One of the most important aspects of planning a wedding is figuring out your timeline, and it can be pretty daunting. When should everything happen? How are you supposed to know the best time to have your ceremony? You haven’t done this before! Sure, you’ve been to a few weddings, but you were too busy drinking Prosecco and getting boomerangs to take note of their schedule.

Well don’t worry, because in this article I’m going to look at all the factors to consider when it comes to choosing the perfect wedding ceremony time…

Time of Year

The time of year you’re getting married is crucial because it will affect how many daylight hours there are. Something people don’t often consider is how much light there will there be both during and after their ceremony.

If you’re getting married in the Summer, sunset might not be until 9pm or even later, meaning there’s plenty of daylight all day long for your ceremony and everything that follows.

On the other hand, if you’re getting married in the Winter, sunset could be as early as 4pm. This means that you have much fewer hours of light. As such, it’s probably a good idea to get married earlier in the day to ensure that: (1) there’s enough light during the ceremony to ensure your photographer and videographer can get nice shots of you with natural light, and (20) there’s enough light after the ceremony for your family photos and couple shoot. If the weather on the day is a particularly dull one, you may lose the light at around 3pm, and so a ceremony at some point between 12pm and 1pm might not be a bad idea! 

Location

Another important factor you may want to consider is the location of your ceremony.

If you’re getting married outdoors (especially abroad), you might want to avoid the hottest time of the day for your ceremony. The last thing you want is your guests being slowly picked off one-by-one from heat exhaustion while you’re saying your vows. Therefore, a ceremony some time after 4pm might be best. However, remember to keep an eye on that sunset time and ensure you leave an hour or so for photos after the ceremony before you lose the light (maybe even two hours, as the light is often best between 45 minutes and 1.5 hours before the sun sets).

If you’re ceremony is indoors, then you’ll probably want to ensure your wedding happens at the height of the sun so that you can make the most of the natural light streaming through the windows. Therefore, 1pm-3pm is ideal!

Pacing

On an average wedding day, you’re going to have many different components: getting ready, the ceremony, the drinks reception, family photos, couple shoot, dinner, speeches, and dancing. Therefore, when figuring out your timeline, it’s a good idea to think about where everything else will lie too, so that you can pace your timeline appropriately.

The later your ceremony is, the more rushed things will be. For example, a 4pm ceremony would mean a very leisurely getting ready, followed by a hectic 3-5 hour window of ceremony, drinks reception, family photos, couple shoot, dinner, and speeches before your DJ/band starts.

On the other hand, if your ceremony is too early, you risk having your guests waiting around for hours in-between ‘events’. I’ve been to weddings with early ceremonies and then a huge gap before the meal, resulting in hungry guests hovering around the kitchen doors, like vultures, waiting for canapés.

So what exactly is the best time?

From my perspective as a videographer, a ceremony starting between 1pm-2pm is the ideal time, as it means the least amount of rushing (and therefore adequate time to make sure I’m prepared and have all my gear set up for each event throughout the day). There’s plenty of time in the morning for you and your groomsmen/bridesmaids to get ready, and for your guests to travel down and arrive in time. Additionally, there’s plenty of remaining daylight for photos and your couple shoot (regardless of the time of year), and plenty of time for the rest of your scheduled events, without guests having to wait around for hours.

Here’s an example timeline:

• 13:30 – Ceremony 
• 14:00 – Drinks reception (during which family photos and couple shoot will happen)
• 16:00 – Called in for Wedding Breakfast
• 16:30 – Wedding Breakfast served
• 18:30 – Speeches
• 19:30 – Cake cutting & First Dance

Of course, it’s ultimately your day, so only you should decide what works best for you. But hopefully you’ve found something in this article helpful with planning your wedding and choosing your perfect wedding ceremony time.

