Should you get Video for your wedding?

Honest answers ahead:

For those getting married are you booking video for your big day?

Nope. Why not? Several reasons:

  • I'm seriously never going to watch it. We have home movies going back 25 years. And I've never watched a single one. Even if they'd been professionally filmed ... still never going to watch it. I don't believe every life event needs to be recorded, and prefer things to live on through a few photos and the fuzzy warmth of my own memory. The sound of my grandfather's voice, my Nana's lumpy custard, my first encounter with snow, that Christmas my brother received an omelette maker, the family 'trip of a lifetime' to Disneyworld ... they live on in my memory, and I'm happy for them to stay there rather than be recorded for prosperity. I appreciate that not everyone thinks that way, and maybe I'm old fashioned. But it's really not a need or a want for FH and I.

  • When I watch wedding videos they often feel like a ... production. A beautiful, skillful, artful, cinematographic ... performance. And honestly that's not really a reflection of what I want to remember from my wedding day. Moreover, the thought that my wedding day will be shared with the masses - understandable given the vendor's need to advertise their own business and skill - makes me deeply uncomfortable. My wedding is a small and intimate affair with only my nearest and dearest. I don't need the world to see me kiss my FH, or my mother cry, or my Dad to share stories from my childhood. That's for us and us alone. I'm a rather private person I suppose, I don't even have Facebook!

  • Cost. Even basic photography around where I live is $2k. I'd expect to have to pay similar or more for a videographer. So within my budget my options are: pay for a videographer, or better photography to send back to my elderly Grandmother who can't attend, or perhaps even pay the airfare for my financially hard-up best friend to attend our wedding (which is on the other side of the planet from where she lives).

None of which is designed to be a critique to your work or skills or passion. Merely a reflection of my values, since you asked.

/r/weddingplanning Thread