Top 5 reasons to hire a Wedding Videographer vs. just hiring a Photographer
- thewednesdaycreatives
- Oct 22, 2020
- 5 min read
Updated: May 8
Wedding videography is undeniably a booming industry. You've seen your friend's wedding videos, your cousin probably dabbles in videography, you've seen a dozen Facebook ads pushing you a wedding video. If you’re planning your wedding right now, you’re probably wondering, should I be getting a wedding videographer? Is it worth booking one? Should I just splash out on a nice photographer, and skip getting a videographer? Should I try save money on a videographer? I know many of my friends have thought these exact things. To help you out a little bit, and help you gain understanding on the worth of videography, I'm going to lay out my top 5 reasons why I think it’s worth it getting your wedding filmed, vs. just sticking to having a photographer.
Spoiler alert: the answer to if you should get a wedding videographer is 100% yes.
1. Audio is everything that wedding photography is not.
Seems a bit strange, but let me be clear, audio is one of the main things that separates videography from photography. Wedding photographs are silent. Your vows written on that piece of paper (that you still need to get around to writing) will still be on that piece of paper after your wedding day, silently. That speech your father in law has written will live in your distant memory, with only a photograph of him holding the microphone with his mouth slightly open for remembrance. But if you had a wedding videographer, you can replay your vows exactly the way that you spoke them. You’ll be able to hear the speeches, how they were said and the emotion behind them. You can relive that background chatter of the yarn bridesmaids were spinning when fixing your hair for your wedding. You will hear the choke when the groom begins his vows, see the drink that teeters from your maid of honours hands during her speech, and relive all of the stories from their voices. Your children (if you choose to have them) will hear your young voices literally professing your love to each other throughout your video. Audio is everything and it is everything that wedding photography is not. It is something that you're never going to get back after your wedding day is done. Unless you've got videography.
Tip 1 when choosing a wedding videographer – I would recommend hiring a wedding videographer that uses wedding vow/speech/background audio in their films, or else it's almost the equivalent of watching a slideshow of photographs with your favourite song in the background.
2. Wedding Videography does a far better job at making you feel like you were back to your favourite day ever.
When the wedding day is over, and the honeymoon is done, you’ll be going back to your mundane 9-5 job again. While you're typing away at your desk you'll find yourself daydreaming and even aching to go back to your best day ever. You just want to relive how amazing that day was. My friends who are now married have told me their wedding videos have been the best thing to relive their days. It’s because films capture the vibe of their wedding day in a way that photographs can’t. Video’s capture movement, colour and music. It captures the laugh of your grandmother as you embrace her after you just said your I do’s. It captures the happiness of your guests, cheering, laughing and celebrating. Nothing is static, there is movement in every single shot. Do you think one photo speaks a thousand words? What would 23 frames a second say? With music, storytelling and audio, you can tell a story that exceeds a photo album.
Tip 2 when choosing a wedding videographer – Read their testimonials and see what others have said about them as a way to gauge other’s experiences with that videographer, that will help you set your expectations.
3. Your overseas family will love you.
If you’re a New Zealander, like me, it’s a bit of a joke right now to expect the overseas family to come to your wedding. And it’s downright heart-breaking. No one could plan for coronavirus, it being impossibly expensive to come into the country, with two weeks of quarantined perhaps on either side. You still want to get married, but you have no idea what the future holds, how long you could wait, and if anyone could come over. Global pandemic aside, there’s always going to be a few important people in your life that just can’t be at your wedding, and that’s one of the biggest tragedies of wedding planning. Not everyone has the money to travel nor the time off to make it. Sometimes people just have other extremely important things to do. They’ll be itching to see your wedding photographs to see what the groom looked like in that dapper suit or the bride in her beautiful wedding dress. But videography takes it to a new level. They can now see the bride walking down the aisle. Or the groom spinning the bride around for the first dance. Or the laugh of the mother of the groom during her speech for the newlywed couple. There’s just something so special and feels so in the moment, that you literally feel like you were there. Think of it like this – if you asked someone if they wanted to see photographs from a documentary or the actual documentary itself?
Tip 3 when choosing a wedding videographer – Ensure your wedding videographer can do an online version that you can easily send to your friends and family overseas. On request, I'll send the full wedding ceremony and full wedding speeches via a private link on Vimeo, ensuring it'll be online there forever, and it's easily shareable. Something like that is easily possible if you simply ask for it.
4. If you hate your wedding photos, you'll still have your wedding video.
Not everyone loves their wedding photos, and I’m sorry, but it had to be said. I know of at least two of my friends who don’t. Maybe they hired their friend that was just starting out or hired someone without fully understanding what their colour grading was going to look like, or their photographs were a particular style that has just gotten out of fashion years later. What if the photographer forgot to take an important shot? Hell, I’ve even shot a wedding, where the photographer lost all of the photographs. What I’m trying to say is that you have two versions of your day, and one is the backup for the other and the other way around. It has been lifesaving in some scenarios, and sometimes you could just prefer one for the other, which is fine. But at least you had both. Which leads me to my next point.
Tip 4 when hiring a wedding videographer – Make sure you watch enough videos from your videographer to know what their style is. Every videographer has a different style, so make sure you are set on your videographers before you book.
5. You'll never regret getting a wedding videographer, you'll only regret not getting one.
I've bet you've heard this one before, and it's as true now as when you heard it last. You simply won’t regret getting one. This is because your family will love it, your future generations will love it, and you’ll love it. You are literally watching a film with your favourite people in it, your favourite day ever, and everyone being 100% stoked for you. The only thing you will regret is not getting a wedding videographer, that that's not something you can fix after your day is over.
Handy Tip 5 of choosing a wedding videographer – If you feel uneasy about getting a videographer, ensure your videographer can sell you the raw videos clips. They will charge you extra, but it is worth looking over the clips in a different way. It will also help you never, ever, regret getting the best day of your life recorded.
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