This is a blog-post from us, the videographers of the industry, to you, the soon-to-be brides and grooms. I know you’re busy planning your big day right now, and the last thing you want to do is read yet another list (I’m sure you’re making enough of your own as it is). But honestly, what’s the point in all that planning and all that money if your wedding film doesn’t have any speeches because your videographer missed them? What’s the point in writing those custom vows if your faces aren’t visible in the ceremony? So please, take note of our advice, and give your videographer the best chance possible of making your Wedding Film amazing!

1) Tell us EVERYTHING

We’ve all heard the old adage: fail to prepare, prepare to fail. Well, I cannot stress this enough: a prepared videographer is a good videographer. There is nothing worse, from a videographer’s point of view, than somebody deciding to deliver an impromptu speech at a wedding – chances are, if we didn’t know about it, we didn’t put a microphone on them so they’re going to sound really bad in your film. Likewise, don’t surprise your partner with a gift or an ensemble of stormtroopers without letting us know beforehand so that we can capture their reaction for you! The more we know, the better prepared we can be, and the better your film will be. The best rule to follow is: if in doubt, tell the videographer!

In addition, make sure you keep us informed throughout the day. I know quite often videographers are almost invisible – you don’t notice us capturing those intimate moments, and that’s the way it should be! But please don’t forget about us. When you’re going to cut your cake, just give us a heads up so that we can get cameras set up. It’s likely we’ll want to have more than one camera rolling for these important moments, so that we can cut between different angles in your film, so tell the DJ to wait for our nod before cuing your Ed-Sheeran-first-dance-medley. Additionally, if you’re going off with the photographer for some shots, it would be great to let us know, too. Sometimes the photographer forgets because they’re so focussed on getting some beautiful photos of you, which is absolutely fine by us. But chances are, you’ll want some beautiful shots in your film too, so just give us a heads up. Maybe the photographer wants 15 minutes alone with you – that’s cool! All we ask is that we get some time alone with you, too.

2) Get ready by a window

Whether you’re a bride or a groom, getting ready by a window is crucial. I’m sure your photographer will agree that this just gives us so much more to work with in terms of light. Artificial light is really yellow and makes the colour of your skin and EVERYTHING ELSE look weird and unappealing. Natural light, on the other hand, is both flattering and true to real-life colours.

If you’re having a make-up artist, chances are they’ll sit you by a window (after all, it makes sense for them to have loads of light too in order to work their magic). But if they don’t, maybe try and suggest moving. Some make-up artists will bring their own lights, and will prefer to work in front of them than in front of a window, and that’s okay! Any worthwhile wedding videographer will be able to work in artificially lit conditions – all we’re talking about here is how to foster the ideal conditions for the most best Wedding Film your videographer can produce.

This is an example of artificial lights in the ceiling. There were no windows here, so the MUA (Lucy Hart) used this ceiling light instead. The result is that the top of the face is much more well-lit than the bottom, and the light is very harsh.

Men are much easier to film getting ready than women, simply because it doesn’t take as long for you to get ready, and there are only really a few shots we want to get. For example, a shot of you (or your father/best man) doing up your tie is always great, as is a shot of you putting on cufflinks and throwing on your jacket. These can be relatively mundane shots in a dimly lit hotel room. But stand by a window, and we can position you such that there are all kinds of interesting shadows occurring, and it’ll just make the shot much more interesting and appealing. Plus, it means we can get some awesome silhouette shots, too!

Here we had some really nice window-lighting for the groom’s getting ready shots.

3) Turn to face each other in the aisle

During your ceremony, the officiant will, at some point, ask you to turn and face each other. This is usually for the vows and the ring exchange. Please please PLEASE turn fully. A lot of videographers like to get a shot down the aisle (it’s a really beautiful shot because of the symmetry and because it captures both your faces at the same time). But if you don’t turn to face each other all the way, you’ll end up being kind of diagonal, and we’ll get more of the back of your head than your faces and miss the part where you start blubbering into your own veil/pocket square. So turn to face each other head-on, so that your officiant is on one side, and your guests on the other, gaze into each other’s eyes and let us capture the magic!

A great example of a couple turning to face each other completely

4) Have an unplugged ceremony

Bear in mind: just because you and I are doing everything right, that doesn’t mean your guests won’t get in the way still.

