Weddingbee Blog

After much discussion, budget crunching, and back and forth, we have decided not to hire a videographer. You may remember that we were debating it, but we just couldn’t work the company we wanted into our budget and didn’t want to settle for less. (For you Nashville area brides, we were considering FocalPoint Cinematic, so check them out if you are looking for a videographer.)

Unless it was free, of course.

We were back to our original plan, but I was determined to put some more thought into it. I’ve asked everyone I know who owns a camcorder to please bring it (I’ve gotten about 7-8 people to agree so far). We will provide tapes and ask that everyone return them to us at the end of the night. We’re also rounding up as many tripods as we can.

Before the ceremony, I will do most of the detail shots myself while my girls are getting their hair and makeup done. We are all getting it done on-site, and there will be some downtime for me, since I’ll be the last one to be done up. Everything will already be set up at this time, since we will be doing that the night before, so I should be able to get shots of the ballroom before anyone is in there. Most of my girls will bring their camcorders, so we’ll have an abundance of getting-ready videos. The guys will also have at least one camcorder on them as well.

For the ceremony, we hope to set up at least three camcorders on tripods: one aimed at Mr. Fondue’s face, one at my face, and then one with an overall shot of the area.

Then I’ve asked our camcorder owners to record at least part of the reception. I don’t want someone to be stuck with a camera on their hand all night, so I’m hoping I get the majority of the big events with 7-8 people recording various parts of it.

Then, we will collect all of the tapes, and I will be spending hours and hours after the wedding editing it into something concise. I’ve promised everyone that will help out a DVD of the edited footage (which I’m sure they’ll watch over and over again *giggles*), and we’ll be getting them all thank you gifts as well.

Hopefully, with so many people recording and with the use of tripods at the ceremony, it will eliminate most of the complaints about non-pro videos, such as shakiness, blurriness, etc., since we will be able to switch to a different camera’s footage if one camera’s footage starts to go downhill.

My main question is: We want to make sure the audio during the ceremony is heard clearly. Pro videographers use wireless microphones to make this happen, but I’m not sure if you can get wireless mics to work with standard handheld camcorders. Does anyone out there have any experience with this and can point me in the direction of where I can figure out how to get something like this to work?