videographer means that you can afford to relax and enjoy your wedding day knowing that every moment is captured.

The average cost in the UK for a videographer is £1,500 – so it isn’t cheap, but as well as filming the event, they should edit and present it into watchable, interesting film.  On average, they will spend the entire day with you and film around 10 hours of raw footage (which you can ask for access to) from getting ready to the very end of the evening.

When hiring a videographer, use Yellow Pages or Yell.com to find someone in your area.  Look to see at least 3 completed DVD’s and look for certain things; good clean editing, classy typography and interesting montages.  Does it look likes something your 16 year old cousin could do?  Or does it keep you interested whilst looking slick at the same time?  Is the quality there – no blurred shots, no muffled sounds, no odd lighting?  Have they captured the essence of the day; the bridge and groom but also all of the guests, the food, the cake, and people coming in and out, the first dance?

Often you will also be able to choose the music for the opening and closing of the video – will your videographer allow you to do that (and change your mind later on?!).  Also check the length of the videos.  1 hour is ideal – any longer suggests the videographer can’t quite edit very well or didn’t capture the key scenes on the day.

Finally – don’t forget that some churches will not allow videos to be present on the day.  You must check beforehand as there is often no negotiation!  Decide what you want and go and find the person who can do the job!

Well, here is the snippet from our wedding video.

Now, there is some quality loss due to the upload on YouTube (something to do with the compression algorithm???), so take account of this when watching it (the final DVD has superb quality)

Not bad for the price of 3 bottles of port!? - we love it and the final DVD gives us a really great memory of our big day.

Martin is actually a bit of whizz on the camcorder and he’s filmed 6 weddings for various family and friends, so he knows what he’s doing. But he obviously didn’t shoot ours! He wrote a comprehensive checklist of what he wanted for the 3 people who shot footage on the day. These people are by no means experienced with a camcorder. But they were able to follow Martin’s instructions so he could produce the DVD.

Now, like we said before… if a high-grade professional wedding video is really important to you, then you should definitely hire a professional. Otherwise, you should consider getting family and friends to take some footage for you… it really is a lot easier than you might think.

Let us know what you think… do you want us to publish Martin’s checklist and guide to shooting the perfect wedding video? He’s also considering putting together a short video on how to edit everything together… would this be useful?

As always, let us know your thoughts by leaving us a comment below.

Cheers,

Martin & Karen

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