I've filmed weddings since around 2012, and I've spent more than twenty years working with cameras in one form or another. So you'd think that when it came to planning my own wedding, booking a videographer would have been one of the first decisions I made.
It wasn't. My wife and I both went into it thinking we probably didn't want a wedding film at all. Even with my background, and knowing exactly what a good film can preserve, I wasn't convinced I wanted cameras there on my own wedding day.
I'm glad we changed our minds. Not because we ended up with a conventional wedding-film package, because we didn't, but because the footage our friends captured showed us how much of our wedding happened outside our own field of view. That's really the answer to the question. You don't need a wedding videographer to have a brilliant wedding, but if voices, movement and the things you won't personally witness matter to you, you'll probably value the film afterwards more than you can imagine beforehand.
Why wasn't I sure about filming my own wedding?
Some of it was probably because filmmaking is my everyday world. When you work professionally with cameras, directing and editing, it's hard to switch off the part of your brain that thinks about the mechanics behind an image. I wondered whether having a film made would make me too aware of the production, or leave me thinking about how it was being shot instead of just being present.
Photography felt like an easier decision. We chose the brilliant Liz Baker, whose work gave us the film-photography look we wanted. She shot the day on film stock alongside digital coverage, and the mix felt considered and tactile, completely right for us.
Video was the one we kept going back and forth on. It wasn't that we disliked wedding films, we just weren't sure we wanted one of ourselves. That hesitation is more common than people think. Couples often worry filming will feel intrusive, that they'll get self-conscious, or that they won't watch the finished film enough to justify it. I understood all of that, even as someone who makes wedding films for a living.
There was another layer to it too. Evelyn wasn't keen on having someone she didn't know around during bridal prep, and when we were first talking it through, she'd rather that part of the morning wasn't filmed or photographed at all. I completely understood that. It's a quiet, personal couple of hours, and the idea of a stranger with a camera in the room understandably didn't sit right with her.
That became part of the bigger question for us. Having filmed so many weddings myself, and worked with so many talented filmmakers and videographers over the years, choosing who we'd actually trust with our own day felt almost like choice paralysis. In the end, though, the answer was right in front of us.
It started with a Super 8 camera
The first step towards filming our wedding was a small one. I asked a good friend if he'd bring his Super 8 camera and shoot some analogue footage during the day. I'd cover the film and development costs, and we'd end up with a short, imperfect record rather than a conventional wedding video.
From there the plan grew on its own. Because I work in the industry, a lot of our guests were people I'd worked with for years, and I didn't want anyone to feel like they'd been invited to our wedding and then quietly handed a job. But a few friends genuinely wanted to help. Dan and Morgan set up cameras for the ceremony and speeches, and from there kept picking up nice observational moments through the day. Another close friend, Rob, brought his drone. He's an exceptional pilot, so that was an easy yes.
What started as “maybe we'll get a bit of Super 8” turned into a mix of analogue footage, ceremony and speech coverage, natural moments through the day, and aerial shots. It still wasn't the same as having a dedicated team cover the whole wedding. Nobody filmed the morning prep, which suited Evelyn perfectly, and our friends were there as guests first. But it gave us something we couldn't have got any other way.
We had missed far more than we realised
The strange thing about your own wedding is that you're at the centre of it and still only experience a fraction of it. You don't see how people arrive, or the conversations happening across the room, or every reaction during the ceremony, or what your guests get up to while you're off having photos taken. Even standing right there, your attention is pulled in so many directions that whole moments just pass you by.
You spend months planning the day, and then on the day itself you only get one point of view. Watching our footage back let us step outside that. We saw our friends and family enjoying themselves with no idea we'd ever watch it back. We caught reactions we'd missed, small interactions that would have otherwise just disappeared. It didn't replace our memories, it added to them, and that's the part I'd underestimated.
I was making selects on the flight to Mexico
We flew out two days after the wedding, and that's when I started properly going through the footage, laptop open on the plane.
I began with the speeches. Going back through them on our way out to Mexico turned into one of the loveliest parts of the whole trip. I'd take my headphones off every so often when I found something beautiful, or something ridiculous, and show Evelyn right there in the seat next to me. A few times I'd clip something up on the spot and send it on, like the moment my father-in-law called me out mid-speech for embellishing my skiing ability, from a trip out to see one of my best mates in Vancouver, who hadn't been able to make the wedding. That one went straight to him.