Whether it’s Uncle Trevor and his new Nikon, or Stacy the Serial Insta-Storyer, there will always be somebody watching your ceremony through a screen. And while that’s a shame for you because you invited them there to be present in the moment and enjoy your day, it’s an even bigger shame for us, the videographers, who have to try to shoot around the DSLRs and the iPhones leaning into the aisle. It’s for that reason that we always recommend an ‘unplugged’ ceremony. In essence, this is a ceremony where you ban people from taking photos or videos. I’ve been to quite a few unplugged ceremonies, and the effect is fascinating: people actually sit and watch your ceremony with their own eyes! And I can get a clean shot of your ring exchange without having to have a word with Uncle Trevor – win-win!

5) Don’t try and hold back your emotions

Speaking of blubbering, please don’t try to hold back your emotions. This one applies to men more than women; because of the whole ‘man up’ thing, we’ve found that men are generally reluctant to let their emotions show. When they see their significant other gliding down the aisle, radiating beauty, a lot of men do want to cry, but only a courageous few let that happen. The rest of you try to bottle it up, which results in some of the strangest faces you will ever pull (which isn’t ideal on what is potentially the only day you’ll ever have a professional camera pointing at your face). So don’t bottle it up… let it all out and cry like there’s nobody watching – it will make your Wedding Film ten times better. Plus, it’s a fact that the sight of a man crying is more likely to set somebody else off than the sight of a woman crying; so chances are that, once you start, someone else in that room will join in before long (and, if they’re anything like me, it may well be your videographer).

So there you have it – 5 ways you can help your Wedding Videographer to make your film the best that it can be. Again, these aren’t essential, and they won’t ruin your film if you neglect to follow them, but they will help to foster the ideal conditions for your videographer to work their magic and make you a fantastic Wedding Film that you’ll be proud to show family and friends for the rest of your lives.

Are you reading this on a phone right now? I bet you are… they’re everywhere. I’ve got one. You’ve got one. Your mum’s got one (as evidenced by her comments on all of your insta posts). Don’t get me wrong, phones can be great: access to all your friends, the internet at your fingertips, and an amazing little camera in your pocket. Everybody’s a photographer these days. You can snap away and share online within seconds. But there’s one time and place where people shouldn’t be using their phones, and that’s your wedding day.
In fact, a sea of people photographing and filming you as you come down the aisle can be a real nuisance, and that’s why more and more couples today are choosing to have what’s known as an ‘unplugged ceremony’. What this means is that everyone present is asked not to use their phones, and it really really works.

Here’s three reasons why you should have an unplugged ceremony.

1) People are more present

You’ve been dreaming of this day for 25 years. You’ve kissed so many frogs to find this prince/princess, and after several years together, hundreds of dates and a long, drawn-out engagement, you’re ready to celebrate your relationship. It’s taken a year of late nights, stressful emails and careful compromises to get to this day, to bring all of these people together to celebrate with you. And still, Uncle Jed insists on checking his fantasy football team whilst you’re saying your vows. Who does that guy think he is?!

In all seriousness, phones are a bit of a nuisance when it comes to our attention span. Having an unplugged ceremony can help make sure that people are present in the moment, enjoying your ceremony instead of thinking about that email from work.
After all, you are buying their dinner, so 30 minutes of their attention is the least they can give you…

2) Your photographer and videographer will thank you

As a wedding videographer, my job is to capture your wedding in the best way possible so that you, your friends and your family can relive it at a later date. The problem is that a lot of friends and family choose not to ‘live’ it in the first place. Instead, they choose to watch it all though a 6-inch piece of glass. How they choose to enjoy that unique and special moment is up to them, but it also impacts me and my work, and therefore impacts you too.

I once missed a couple’s two-year old daughter and flower-girl coming down the aisle because a guest was leaning out into the aisle with their video camera, blocking the angle of myself and the photographer. Luckily, that guest got the shot, as did many people recording on their phones, so the couple can still relive that moment. But it’s blurry, it’s pixelated, and (worst-of-all) it’s filmed in portrait instead of landscape. Wouldn’t you rather have professional video of these moments? Otherwise, why bother paying a videographer in the first place?

