Let's get the bias out of the way. We make wedding films, so of course we think you should have one. But we also know couples who were right not to book a videographer, and we would rather you decide well than book us and wonder afterwards whether you needed to. So here is the case as fairly as we can make it, and you can weigh it yourself.
You'll notice this page doesn't mention what a film costs. That's deliberate. Whether you want one and whether you can afford one are two different questions, and we have answered the second one elsewhere. This is only about the first.
Photographs keep what the day looked like. A film keeps what it sounded like, and that turns out to be most of it.
What a photograph does that a film never will
A single frame you can put on the wall. Look at every morning. Hand to your grandmother in an envelope. Photographers are extraordinary at this, and the best Irish ones are among the best anywhere. A film does not replace a photograph and it never will. If you are genuinely choosing one or the other, choose the photographer. We mean that.
What a film keeps
Voices. That's the whole answer, really, and the rest of this is detail.
Your father's speech in his own voice, not the version somebody remembers. The vows as you actually said them, with the pause where you had to stop, and the laugh from the third pew. The song the band played for the first dance and the room singing along to it. The sound of the church door opening. The way your mother said your name when she saw the dress. Photographs are silent, and most of what you will want back in ten years has sound.
There is also the matter of who wasn't there. A grandparent who couldn't travel. A brother in Australia who flew home for forty-eight hours and missed the morning. A child who was two and will not remember any of it. The film goes to them. The photographs do too, of course, but a film puts them in the room in a way an album can't, and for the person who missed it that difference is everything.
Who genuinely doesn't need one
Being fair means saying this part properly.
Couples who really dislike being filmed and know they would be tense all day. We can help with that more than people expect, and we have written about how, but if the idea of a camera makes your shoulders rise, that matters more than anything we could say. Very small ceremonies with no speeches and no dancing, where the whole event is an hour long, often don't need a film either. And some people simply aren't film people. They wouldn't watch it. That is completely fine, and it is better to know it about yourself now than to have a beautiful film on a hard drive you never open.
Who does
Anyone with speeches they care about, which is most people once they think about it. Anyone whose family is scattered or elderly. Anyone who has ever watched an old home video of a relative and gone quiet. And anyone who has read this far, if we are honest, because people who don't want a film tend not to read articles about whether they should.
One of our couples, Órla and James, wrote to us after their film arrived and said "Now we're so sad we didn't book the longer package. We would love to see more." We didn't ask them to say it and we have never forgotten it. Nobody has ever written to us to say the opposite.
How to decide
- Watch one full wedding film, any videographer's, start to finish. Not a trailer. A whole one. If you get to the end without checking your phone, you want one. If you don't, you have your answer, and it is a perfectly good answer.
- Think about who isn't going to be there. Write the names down. The film is for them as much as for you.
- Ask your photographer. A good one will tell you honestly whether they would want a film at their own wedding. In our experience most of them say yes, and several of the ones we work with booked one for theirs.
That's the case, as fairly as two videographers can put it. If it lands, we would love to hear about your day. If it doesn't, book a wonderful photographer, have a wonderful wedding, and know that you made the decision with your eyes open.
With warmth,