I'd genuinely wondered beforehand whether we'd ever sit down and watch a wedding video again, and within two days I was already deep in the footage, finding perspectives on the day I'd never had myself.
I've gone back to those clips a lot since. Reused a few on social media, revisited individual moments, noticed things I completely missed at the time.
Photography still matters hugely to us, but photos and film do different jobs. A photograph freezes a fraction of a second into something you can hold and frame. Film keeps what happens around it: the movement into the moment, the reaction after, the sound of someone's voice, the atmosphere in the room. One doesn't replace the other.
Will you actually watch your wedding film?
Fair question, and probably the most reasonable one couples ask. Honestly, you probably won't sit down and watch the whole thing start to finish every week. That's not really how anyone revisits an important memory.
You might put on a short highlights film on an anniversary. Show it to someone who couldn't make the day. Watch a speech back, or pull a clip out for a birthday, or just want to hear the voice of someone who mattered. Sometimes you'll watch the whole thing, more often you'll dip into particular moments. The value isn't in how often you press play, it's in knowing the moments are still there when you want them.
Can friends film the wedding instead?
Friends filmed ours, and I'm genuinely grateful for that, but our situation was unusual. The friends behind the cameras were people I'd worked with professionally for years, so they understood exposure, composition, sound, camera placement, how to move without getting in the way. Even then, parts of the day went uncovered simply because they were guests first.
I've also been on the other side of this more than once, filming weddings for close friends myself. That's given me a decent sense of what it actually takes to do it properly rather than just showing up with a camera.
Asking a friend to stick a camera at the back of the ceremony can give you something worth having. It's not quite the same as someone taking full responsibility for the whole film. A professional is thinking about backup audio, changing light, several things happening at once, cards and batteries, camera positions, and how it's all going to cut together afterwards. They're also the one person at the wedding whose job is to pay attention while everyone else is enjoying themselves.
Guest footage can be wonderful. It can also be shaky, patchy, hard to hear, or never actually leave someone's phone. It's less about whether a friend can press record, and more about how much you want to rely on them, and how much the result matters to you.
Do you need every part of the day filmed?
Not necessarily. When we first talked about filming our own wedding, we thought maybe we just wanted the ceremony and speeches covered, the once-only moments, the words you'd never otherwise get back. There's a reasonable argument for prioritising just that if budget's tight. And for us, as Evelyn made clear early on, there were parts of the day we simply didn't want a camera in the room for at all, which is just as valid a starting point.
But not having our morning prep filmed also showed me what fuller coverage adds elsewhere. My wife and I had completely separate mornings, neither of us saw what the other was doing, and now that only exists in photos and memory rather than footage. A highlights film, ceremony coverage, speeches, a longer edit — they each preserve something different. What's right depends on what you'll actually want to come back to, and what you're comfortable having filmed in the first place, not on buying the biggest package on the list.
Will you regret not booking a wedding videographer?
Nobody can answer that for you. Plenty of couples skip video and are completely happy with that choice. A wedding film isn't compulsory, and I don't think fear of regret is a good enough reason to push anyone into spending money they don't want to spend.
But a few things worth asking yourself first: would you like to hear your vows or speeches again? Do the voices and mannerisms of your family and friends matter to you? Would you want to see the parts of the day you weren't there for? Do you think you'll value the footage more in ten or twenty years than you do right now? If nobody captured any of it, would photos alone feel like enough?
I can't say everyone ends up watching their wedding film more than they look through their photos. People hold onto memories differently. What I can say is that moving footage gives you something stills can't: voices, timing, movement, moments that keep going past a single frame. I don't know anyone who regrets having their wedding filmed well. I do know people who wish they'd filmed more, or filmed it properly, while they had the chance.
My answer, looking back
Before our wedding, even I wasn't sure we wanted a film. Afterwards, I was grateful for every person who turned up with a camera, set up a tripod, loaded a roll of Super 8, or flew a drone.
That footage isn't valuable to me because I'm a filmmaker. It's valuable because I was the groom, and there was no way I could see everything happening around me. Our wedding only happened once. The film gave us another way back into it.
If you're on the fence, don't start by asking whether a wedding video is something you're supposed to book. Ask yourself what you'd want to be able to see and hear again once the day is behind you. That question will tell you far more.
If you're still weighing it up, take a look at the wedding-film packages, watch a few examples of complete wedding stories, or get in touch for an honest conversation about what level of coverage would genuinely suit your day.