You could make the argument that guests recording on their phones provides a backup in case something goes wrong and my camera breaks or I lose the footage in some other way. But rest assured, I don’t need your guests – I’ve got it covered.

Even when guests aren’t getting in the way with their phone-based shenanigans, their screens are. Rows of phones*, raised like placards, really do obstruct us from doing our job. It means we may not be able to see you, and we certainly won’t be able to see them. Take a look at the example photo above – how many phones can you count? Imagine what the bride and groom are seeing; not the beaming faces and weepy eye-contact of their friends and family, dozens of shiny slabs of glass.

The worst thing is that those photos and videos will probably never see the light of day. At best, they’ll be used as ammunition for their insta story to show everybody how much fun they’re having. But you won’t be looking at them with your kids in ten years’ time… They won’t be framed on your mantelpiece. In reality, they’re destined to be deleted from that person’s phone six months down the line when they need to free up some space because they’re at somebody else’s wedding…

3) It gives you more to look forward to

You know that experiment with the kids and the marshmallow? Basically, they were given a marshmallow, and if they could wait long enough without eating it, they could have two marshmallows instead of one. This is kind of like that.

Having an unplugged ceremony means that you’ll have more to look forward to further down the line. When you get to see your photos and your wedding film, you’re going to enjoy them so much more than you would if you’d already relived your first kiss seventeen times in the form of facebook posts, snapchats, and that random girl on the train that was watching it back on your bridesmaid’s insta story.

Wouldn’t you rather relive your vows for the first time in high definition, filmed with a camera set-up that cost four times that of your mum’s phone, and by an experienced professional that’s edited it to music to have maximum emotional impact?

So there you have it: three reasons why you should have an unplugged ceremony. Hopefully this has helped you make a decision. Maybe you do want everyone to film the ceremony on their phones, and that’s okay too – it’s your day!
But if you do decide to ban phones, a simple sign or notice will do the trick, and if you mention it to your registrar/vicar/friend-who-got-ordained-online, they’ll usually do an announcement just before the ceremony begins to remind everybody. If you’re lucky, you might even get that really grumpy priest who’ll take the ban really seriously and insist on interrupting the ceremony to shame anybody they see breaking it – and that’s entertaining for everyone!

*Note: This also applies to iPads. Please don’t let people take photos or videos on their iPads. Please. In fact, if they’re the kind of person that uses their iPad as a camera, you probably shouldn’t invite them in the first place… (sorry, grandma).

A couple of weeks ago, I went to RISE, the UK’s first wedding filmmaker retreat. Attended by 75 wedding filmmakers, RISE was a 3 day event down in Cornwall featuring two full days of talks and workshops on everything to do with wedding videography: from marketing, to shooting, to editing. As I’m sure you can imagine, the tickets for this didn’t come cheap, but it was an investment that I didn’t hesitate to make, and that’s for two reasons.

1) The Education Element

As someone who has only been a wedding filmmaker for a couple of years, I still feel I have a lot to learn. I’m really happy with how my videos have progressed and improved since I began filming weddings, but I don’t think it’s ever possible to know too much. Being able to see how other people shoot and edit weddings was an invaluable experience; not only did it affirm that some of my own methods are worthwhile, it also gave me some new ideas and tips on how to make my films better. Even seeing other people’s work that I didn’tlike, and hearing about others’ approaches that I don’t agree with, was useful, because it helps me to focus and consolidate my own approach to wedding filmmaking.

There was also definitely an element of inspiration to RISE. As you shoot more and more weddings, I think it’s easy to get into a bit of a routine and to lose a bit of that focus and passion you once had. But being stuck at a Cove for a few days with so many talented filmmakers was incredibly inspirational. Three full days hearing people talk about what they do, seeing others’ films, and discussing our different approaches left me feeling eager to dive into filming my next wedding.

