Filming in an Irish church: what the priest will and won't allow

We have filmed in cathedrals with a gallery you could land a plane on, and in one-room country churches where the back pew is four steps from the altar. There is no national rule for what a photographer or videographer can do during an Irish church wedding. The priest sets it, or the parish does, and so it varies. Most are reasonable. A few are strict. A very small number don't allow filming during the ceremony at all, and that is much better to learn when you book the church than on the morning.

Everything ranking online for this question is written for England or America, where the norms are different. This is how it actually works here, from two people who have stood in a lot of Irish churches trying to be invisible.

Ask the priest one question when you book the church and the whole thing is settled.

What most churches allow

Filming from fixed positions. No flash, which is the photographer's problem more than ours. No walking up the aisle once the ceremony has started. Staying outside the sanctuary, which is the area around the altar, usually marked by a rail or a step. Some priests will simply point at two spots on arrival and say "there and there", and that is the whole briefing.

That is the majority experience, and it suits the way we work anyway. A ceremony filmed calmly from two or three still cameras, with clear sound, is nearly always better than one filmed by somebody creeping around. Stillness is right for the film. The priest and the filmmaker want the same thing here, whether or not either of them says so.

What some churches restrict

A few parishes go further. Some ask for no movement at all once the bride is in, so every camera has to be placed before then and left. Some don't allow anyone inside the rail under any circumstances, which rules out the close angle on the vows from the side. Some ask that nothing is filmed during the consecration, the central part of the Mass, and we honour that. And a small number, more often older priests in rural parishes, don't allow photography or video during the ceremony itself. In that case you still have the arrivals, the door, the walk out, the confetti and the car, and the ceremony is remembered rather than recorded.

None of this is common. All of it is knowable in advance.

Where we stand, and why

Below is the usual shape of it in a church that allows the normal things. We arrive early, find the priest or the sacristan, and ask where we can and can't be. Then we place the cameras and, from the moment the music starts, we don't move.

Camera A at the back gives the wide shot and the walk in. B and C, at the front on either side and outside the rail, give the faces and the vows. The sound comes from a small recorder near the lectern and, where the church has one, a feed from the PA. That is how you get the vows clearly even when the priest's microphone is having a bad day, which they do. We have written separately about how sound is captured in churches and dark rooms, because it is the thing that goes wrong most often and is noticed least until it has.

What to ask when you book the church

• "Is there anything the photographer or videographer can't do during the ceremony?" One sentence. The priest will either say "no, just be sensible" or tell you exactly what the rule is. Either way, you now know, and so do we.
• Whether there is a gallery or balcony, and whether you can use it. It is the best position in the building for the wide shot. Not every church lets anyone up there, and some galleries haven't been safe to stand in for decades.
• Whether the priest uses a microphone. Many do. Some don't, especially in small churches, and then the audio plan changes. Better to know.
• Whether you can walk through it beforehand. A rehearsal is ideal. Even ten minutes in the church the week before helps us plan the walk in, which is the shot everyone asks about afterwards.

If your church turns out to be one of the strict ones, please don't worry about the film. The ceremony is one part of the day. The nerves at the door, the walk out into the light, the moment on the steps when everyone lets go: none of that is inside the rail, and all of it ends up in the film. And where a priest asks for stillness during the vows, honestly, the stillness suits us. Some of the most moving ceremony footage we have ever cut came from a single fixed camera that never moved and a clean recording of two voices.

If you are choosing between a church and a civil or humanist ceremony, we have written about how each one changes the film. They are more different than people expect.