The ultimate guide to becoming a wedding videographer in 2021
If there is one field of expertise in filmmaking that I know more about than any other, it’s creating wedding films. Almost from the moment I graduated university I found myself thrown into the deep end of the wedding industry, completely out of my depth. It was hard work, terrifying, and very fast paced, but most importantly it taught me more about filmmaking in one month than three years of higher education did.
It taught me how to react to moments before they happen so I captured them perfectly, I learned to nail exposure every time in any lighting, I developed my own sense of editing style and even more crucially I learned so much about operating and running a business.
Breaking into the wedding industry as a filmmaker or photographer isn’t too difficult. In fact, all you really need are a handful of good weddings under your belt that you can advertise and showcase to future couples! You can learn and develop your skills as you grow, however, you have to absolutely LOVE what you do if you’re going to last in this industry.
The days are long, you will have a lot of admin to do and you absolutely can’t afford to mess up. There are no retakes on a wedding day. If you miss capturing a special moment then it’s gone forever.
If you haven’t been scared off by that yet and are still feeling excited by the prospect of getting the chance to become a part of a couple’s special day and keeping the memories of it alive for years to come then continue reading! I will teach you everything I know so you can get stuck right into it!!
HOW TO START A WEDDING VIDEOGRAPHY BUSINESS IN 2021
Branding
First things first. Let’s talk branding. This is one of the first things you need to consider when starting your wedding videography business. You need to have a really good sense of who you are, how people perceive you and you absolutely need to know the reason why you’re becoming a wedding filmmaker.
Couples will be able to immediately tell if you’re pretending to be someone you’re not. Being honest and real with your couples and your branding will not only make them trust you more but will also help push away the couples who aren’t the right fit for your business and personality.
So how do you create a brand that represents you?
There is no one-size-fits-all answer for this but these are the steps I took when I created my wedding film business.
Figure out a brand name
Create a logo and basic colour scheme
Build a website
Make social media accounts
One of my biggest concerns, when I was creating my wedding videography business, was what I should name the business. After all, it’s difficult to take the next steps before you know what to call yourself!
When I was setting up my business in 2014 I had seen that a lot of wedding photographers and videographers were either incorporating their name into their business or would create a whole new ‘brand’ with an interesting name to advertise to couples. The way I see it is that there is no right or wrong way to go about it and it will be entirely up to you as to what you choose. For me, I ended up creating a brand as I wanted to keep my wedding work separate from everything else I would create.
I did this because people who come to your website to view your work just quite simply aren’t interested in seeing music videos, travel films or anything else outside of weddings. They want to be able to see exactly what they can expect so that’s what you need to deliver.
After that, I spent an hour or two making my logo and hammering out the colour scheme I liked. This helped keep everything consistent across my website and social media. This aspect of your business isn’t super important as you don’t have to get this right the first time. Every brand and website go through changes as time goes on, so you can continually update this aspect of your branding as you grow.
If you are really struggling with choosing brand colours and creating a logo then you can always ask friends and family who are good at design to help you. Failing that, you can always head to websites like Fiverr to pay someone to create your branding for you!
Once you know what you are calling yourself, go ahead and create all of the social media accounts that you think you might need. I have personally found Instagram to be the best tool when it comes to free advertising for weddings, but you may as well set accounts up for every other app too (even if you don’t plan on using it) to make sure your handle doesn’t get sniped by someone else.
You will also want to make a website to act as the central hub where your wedding films will live. Feel free to use any website builder that you like for this! I personally use Squarespace for both my wedding website and this one. I’ve used them for years now and I genuinely love how easy it is to get started using them.
When it comes to building your website there is so much to learn and take into consideration. You will want to make sure your website is clean, easy to navigate and has clear ‘calls to action’ throughout it.
You can take a look at my wedding film website to get an idea of what I’m talking about, but you essentially want to do your best to take visitors to your website on a journey that ends with them contacting you.
You will see from my website that as soon as you open the homepage you are told what we do, couples looking for wedding films will immediately know they’re in the right place, and there is a button leading to the contact page directly underneath it.
Aside from this, I have also made sure that the banner takes up about 65% of the pages real estate, to show visitors that there is more information underneath which encourages them to scroll down and takes them on the journey of seeing who we are and what we do. All of the content on the website is written in the way I would actually say it out loud. I don’t pretend to be someone I’m not and it comes through in how I write. This is so soooo important in building trust with your clients! If you’re the type of person who is really energetic and hyped about everything then make sure your content reflects that!
Looking at the navigation bar at the top of the page you can also see that it’s laid out in order of what is most important to visitors to the site. Most couples want to see our work first before learning more about us so that is why our films and photography take precedence over the about page.
It is overwhelming in the beginning to figure out the journey you want to take your visitors on, especially if you don’t have much work to showcase, but it is definitely worth keeping in mind that an important part of your branding will come from how friendly your website is to the people viewing it.
Now you have your website and social media accounts created you need to fill everything up with content.
For this, I would highly recommend asking around all of your friends, family and anyone else you can think of to find out if they know of anyone who is getting married that would be happy for you to come along and film their day.
