Read This Before You Book A Wedding Videographer
Starting to plan your wedding can feel overwhelming. There are SO MANY vendors to reach out to, so many phone calls, meetings, and budgets to get done before you can even begin booking anyone! To help you out, we can at least simplify the process of booking your videographer. There’s still plenty of work to be done, but hopefully this will give you a good idea of what direction to go in. So, here we go!
01. Plan your budget
This is hands down the MOST important part of the process; it will affect all of your next steps. It’s crucial to first have an idea of what your budgetary limits are on a videographer, so you know what you’re looking for. As far as actual numbers go, pricing can be all over the place – we’ve seen prices as low as $1,000 and some as high as $15,000! There’s never an easy answer to “How much does a wedding videographer cost?” However, if you want to hire a true professional videographer, you most likely won’t find one for less than $2000 (same goes for photographers). That’s not to say cheaper ones aren’t out there – you may get lucky and find an up-and-coming videographer who’s very talented and just starting out with lower pricing – but those are few and far between. You’ll most likely be looking at $2,000–$4,000 for a mid-range, professional videographer, and $4,000 and up for more high-end videographers. While that might seem a lot at first glance, just remember that you get what you pay for. And what you’re paying for is a film that you will keep as a treasured memory for the rest of your life!
02. Talk to friends and other vendors
Even though you can find any information on the Internet these days, word-of-mouth from people you trust is still the most reliable form of information. So, talk to your married friends who’ve hired a videographer and ask about their experience. And don’t stop there; reach out to some of your other vendors – your planner, photographer, or even DJ – and see if they can recommend a videographer they enjoy working with. All of your vendors together form the perfect team that will make your wedding day go smoothly, so it can only help if they’re familiar with each other and already work well together!
03. Find the style that suits you
Once you start looking at mid-range and high-end videographers, it becomes less about “good” or “bad” and more about different styles. Just like photography, videography is a creative job, and every videographer is going to have their own unique spin on their wedding films. So, as you’re looking at different videographers’ work, take note of their differences in style and keep in mind the films that are similar to what you want in a wedding video. If you want to see examples of different styles, check out websites like LoveStoriesTV.com or search for wedding videos on YouTube.
04. Consider what you want in a wedding film
It’s really important to think about what you want in your film. After watching different wedding films, what do you like seeing and hearing from the day? Do you want to read your letters out loud? Or your vows? Do you want the speeches from the rehearsal dinner in the film? These are all relevant considerations, so have something in mind before you even reach out to a videographer. Knowing what you want will also make booking that much easier.
05. Take the time to actually talk to your videographer rather than just email them
Your wedding videographer is a big part of your wedding team, so take the time to talk to them and see if they feel like a good fit to you! Your videographer is going to be filming some of the most intimate moments on one of the most important days of your life, after all. Would you rather that person be a stranger you emailed 5 or 6 times, or someone you’ve talked to over the phone or even met in person, who you feel like you know, trust, and get along with? It’s so important to feel comfortable around them!
06. Lastly: stop worrying, and trust them!
If you’ve followed all the steps above and you’ve finally found a videographer who fits your budget, is a professional, works well with your team, has a style you love, knows what you want in your film, and makes you feel comfortable and at ease, then you can drop all your worries and leave everything else up to them! They have the experience, and they know what they’re doing – it’s what you’re paying them for! Their job is now to give you a wedding film that will capture your day perfectly.
Hopefully, this has given you everything you need to get out there and book the perfect videographer for your wedding! There’s obviously more to it, but it all comes down to just thinking about what you want and putting effort into communicating with your videographer and all of your other vendors so that they’re aware of your expectations.
And last of all, we’ll just throw in a bit of self promotion and invite you to check out some of our work and reach out to us if you feel like we would be a good fit for your wedding! We’d love to help in any way we can, even if you just have questions about the process! We’d love to talk!
