This is a common question a lot of couples have about their special day. “Do we hire a videographer?” “We already have a photographer booked, and a videographer is just as expensive!”
Some love the idea of having a beautiful video to help remember their special day, to others, it is not as important. Today I will be going through the pros and cons of hiring a wedding videographer / getting a wedding package that includes a videographer.
First, a Few Stats
Roughly 63% of couples hired a wedding videographer in 2018 (its the newest data I could find from The Wedding Report), leaving about 37% without any form of video for their wedding day.
Of the 37% that did not hire a wedding videographer, 98% of those couples report they regret it. See Huffington Post.
So should you hire a wedding videographer?
We’ll that depends.
Not everyone sees the value in hiring specialists to film their event. I have heard many excuses as to why couples do not want to hire a separate videographer or pay that premium package that includes it.
Even if you were to get ceremony only coverage, it would be worth it.
Photographers will capture single frames of your event, but it is a videographer’s job to tell a story on your wedding day. To realistically capture the feelings, emotions and vibes of all the guests on a wedding day.
These pros are trained to capture these events in their raw state, don’t forget that wedding event’s only happen once. It is our jobs as videographers to be in the perfect place at the perfect time with the correct camera settings rolling in order to capture that perfect clip for your video.
Our job is to give you a moment in time which you can relive.
And I won’t even begin on the countless hours editing, color correcting, and optimizing your video for playback (can’t forget massive amounts of extra hard drives, some wedding videos are massive!).
Having a professional cover your wedding day are as important as wedding photos, we are not discrediting them at all!
Think of a wedding video as insurance – it will help you remember your day forever.
The truth is, we as humans tend to forget things and memories fade away over time. Do you remember what you ate last night? What about a month ago? What about five years ago today? I bet you would remember it if you had a video of you and your friends having a good time on Facebook, Instagram or just saved to your smartphone’s camera roll.
Unless you have a record of the events that took place, you will not fully remember. This is why we tend to have photos and video of important events like a wedding day.
And technology has come so far over the years for photo and video, especially in social media distribution. Photograph’s have been around since the 1880’s, and chances are your grandparents had wedding photos taken but not videos. Back then videography was extremely expensive and was not financially feasible for anyone at the time.
Event 20 years ago, wedding film was more of a luxury, while today it is much more affordable with the advance in technology (there are people filming commercials for television on 2k-6k DSLR camera’s and mirrorless camera’s.)
Today however, couples enjoy short feature films, extremely high quality ceremony videos with multiple cameras and digital quality our grandparents could have only dreamed about.
The common reasons for not getting a wedding video.
You can’t hang it on a wall.
Obviously, you can’t hang a video on the wall like you could pictures. But let me ask you, would you drive your car into the water and use it like a boat? Seems ridiculous, because you are comparing two completely different things.
Would you watch your photos on a 4K curve television? I didn’t think so.
It’s not important to capture my wedding day on film.
For some brides, it’s not. However, did you know that social media websites will boost your posts if you do post a video? Most people are not going to sit and stare at an image for 3-5 minutes and have a genuine reaction with it. A photo of a wedding day will get a ton of likes an comments, but it is the wedding film that will warm your friends and families hearts.
It just costs too much.
Well, not really when you compare it with wedding photography.
Wedding film is usually cheaper than photography packages offered in your area, despite how time consuming it is to edit the footage compared to editing photos (did we mention hard drive space for video is massive! Especially in 4K) .
While video professionals have increased over the past few years, on average it is more cost effective than photography.
Wedding Videos are LONG and Boring, No One Will Watch Them More Than Once
In today’s standards, this just is not true. While in the past we had long, 2-hour wedding videos, but today you are looking at a cinematic 3-15 minute video, capturing coverage of your entire day and all of your speeches included.
Lots of my clients say that they will watch their video OVER-AND-OVER again and are still as in love with it as the day that their wedding occurred.
What to look for in a wedding filmmaker?
Ceremony Coverage
You want to find a team that offers multiple cameras (multiple camera angles). Along with multiple sources of audio. So if you have a 15 minute ceremony, you will get a 15 minute video of the full ceremony.
For example, we currently offer 4 camera angles, lav mics for the groom and officiant, microphone output from the DJs sound board and shotgun microphones for all of our cameras. We are sure to have backups of backups of backups in order to provide the best product for our couples.
Highlight Video
This is usually a shorter film, 3-8 minutes on average. This includes highlights of the entire day, from getting the venue ready until the big sendoff at the end of the night. This is edited to music and can include narration from speeches.
Offering extra’s
This could include drone coverage, motorized gimbals or glidecams in order to get smooth video coverage of your wedding. These are value-added services that will increase the value of your film, and make it more enjoyable to watch.
Final Thoughts
The average price of a wedding videographer is about $2,000 according to articles on the Wedding Wire. You can find new filmmakers that charge under $1,000 or seasoned professionals that cost $10,000. But for most of us, that is a little out of our budget.
On the off chance that you are resolved about not having video for your big day, I recommend you at least consider hiring an expert for the ceremony, it's commonly less expensive than having them throughout the day covering the entire wedding and MUCH less expensive than recruiting them for a feature or highlight film.
One thing I can let you know is that should you decide to overlook this class of wedding vendors, odds are you will think twice about it in a year or two. That is not simply me saying it as a wedding videographer myself, it's demonstrated by stats.