Memory Insurance: Making Your Video/Photo Investment Worthwhile

Jim Hatlo, from WeddingVideo.Com has provided the following article:

As a bride, it’s likely you will spend a significant amount of money for video and photo coverage of your wedding day. Almost certainly you will have the coverage extended to include your wedding reception.

That’s an important investment – and if you think of it in those terms, you’ll realize you should put some effort into protecting your investment.

Brides often fail to take that long-term view. Mentally, they tend to lump videography and photography in with other wedding services -- like catering or cake decorating. The right contracts are signed with the right businesses. Ideally, everyone shows up on the wedding day when they are supposed to, with the right materials in hand. If all goes well, that’s the end of it.

Wrong. That’s only the first phase for your videographer and your photographer. After the wedding there will be tapes to capture, clips to edit, film to be developed or digital images to be catalogued and processed, and then DVDs and albums to be produced. When all those steps are complete, you will have visual records of your wedding day (which will include memories of the cake, the flowers, the reception celebration, and everything else) that you and your husband will treasure for years – and which may be treasured by your children and your grandchildren, too. That’s an investment!

How much can you do, personally, to ensure a good return on your investment? More than you might think. Obviously, choosing a skilled videographer and a skilled photographer are crucial first steps. Beyond that, though, you have the ability to exert control over the environment in which they will be working. The degree of control will vary, depending on the circumstances of your wedding day; but in most cases, you will have a lot to say about arrangements for your reception, in particular.

As you plan your reception, you’ll want to make it a wonderful experience for you, your groom, your bridal party, and your guests. But don’t forget your investment. You also will want wonderful experiences whenever you relive your reception through your video and your photos. If you think about organizing your reception so that your videographer and your photographer can do their best work, you’ll reap benefits in the future as well as in the present.

Don’t Guess, Don’t Stress
There are two things you don’t want to do. First, don’t jot down a list of the pivotal events during the reception – grand entrance, toasts, first dance, and so on – and then trust to spontaneity for everything to take place at just the right time. (As unlikely as it might seem, I’ve seen that happen.) The old adage “If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail” truly applies here.

If you wait for the timing to “feel right” to move from one stage of your reception to another, I can almost guarantee that what you’ll feel later, as you review your video footage and your photos, will be twinges of disappointment. Spontaneity isn’t the best friend of the camera professionals you hire to document your wedding events. You need to make a detailed timeline, specifying the order and the times for everything to take place. (More about that in a moment.)

Second, don’t leave yourself as the key decision-maker on your wedding day. Do your planning well in advance, then delegate the execution of your plans to one or more people you trust. Once they understand their role, leave it entirely in their hands.

I’ve seen brides rushing around rearranging table decorations before the reception doors opened, or tied up in last-minute consultations with the catering director while the groom and the rest of the bridal party were having cocktails. Take yourself out of that loop. You should be enjoying the festivities while someone else worries about the details. Relaxed, happy brides look a lot better on camera than anxious, frazzled brides.

Put Someone In Charge
A bride’s best ally in orchestrating a smooth, orderly reception is a true master or mistress of ceremonies – somebody who knows the plan for the entire event and has authority to call the shots, as in: “All right, everyone, we’re doing the cake cutting in exactly five minutes!” That person might be your wedding coordinator, your catering director, your DJ, or your bandleader.

DJs or bandleaders have an important edge: They control the microphone. They also are free of other duties (such as directing the wait staff in getting appetizers served) that might take them away from the main reception area. Even if your wedding coordinator or catering director is running the show, they still will need announcements from the DJ or bandleader to keep your reception on track.

With that in mind, when you’re choosing a DJ or a band, look for someone experienced in directing the flow of a live event. They aren’t there to just play music for you and your guests. They need to be adept at doing announcements, at keeping a lively patter going during unexpected delays (such as a groomsman gone missing at the line-up for the Grand Entrance), and at keeping track of what’s happening in the hall so they can alert the videographer and the photographer to all “photo-ops.” The best DJs and bandleaders are team players who also know how to keep the team moving and working together – and how to be an extra pair of eyes for your camera professionals.

