Why Hire a Videographer

If your wedding budget permits, I recommend you hire a professional videographer in addition to a photographer.

Photos are wonderful, but only a video can capture the sounds as well as sights of your wedding day. Your wedding vows as you speak them. The toasts by your friends and family. The grand entrance introductions. The music played as you dance your first dance. 

Don’t just think of how you'll feel when you watch your wedding video in a year or two. Think of how you'll feel when you watch it 25 years from now. And how your children will feel, and even your grandchildren.  Looking at photographs stirs memories, but watching film footage makes the figures in those photos come alive. It's a whole different level of experience.

Sure, you have an uncle with a $300 Canon camcorder who’ll loves to shoot family gatherings. But will he guarantee he’ll get all the special moments? Will he capture good quality sound? Will he be on the job constantly, ready to capture those little details and spontaneous moments that tell the story? Will he edit the raw footage into a truly watchable, emotionally compelling, film? No; probably not; uh-huh; and not-so-much.

HOW LATE IS YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER STAYING?

Some wedding photographers always stay until the end of your reception; their contract includes total coverage of your wedding celebration.


But many photographers stay only for a predetermined number of hours, depending on how many hours you've contracted for. That may mean they're scheduled to leave before your reception is scheduled to end. Sometimes, even before special moment such as the cake-cutting or bouquet toss take place.


Now, if you're aware of that and okay with that, so be it.


But sometimes what happens is that very early in the planning process, the wedding couple contract for X number of hours with their photographer, and much later in the planning process, when they finalize the reception schedule, they neglect to check whether the photographer's hours cover all the events they've scheduled.

It's easy to get mixed up about this, because your photographer's hours typically start BEFORE the event does, with pre-ceremony photos, and because you probably signed your deal with the photographer long before you worked out the timing of moments like your cake-cutting, bouquet toss, last dance, and so on.


My advice? Unless your budget forbids it, hire your photographer for the duration of the event. That avoids situations where someone has to choose between not having professional shots of some memorable moments or reshuffling the schedule on the fly to accommodate the photographer's departure time.

Another option is to schedule ALL the special moments early in the reception so as to take place within the photographer's slated time. But that to me seems like the tail wagging the dog.


Besides, at plenty of receptions all sorts of spontaneously fun -- and very photogenic -- things occur as the evening progresses. If your entertainment is going strong, you might miss having some great candid shots of your guests tearing it up on the dance floor if your photographer leaves before the end.

Group Photos

Most wedding couples tell DJs "We're looking for someone who will keep the dance floor filled!" Favorable reviews of DJs often say "He kept the dance floor full all night long!"

Yet, sometimes during the dance period, the DJ is requested to interrupt the music and invite guests to leave the dance floor for group photographs. Things like: "Will all members of the extended Smith family please step outside on the patio for a group photo" or "All University of Virginia alumni, please meet in the corner of the ballroom for a group photo."

Those group photos are great. They'll give you wonderful pictures to look at in the years ahead. It's fun to see all those folks together in one shot.

But . . . keep in mind that every organized group photo during the dancing disrupts the dance floor. The spoken announcements interrupt the flow of the music. Most important, all those guests gathered for the group photo are guests unavailable for dancing.

Like so many things at your reception, it's all a matter of balance. I'm not saying dancing is more important than photos. It's just this: IF you want a full dance floor, schedule the group photos PRIOR to the start of dancing.

Group photos can be taken immediately before or after the ceremony, during the cocktail hour, or even immediately after the meal (and just prior to dancing). If it's not possible to get all the group shots by then, another option is to schedule the remaining group shots just before or just after the cake-cutting (since we're already taking a break from dancing for the cake).

I've DJ'd a couple of receptions recently where for prolonged periods during dancing, as many as one-third of the guests were off to the side posing for group photos. Needless to say, this significantly lowered what I call the "dance energy" for a portion of the allotted dance time.

Please believe me, I am not criticizing the photographers. Like the DJ, they're trying to do a great job, and like the DJ, they're responding to the planned or impromptu requests of the bride and groom and their friends and families. What I am doing is suggesting that there IS a trade-off here. Brides and grooms who highly prize a full dance floor need to consider this trade-off when thinking about the timing of group photos.