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You are on a wedding videographer’s blog, so obviously, on this site anyway, the answer will not be “NO”! But it will not be “YES without hesitation” either. In the majority of cases, I absolutely recommend that you find a way to film some special moments of your wedding. It remains to be seen what this means is.

We have seen previously that a wedding video represents a real budget. So, it is a good idea to consider whether it is really necessary to hire a professional, knowing that it will take a toll on the budget. I think that’s the only factor that should limit your enthusiasm: I myself was skeptical about video for my own wedding. But I was convinced by the interest of the support when I was able to see again the speeches of our relatives, the personalized ceremonies organized by the town hall and a friend, as well as the not possible draws of the biggest revelers at the end of the evening. It’s just essential, and that’s part of why I got into this business.

Moving speech

I insist on statements or speeches from relatives: before you get married, you cannot imagine that they will give everything to prepare their speech, tell you things that they have never said, and have tears in the eye when they tell you all this while looking at you, the wavering voice. Please do not hesitate to contact me so that I can forward excerpts from the speeches to you. I don’t put them on public out of respect for the privacy of my clients, but some allow me to show them in private.

THE PROBLEM OF LACK OF BUDGET

It’s all well and good, but if you can’t afford to invest in a videographer, you need another solution. This involves involving your loved ones, in different ways, to varying degrees. Be careful, however: as soon as you entrust this task to amateurs, you will have an amateur quality result. Depending on the tone of your marriage, your state of mind, what you want to film in priority and especially your level of luck, this will not be a big problem, but you have to keep this in mind: a good professional will provide you quality work and will know what you need without you necessarily being aware of it.

SOLUTION 1: HAVE YOUR PERSONAL FILMS EDITED BY A PROFESSIONAL

The plan: you lend one or more cameras (camcorder, camera, Gopro, telephone…) to your guests, you have them filmed, and you send all this to an editor who will only charge you for post-production. Usually the only constraint imposed by the editor is the total duration of the raw videos, which should be under a certain number of hours.

Benefits :

Very large savings compared to a full service. This type of service is paid on average between 500 and 1500.

Having guests, especially young people / teenagers filmed, can be fun for them. It can keep them busy while empowering them in a fun way.

Disadvantages:

Your amateur videographers will make mistakes: miss important moments, shoot badly, get in the way by positioning themselves badly.

Very poor image quality compared to a professional, especially in low light.

Same thing, or even worse, for the sound quality.

The drawbacks are therefore quite strong: you have to compose without the skills or the equipment of a professional. But it still remains a potentially viable solution.

Do not hesitate to contact me for an assembly alone. It’s not the service I communicate the most about, but I’m happy to do it.

SOLUTION 2: DO IT ALL YOURSELF

Brother

After midnight, the amateur videographer produces abstract art.

We go back to solution 1, but instead of entrusting the assembly to a professional, we tell ourselves that we will do it ourselves, one day. Except that in the majority of cases, we never will. I have lost count of the people around me who film things with their GoPro, who vaguely inquire about the choice of editing software, and who slowly forget the idea and move on. And the added motivation of marriage doesn’t change anything.

This is a solution that I do not believe in for novices. If editing isn’t a basic subject that interests you, you won’t have the motivation and resources to learn the software, build a powerful enough PC, and understand the basics of editing. Of course, there are exceptions, but they are, I think, on the margins.

There is also the problem of skills: editing is an art and a technique, you cannot improvise yourself as an editor. It doesn’t consist in stupidly linking the shots together, but in selecting, sorting, cutting to the exact image, following a rhythm, telling something, playing with temporality, mixing the sound tracks, etc. All of this to recreate the atmosphere