Allow Breathing Room
Any wedding planner will tell you that you need a master timeline for your reception. As we noted, it should list all the major events, in order. A typical list might include:
- Reception Start
- Grand Entrance
- Toasts
- Dinner
- First Dance, Parent Dances
- Cake Cutting
- Dessert
- Bouquet Toss, Garter Toss
- Last Dance

Once you’ve created your own list, you can start attaching times to the events. Don’t write down times arbitrarily. Think through each event. How much time will it take for the various members of the bridal party to walk through the room during the Grand Entrance? Who will be speaking during the toasts, and how long are they likely to talk? (Be very generous with your estimates on that one!) How long will it take for dinner to be served to all the guests, and how long will it take for everyone to finish eating?

What sometimes is overlooked is that you also need to consider how your timeline affects your videographer and your photographer. As you work out the overall timing for your reception, make sure to leave some breathing room between the events. Your camera professionals will greatly appreciate having a few moments to prepare for whatever is coming next. Tapes, batteries, and film packs need to be changed as the reception goes on. Allow a little slack time so those changes can occur, if needed, and so your “film crew” can relocate gracefully to other areas of the hall.

One of the most difficult receptions I ever covered went from an after-dinner presentation of a photo montage -- which I was in charge of screening – immediately to the cake cutting; and that, in turn, was immediately followed by the first dance. (No, I wasn’t informed in advance about the rapid-fire scheduling, and neither was the DJ.) It was a mad rush to get from one point to another, trying to squirm politely but quickly through the crowd of guests. I found myself playing catch-up, unable to get to good vantage points before the guests surrounded the bridal couple. Making good shots – or even just acceptable shots – was a big challenge.

Remember that while you want to enjoy the flow of the reception as it happens, you still have your background goal of enjoying the visual records later. Don’t hand your camera professionals any surprises. Leave space for them to work, and be sure you give them advance copies of your timeline. (Naturally you’ll also give a copy to your DJ or whoever is directing the proceedings.)

Does your timeline have to be followed with split-second military precision? No -- in fact, I’ve never covered a reception that stayed perfectly on schedule. What is important is that the person or people in charge stick to the outlined order of events, and avoid the temptation to rush things if the reception is running behind. Should any changes be necessary, your “designated director” needs to see that the changes are communicated as soon as possible to the videographer and to the photographer.

Available People, Available Light
Here are two final tips, one on scheduling and one on lighting: Be sure your instructions to your catering director clearly spell out that the videographer and the photographer should be served their meals immediately after the bridal party is served; and also make it clear that you do not want any lights dimmed in the hall until well into the reception, after your first dance with your groom, and preferably after the cake-cutting.

The first tip is important because caterers and reception halls often wait until all guests have their food before serving “vendor meals” to videographers, photographers, and musicians. That scenario means that the videographer and photographer probably will be sitting down to eat just as you and your groom finish your meal. If you start going from table to table to greet your guests, as bridal couples often do, then it will be without benefit of camera coverage. Be sure that the “down time” for your camera professionals is in sync with your own down time, and you’ll minimize the risk of missed coverage opportunities.

The second tip is important because videographers need sufficient light to capture good footage, and photographers need light so they can focus accurately (whether or not they are using electronic flash for their shots).

I’ve covered more than one reception where, just as the first dance began, some well-meaning person dialed down the room lighting to a low, “romantic” level. The problem is that the darker the room gets, the more your video may start to look like footage captured by a surveillance camera. Professional camcorders can operate in remarkably low light levels – but there is a trade-off in image quality. For pleasing images, there has to be a reasonable level of light in the room. Similarly, dim light will make it hard for photographers to see well enough through their viewfinders to keep moving dancers in focus.

The lights need not be bright and harsh. Soft and somewhat subdued lighting can work very well for both guests and video/photo professionals. But save the romance of candlelight levels for later in the reception, when no critical shots need to be captured.

Be a Visionary
As you look ahead to your wedding, you probably are trying to peer through a swirling cloud of details and decisions: menu choices, floral decorations, seating arrangements, guest favors, table linens, and so much more. All those need to be wrestled into the framework of the vision you have for your wedding day. It’s easy to slip into a habit of thinking that the fulfillment of the vision will coincide exactly with triple-underlined day on the calendar marked “Our Wedding!”

True enough – to a point. But if you’re taking the trouble to have that day documented by videography and photography professionals, then the long-term fulfillment of your vision will rest on how well they can perform their jobs. If you put them in a position to do their best, then years from now children yet unborn will be able to share the joy and excitement of the day with you. No one will simply have to take your word for how wonderful your wedding was; they will be able to experience the highlights for themselves.

That kind of return on your investment can’t be quantified in dollars and cents – so do all you can in the time before your wedding to ensure that your investment grows in value for generations afterward.