How much should you pay for a wedding video?

Do you want a cheap wedding video? Or a good one? Can it be both?

The key to ensuring you get a video you like, fitting your budget, is to understand the aspects involved in video production, and how much they cost the producer. These factors can include: hours, crew, expertise, equipment, stock, preproduction and planning, post production such as editing, format delivery and DVD authoring.

Before looking into video production companies to film your wedding why not ask yourself what you really want in a wedding video? - Do you want it to look as special as the photography? Or is it just a record of the day? OR is it both?

The cheapest way to improve the quality of your video production is by including a good helping of inspiration. It's free, and you can get heaps researching videos online!  If you get really excited about making a feature movie revolving around the happiest day of your life, the price will stay the same but the video will be so much more personal and precious to you.

Building your production to budget
Look at a producer's work and, if you like it, ask what was involved in achieving the levels of production shown.

Your producer should be more than happy to discuss with you the possibilities for having great video coverage which works in with your preferences and your budget. They might allocate part of the budget to cover additional crew if you want multiple cameras during the ceremony and speeches, or if you want particular shots requiring specialised equipment (such as a camera jib, dolly or spotlight).  You could reduce your costs by reducing the camera team after the bridal waltz, if you don't feel you need multiple angles of the party games and dancing.

You may not need to pay for post production/editing straight away. Post production is done only after the shoot, and you could consider having it done at a later date. There's no reason why you couldn't choose to purchase just the raw files initially and have it edited later (you might even try to edit it yourself), as long as you have the great footage to start with.

I suppose the real answer is: spend what a video of the people and events at your wedding is worth to you as a couple.