Should I hire a wedding videographer?
16 JAN 2017 – Tips and Articles – by Lucas Kraus
When planning your wedding day, there might be a time when you ask yourself “Should I hire a wedding videographer?”
Wedding videos have a come a long way in the last 5 or so years and if done well can look amazing and will let you relive your wedding day whenever you like. There are however, certain factors to be mindful of when hiring both a photographer and videographer. Below are some of the factors to consider when choosing if you are going to have a wedding videographer or not.
Find out what style your videographer has
Wedding videos have changed dramatically over the last 5 to 10 years. Wedding videographers used to capture candid moments only and only be in the background while the photographers were controlling the action. Many wedding videographers today take charge just as much as photographers which is great, but has the potential to cause friction between the wedding photographer and videographer. Therefore it is imperative that your photographer and videographer get along well on both a personal and professional level.
Many wedding videographers today are known as “cinematographers” and will basically stage many of the key moments during your day and ask the bride and groom to do the same things several times i.e. Cinema. There are still a few traditional wedding videographers around that still only capture candid moments, so make sure you ask your videographer what their style is and how they will conduct themselves on your wedding day.
Whether or not you want a lot of direction and posing or you want a more relaxed and journalistic feel to your wedding, don’t forget, this is your day and you can influence how certain vendors such as the wedding photographer and videographer can capture your wedding.
Allowing for more time on your wedding day
Videographers today are basically creating a movie of your wedding day, and therefore can be time consuming. For this reason, you may need to allow for more time between your ceremony and reception for location shots. I usually recommend 60 to 90 minutes if you have just a photographer and 2 hours if you have both a wedding photographer and videographer. You may also need to repeat things several times to ensure both the photographer and videographer get what they need.
Another important part of the day which you may need to allow more time for for is bridal and groom preparation. For bridal preparation, I usually arrive 90 minutes before the bride needs to leave for the ceremony. If you are having a videographer, I may have to arrive 2 hours earlier instead to ensure I get what I need. It is also important to plan your bridal preparation so you are in your dress, makeup and hair done and ready to go around 30 minutes before you need to leave. This will ensure that both the wedding photographer and videographer can get bride and groom preparation, family shots, bridesmaids shots and bridal portraits/footage.
Ask the photographer if they can recommend a videographer
Usually couples hire a photographer first and then decide if they want a videographer. It might be a good idea to ask your photographer if they can recommend a particular videographer that they work well with. As I mentioned before, it is very important that your photographer and videographer are on the same page when it comes to your wedding day, otherwise things can pretty tense. In fact, I have heard of a few horror stories that ended in arguments and fist fights.
It is also a good idea to ask both the wedding photographer and videographer to have a chat before the wedding so they can work out how they will approach key aspects of the day as a team and not rivals. Normally I will call the videographer a week or so before the wedding just to get to know them and ask how they will conduct themselves on the day.
Videographers are usually more expensive than photographers
Decent wedding photographer will have packages ranging from around $2000-$3000 which is a lot of money. However, wedding videographers are usually more expensive, in fact I have seen good wedding videographers start their pricing at $3500 and work there way up to around $5500.
This is usually because videographers come in pairs i.e. there is two of them and that a lot more equipment is needed to capture video and audio professionally. They have a lot of microphones, tripods, several different cameras and LED lights. Wedding videos are usually quite time consuming to edit and put together, therefore I can understand why videographers charge more than photographers.
Conclusion
Many of the weddings I photograph don’t have a videographer. In fact, only around 20 percent of the weddings I photograph have a videographer. Having said that, many of my particular client’s have relaxed and low key weddings and therefore don’t opt for a videographer. I have however, photographed massive 200+ guest weddings that have lasted literally all day. These are usually the types of weddings that usually have videographers.
Videographers will usually come in a duo, and both will have 2 cameras and tripods with them. Combine this with your wedding photographer and you may feel like we are the Paprazzi. Your wedding day should be exactly how you want it to be, and for this reason it is up to you whether or not you hire a wedding videographer.
This blog post has tried to take a non-bias approach to wedding videographers and the last thing I want to do is turn you off hiring a wedding videographer. Some of the wedding videos I have seen are simply amazing and in some ways can offer much more than wedding photography can.
Here are some of the videographers that I recommend:
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Good point. I hadn’t thgouht about it quite that way. 🙂
Thanks for the tips on hiring a videographer. I want to film our wedding day because that just seems better than only having pictures. I’ll be sure to ask the photographer we hire if they know a videographer we can use, too.