A talk from Pixel about moving away from established trends.

Photo courtesy of Jennie Breame from Unique Visuals – www.uniquevisuals.co.uk

2) The Social Element

Being stuck at that Cove had another, unexpected effect too. I thought I was going to RISE for the education element; I wanted to make my films better and learn from others. But the biggest benefit for me was in fact the relationships that were made there. 

Photo courtesy of Jennie Breame from Unique Visuals – www.uniquevisuals.co.uk

Being a wedding filmmaker can be a lonely job – I mostly shoot weddings alone, and the rest of my working life is spent editing them (again, alone). RISE provided an opportunity to socialise with a lot of talented filmmakers – some I knew already, and some I didn’t. It was a chance to talk to other like-minded individuals about an industry that I’m sure my friends and family are tired of hearing about. I can honestly say I’ve come back from RISE with a long list of people I can now call friends, and while that’s good for me from a social aspect, it’s also good business sense; forging these networks means that I’ve also come away with a list of people that I’d trust to work with me on a wedding day, and to turn to if – worst-case-scenario – something (illness or otherwise) prevented me from being able to shoot a wedding one day.

When I reflect back on RISE, I remember the workshops, the presentations, the 3am chats about the best way to record ceremonies… but mostly I just feel inspired. There are so many of us in this industry, and everybody has their different take on it. I feel like I have a clear sense of what my take looks like, and I’m excited to refine that over the coming season.

2019 wedding season, let’s go.

Oh my god. It’s here. Your USB drive has arrived, and it’s like a tiny brick of GOLD. Moments that will never happen again, memories that are already starting to fade, faces you may never see again. They’re all on this stick, this feat of modern technology. Your entire wedding day, sitting in the palm of your hand. We must cherish it, forever!

When it comes to looking after your Wedding Film, there are several things you can do to make sure you never lose it:

1. Back up

USB drives are pretty incredible. But they’re not indestructible. They can be broken, they can get lost, and they can also randomly decide to stop working. The only way to guard against this is to back up your files. This is the first thing you should be doing when you’ve received your USB (after watching your films, of course). Copy the files to your computer, copy them to another hard drive or USB drive, upload them online to Google Drive or Dropbox or something similar. Whatever you do, just make sure that USB is not the only copy you have.

2. Store it well

It probably goes without saying that you should keep your USB drive somewhere safe. But what does that mean?

First of all, it means somewhere you can remember. This tiny treasure can easily become lost, especially when you’re two children and a new house down the line, and you don’t even own the chest of drawers you used to keep it in.

Secondly, this means storing it somewhere where it’s not going to be damaged by water or extreme temperatures (yes, that does mean that the fridge/oven/garden are not ideal places). Likewise, it doesn’t need to be stored in a safe guarded by alsatians – just keep it in a drawer or a cupboard somewhere.

Oh, and keep the lid on too – this protects the USB connector from getting damaged or from getting dust inside, which can stop your computer from being able to read it.

3. Use it properly!

I know you’re eager to watch. You’re just seconds away from being able to cringe at footage of your own two left feet. But slow down.

Using a USB drive properly means making sure your computer is booted up and logged in before you plug in the USB. Apparently, plugging it in beforehand can risk an electric surge or shock to the USB drive, which wouldn’t be ideal. So wait before you plug it in, and then wait again before you unplug it! Don’t just yank it out to throw back in the fridge cupboard. You’re supposed to ‘Eject’ it first. This is done by right clicking and selecting ‘Eject’ or ‘Safely remove’. On Windows, you’ll then be told when it’s safe to remove, whilst on a Mac the drive will simply disappear from your Finder window and you can then unplug it.

So there you have it: three steps to preserve your wedding film. Of course, after the first point, not much else matters, because you’ll have it backed up (hopefully more than once). Nevertheless, if you do happen to forget to back up, and your safe-guarding alsatians have an off-day, bear in mind that I keep all files for one year after the date of your wedding. This means that at any point before your first wedding anniversary, I can always send you another USB drive at a small cost.