Hiring a Videographer for Your Wedding
deciding on whether or not to hire
or Not a wedding Videographer
is a big question
to which the answer should, 9 times out of 10, be "yes you should"
and if you can possibly swing it, you should totally hire hello tomorrow.
All photos in this post by Shari + Mike Photographers
Video at the end of the post by Hello Tomorrow. You should go get kleenex now.
wedding 1:
in which we did not have a videographer
This may be a massive-knock-your-socks-off revelation to you, but I read a lot of wedding blogs before getting married. Almost every blog has a "things I wish I'd done" or "things you'll regret at your wedding" and they almost all included these two points:
1) you should take a moment just the two of you, away from the guests, to soak in the moment and pause and remember.
2) you should hire a videographer.
Standard Regret 2: Not having a video
Kyle and I debated for a long time over whether or not to hire a videographer. It does cost quite a bit, but as all the blogs say, it's worth the investment, and for us the cost didn't much factor into our debate. By the time we started to seriously consider hiring a videographer we were so deep into wedding spending that we figured if that's what it cost, that's what it cost. [But if it does just come down to cost for you, we got a cool suggestion from a friend: hire a film-school student to take some video for cheap - which of course has the potential to go awry + won't be at the same professional caliber, but if you just want a simple little bit of moving pictures + audio you could get them to just do your ceremony or something. You can likely place an ad on their student version of Craigslist.]
For us the debate was centered on what we wanted our wedding to mean and feel like.
A lot of the wedding blogs also say that you shouldn't get wrapped up in trying to make your wedding look like Pinterest because that's impossible. The thing is, for me, I'm pretty sure I could (and did) make my wedding look like Pinterest. At some point I felt I was so wrapped up in making my wedding beautiful and perfectly Pinterest that I was starting to forget why I wanted to get married in the first place, which was to share the joy of love with my community.
And that's what made the decision for us. We intentionally made our guest list small, so when we asked our community to surround us, that's what it was. Our community. We wanted our day to be close-knit and intimate. We told people they couldn't bring their new boyfriends, or girlfriends, and there were no "+ 1s" and Kyle didn't invite any aunts or uncles, so when we thought about adding two more people, with 2 more cameras, we decided to not have video.
It would be amazing to have a video of our day. But it was also amazing to look around the circle in our ceremony and see, really, really see, the people there. Actually I'm crying as I type that. It was really special. A videographer wouldn't have taken that away but it would have changed it a bit. And so, is not having a video a regret? Yes and no.
Standard regret 1: not having time just the two of you after saying "I do"
Kyle and I did sneak away during our wedding to have that moment to ourselves. I finally wrangled him and we went outside and looked at each other for about 10 seconds before we said, practically in unison, "what on earth are we doing out here? All the fun is inside!" and figured we'd have our whole lives to look at each other and take it in, but we hadn't spent all that time planning to miss out on the cocktails and laughter and love and we headed back in.
You should probably try it though. You can always bail like we did. And neither one of us in the least bit regret turning around and going back in. I just asked Kyle right now and he looked at me like I was crazy for asking. "Not at all."
wedding 2:
in which we did have a videographer
Before we ran off to legally tie ourselves together in a private little civil ceremony and profess our love for each other in a field I had been overheard saying, "who are these people who elope and claim it's all low key and just them and then hire a videographer?"
us. We are those people.
and it turns out I WAS SO SO WRONG to judge.
If you elope you should get a video. End of story.
You'll run into the same issue again: it won't be just the two of you.
Or the two of you + an officiant + your photographers + the chef + the strangers on the street + ... well you get it.
Even if you don't hire a videographer, it won't be just the two of you anyway.
And if you get someone incredibly perfect like Erin + Mac of Hello Tomorrow to shoot your elopement or wedding you'll feel like you're out there with two really good friends who are also leaving you totally alone. Because they are good at their job, you can totally ignore them whenever you want to just be the two of you without feeling guilty, and you can totally include them whenever you want to celebrate your love with some extra wonderful people.
And Erin did my hair perfectly as an important side note.
I watched approximatley a million wedding videos that Hello Tomorrow made before we included them in our day and while I knew their videos were beautiful and made me cry, I had no idea how perfectly they actually capture what it's like to be there, and what you as a couple and community share.
Because for me, it still comes back to community.
Even if you elope, you run off just the "two" of you, marriage is an intentional building of community. You are joining your two lives together for a million different reasons, and love is the biggest one. The world can be really awful a lot of the time, so when there is joy, JOY! it's worth holding onto, and it's worth holding on tight. Your friends and family are going to want to celebrate you and love you and they will get to hold onto joy because you did, even if they weren't there.
I have shared our video with so many people who couldn't be there with us. I showed my hair stylist, and the woman who made Kyle's tie and they both cried. I showed my mom and she cried. My friend took a video of him watching the video and had to put the camera away at the end because he was crying so hard. Mmm k, so now you've been warned twice about the importance of getting a Kleenex ready before clicking play.
My grandma wasn't there in Iceland. But last weekend we showed her our video again, and she was overcome with love and joy and cried through a lot of it. I got to sit with my arm around her and well up with tears too, having been able to share this special moment and day, and all the joy and love with her.
I am so, so grateful to our wonderful friends Erin + Mac for this incredible gift they have given us and our community.
Erin + Mac you are the most wonderful
and everyone should try and hire you
I have some solid, real-world advice if your friend is getting married.