A wedding film is made from the gaps in the day as much as the set pieces. Here is how a single-venue wedding with a 2pm ceremony tends to run, and where the film gains or loses.
11.30am: preparations
We arrive about two and a half hours before the ceremony. The useful part of getting ready is the last forty-five minutes: the dress going on, the buttons, the first look in the mirror, the parents arriving. Before that it is hair and make-up and a lot of people in a small room, which is fine for a few detail shots and nothing more. If you want both partners’ mornings filmed and they are in different places, you need a second filmmaker or a very tolerant schedule.
1.15pm: the ceremony room
We need forty-five minutes in an empty room to set two cameras, rig the microphones and check the light where you will stand. If guests are already seated when we arrive, we are rigging around them and the shots suffer. Tell the venue we need access.
2pm: ceremony
Thirty minutes for a civil ceremony, forty-five to an hour for a church. The one thing that improves a ceremony film more than anything else is asking the registrar or vicar in advance where filming is permitted. Most are happy with two static positions. A few want you to ask on the day, which is too late.
2.45pm: confetti and drinks
Confetti is thirty seconds and worth planning: where you walk, where the guests stand, who has the confetti. Then ninety minutes of drinks is where the film gets its texture: people laughing, children running about, the groom’s friends. Do not fill this time with a long formal photo list. Keep the group shots to six or eight and give yourselves twenty minutes away with the photographer and us.
4.30pm: wedding breakfast
Nothing much happens on camera for ninety minutes except the entrance, which is worth a shot. This is when we eat if you have fed us, and back up cards.
6pm: speeches
Speeches before dinner are kinder to the speakers; after dinner is traditional. Either works for film as long as the room is quiet and the microphone is working. Ask the DJ to test it before the first speaker stands up, and ask the speakers to use it even if they think their voice carries.
7.30pm: first dance
Cake cut, then first dance, then the floor opens. If you want the evening in the film, twenty minutes of a full dancefloor is plenty. After that we are filming the same people doing the same thing in worse light, and most couples do not want to pay for it.
The two places couples under-plan are the empty ceremony room before guests arrive and the twenty minutes alone after the ceremony. Protect both and the film takes care of itself.