Wedding Videographers

Wedding Videographer

Photographs and videos of your wedding will be viewed over and over again by you, your children, and your grandchildren. So who provides those services is an important decision. To help you on your way, let’s talk wedding videographers.

A few basics before we address styles–book around 11 months to a year in advance and rely on recommendations from friends, family, and other vendors for choosing your videographer. Many times your photographer will offer videography services as well, so if you like their style already, this may be a convenient option. Check out the website of any potential vendors. If it looks out of date, incomplete, or badly designed, move on. You want your wedding videographer to be technologically savvy.

Watch their sample videos and get a feel for the way they work and film. Once you narrow down your list, ask to see a full video to get a better, more complete understanding.

The style of wedding videographer you choose will greatly affect what your wedding video looks like and how much you’re paying for the service. The basic “point and shoot” videographer is going to give you a very straightforward documentation of your wedding day with very few frills. These packages will run on average around $600 to $1000 depending on any additions.

A documentary-style videographer (often called videojournalists) will style your wedding video from a more fly-on-the-wall standpoint and often spend from 30 to 60 hours editing your video into an enjoyable and comprehensive film. A documentary-style videographer will charge around $1700 to $5000.

An utterly glamorous, but undeniably luxurious videographer option is one who works with 8 or 16mm film. This will give your wedding video a silky old Hollywood feel, but be advised that you’ll be paying quite a lot. The film itself can cost around $2000 and the film videographer will charge $3000 or more for their service.

Questions to ask your vendor: What is your wedding experience? What is your production style? How many videographers will be on site? How do you capture audio? Which parts of the wedding will you film? How long after the wedding should I expect to receive the video?