Should you Hire a Wedding Videographer?
Your wedding day is one of the most significant moments in your life, a celebration filled with laughter, love, and countless memories. While photographs capture beautiful still moments, hiring a wedding videographer can provide a living, dynamic portrait of your day. But is it essential? Well that’s really up to you, here’s a couple of points to help you decide if one makes sense for your wedding.
Do videos make you nostalgic?
This is the main question that will answer the question of if you should get a wedding videographer or not, now wedding videos do also serve as beautiful pieces of art, but the main thing a wedding video will do for you is give you nostalgia for the rest of your life.
Being a wedding videographer myself, I’m going to be biased when I say this but, seeing your mom and dad dancing in realtime, the way your best friend smiles, and the way you and your fiancee walked down the aisle, there’s just nothing that brings you closer to those moments than a video.
One question I always like to ask my couples is, if you look back into your camera roll a few years and look at some of the videos you took in that time, do they make you feel nostalgic or emotional at all? If so that’s a pretty good indicator that a wedding video will be well worth it.
wedding video example
Now if you’re wondering what a wedding video might look like I’ve placed one of my highlight films below to give you an idea of what your film would look like!
do you want a family keepsake?
When you work with a wedding videographer, you’ll usually receive 1 main deliverable from them, your main wedding film. This means that all the moments from you wedding day are captured into 1 work of art. A single video that can be passed down and shown to your kids and their kids and so on. I always wish that videography had been a thing back when my grandparents were younger, being able to see them walk down the aisle and dance with their parents, wedding videos are like a time machine into the past.
capturing lost moments
On your wedding day you and your partner can only be in so many places at once. As weddings get larger especially, there will be moments of the day that you will inevitably miss. This is where a wedding video may fill that gap for you, capturing moments you never got to see and including them in your wedding film for you to experience for the first time. Something like you and your partner’s families meeting for the first time or your parents dancing together.
This is why I personally like to offer raw footage to every couple I work with because I know that there were moments I captured that they didn’t get to experience, and I believe there’s so much value in that.
How much is a wedding videographer?
Now this is the million dollar question (literally but not $1 million literally). If you’ve looked around for a wedding videographer before reading this you probably know that prices are all over the place. You’ll find some people charge $10,000 while others are saying they’ll do it for free.
Ok so how much should you pay?
Well it depends, and I know that’s not the answer you wanted to hear but it really depends on what type of videographer you want. Below are some general price ranges to expect based on the type of videographer
novice - under $1000
A novice is someone who has never shot a wedding before or have only shot a few, this is the most risky option because you generally don’t know what you’re going to get. However if you and your partner just want a video and don’t care so much for a higher end one and are ok with some moments being missed, this can be a great affordable option.
Beginner - $1000-$2500
A beginner is someone who has a few weddings under their belt, enough to have a solid portfolio. They likely do weddings as a side business or are still early in their career. There are some amazing videographers that you can find in this price range, you just have to do a little bit of digging.
Professional - $3000 - $8000
A professional is someone who is a full time wedding videographer. They dedicate all their time to crafting the best wedding films possible while also providing a great experience. Most wedding videographers that you will come across will be somewhere within this price range (including myself).
Luxury - $8000+
This is where it gets high end. Once you start going past the $8000 range you’ll discover the world of luxury wedding videographers, now what does that mean? Generally it means things like multi-day coverage, multiple videographers, and extremely cinematic storytelling.
What if you don’t have the budget?
Weddings budgets come in all shapes and sizes and you may not have the budget built in for a videographer and that’s totally ok. If you aren’t able to hire a videographer for your wedding day but you really want your wedding day captured through video, there’s a nifty solution that may actually turn out pretty good!
Since you won’t have a professional videographer who has all the technical skills to create a cinematic video, lean into the home video style! I recommend getting an old camcorder from the early 2000s and picking one of your extroverted guests whose comfortable with taking videos and just telling them to record as much of the day as possible! After your wedding day you can just watch through the raw clips or use an editing software like capcut to make a simple cut of all the footage.
While it may not be a cinematic masterpiece, it’ll provide you with video of your day and help you relive those special memories.
Looking for a videographer?
If you’ve decided that you do in fact want a videographer for your wedding then as a wedding videographer myself, I would love to talk with you!
I’m Jason and I’m a wedding videographer in Salt Lake City, UT (I do travel) who specializes in vintage filmic wedding films. My goal with every wedding film is to capture all of the emotion and nostalgia of your day and turn it into a beautiful cinematic film that tells your story. Feel free to check out some of the films on and learn more about me and my process on this website!
Feel free to fill out the form below to reach out and I hope to talk with you soon!
