Is it worth it to have a videographer filming your wedding?
It may be one of the last things you think about when you are planning your wedding but you may be wondering whether you should have a videographer to film your special day.
You've probably decided that you want a photographer and you can pay a significant amount of money for a good one. By good I mean someone who has mastered the basics of posing, of lighting and the technical side of using their camera to its best effect and then enhancing the images they capture when editing to give you images that have a particular style.
Lights, camera, action
Whilst a great set of photos is a wonderful memento of your day, what film does (and a video done well is like watching a film) is tell the story of your day from start to finish with movement, with speech and with music. You will see lots of details in a film that you may have missed because you were so focussed on the main event. You will also get to star in your own movie. You'll be dressed up in your finest outfits and have all the attentions of a make up artist and hairdresser probably so why wouldn't you take the opportunity to make a film
Like a Hollywood blockbuster, having your choice of music playing (on your own personal copy of the full video) adds that touch of emotion to the film. I love it when I can tie up the lyrics of a song to what I am seeing on the screen - it does happen occasionally.
Think of your wedding film as an account of your day from start to finish, set to music and you can begin to see how that gives you so much more connection to what was happening around you. You will probably see on film parts of your day that you didn't even realise were happening and you will see the events of the day from a new viewpoint.
My wedding films tend to be of the order of an hour long, sometimes longer. I do know of some videographers who only produce very short films. If thats what you really want then let me know but most couples seem to appreciate having the choice of a longer film.
The video on a USB stick is in a digital format so if a future technology evolves that makes this redundant it should be quite straightforward to convert the file into a new format or to put it onto a new storage device. For that reason I no longer use DVDs as they are rapidly becoming obsolete.
I deliberately send the USB stick out in a presentation box so that that in itself is also a memento of your day.
So is it worth it. I would say undoubtedly yes but then I am biased. Try asking some married couples you know who have had a wedding video made. Find out if it touched them emotionally and if so why and then make your decision.
Taiba and Fedja
This is Taiba and Fedja having an absolute blast at their wedding party. They had already had the ceremony somewhere else but chose to have a wedding party in York at the Holiday Inn. I was asked to film the wedding party and it was a little out of the ordinary for me but what a party it was. From the moment Taiba and Fedja entered the room set out for the wedding breakfast they started dancing. They had every able bodied guest up and dancing, whole famililes dancing together. It was a pure joy to watch and record and not a drop of alcohol in sight!