You could also reach out to already established wedding videographers who you admire and ask to shoot alongside and assist them for free, as long as they allow you to keep a copy of your footage to use for your own edits.
If you’re really stuck you could run a competition for a free wedding shoot or spend money on ads, but I would avoid doing this until you’ve shot some weddings as it’s hard to advertise when the imagery you use isn’t your own.
Getting these first few weddings may be tough but it will be worth it when you are able to then begin drawing in your first paying clients!
EQUIPMENT
Talking about equipment for weddings takes a long time. It’s a very involved process as you want to make sure you are carrying almost all of your kit on you for the majority of the day, while still being light and inconspicuous enough to allow you to freely move and blend in.
As it happens, I have already written extensively about the equipment I use and how I use it on a wedding day. So if you are stuck on where to start with what you will need for your own wedding film business then I highly suggest you go read it!
I cover all of the cameras, lenses, audio gear, tripods and even bags that I use and why I use them the way that I do. Even if you choose different brands for all of your gear I still think you might find some useful insights as to why I have picked particular equipment over others!
Marketing
Once you have all of your branding and equipment figured out, now comes the hard part. In fact, this is the part I like the least and it’s definitely my weakest point when it comes to being a freelancer and running my business.
That said, when you are beginning your journey as a wedding filmmaker and you don’t have very many wedding films to showcase to potential clients it can be hard to know where to start in order to draw people in. Thankfully you don’t necessarily have to show weddings to couples who want to book you.
When I began marketing my wedding business in 2014 I asked around my friends and family if they wanted some free photos and videos of them and their partners in exchange for me being able to use them on my social media and website. Not everyone said yes but plenty did! It was a great start to be able to have this content to post and get eyeballs on what I was doing. A lot of photographers and videographers will have similar content on their own social media platforms that showcase ‘couple sessions’ or ‘pre-wedding sessions’ as it’s part of the packages they offer. When you’re starting out I would highly recommend doing this as even if you’re only doing it for friends and family you are able to make it look like they have already booked you for a future wedding and you are doing a couple’s session with them!
Another decent avenue for marketing when you are starting out is to take part in wedding fairs. You will need to have some kind of work to be able to show here, as well as flyers with info about you and the packages you offer, but these can be great for connecting with couple’s you wouldn’t have been able to reach before.
The drawback from this form of marketing is that you will have to pay a sometimes sizable chunk of money upfront and you can’t guarantee that you will earn it back, especially if couple’s don’t resonate with your work. That said however, because you are there in person you will be able to bring your personality to the fore and get the chance to chat with couple’s face to face. This immediately builds trust and if you make a great first impression then you are likely to get at least one or two bookings!
My only advice here is to make sure that you do your research on the fair before you sign up. Different fairs attract different kinds of people, with different budgets and styles for their wedding. In order to get the most out of your investment at a wedding fair, you have to make sure you only attend wedding fairs that are likely to attract the kinds of couple’s you would like to work with.
Aside from marketing on social media and attending wedding fairs, you will probably find that the majority of your marketing will come from word of mouth. I cannot stress enough how important this form of marketing is!!
When you get your first wedding clients you have to treat them like they are the most important people in the world. You need to be open and honest with them in all of your emails, calls and in person meetings. Offer to take them out for a coffee to chat with them about how they met, how their engagement happened, what made them realise that they were ‘the one’ for each other. Avoid trying to upsell anything to them and really make an effort to get to know them. Essentially you are trying to build a relationship with them outside of just being a wedding filmmaker.
I’m not suggesting you have to chat to them every day or become best friends but putting in that extra bit of effort to show them that you actually care about them will build up their trust in you. But more importantly than that, you have to live up to and exceed their expectations! This means you need to operate your business by making sure you ‘under promise and over deliver’.
What do I mean by this? Put simply, you have to give your couple extra value for their money.
Rather than saying you will provide them extra edits of their films for social media, or that you will bring along a drone to capture aerials of their venue, you just do it without mentioning it at all. Giving a couple additional films or footage that they weren’t expecting will make them want to recommend you to their friends and family, after all, you just gave them a fantastic experience!!
Additionally, it doesn’t have to end once you have finished editing their wedding. If you set aside an extra 10 minutes when you’re finished editing, you could easily put together a 30-60 second highlight video for your own social media to wish them a happy one year anniversary.
The more effort you put in for your earliest clients, and any after that who you really get along with, will help set you up on the road to success for years to come!
Pricing and package building
When it comes to how much you should charge for your services I’m afraid I can’t give you a hard and fast number. Pricing is an entirely subjective, and occasionally contentious, issue amongst professional wedding photographers and filmmakers. Really only you can decide what feels like a good balance between compensation for the time you put into your work and what the couple receive for their money.
What I am able to tell you though is where you can begin looking to figure out where you sit in the grand scheme of pricing your work.
To start, you need to be completely honest with yourself on your skill level and how good your final product is. Once you know this you can begin by looking for other wedding videographers and photographers who are offering a similar style of product to you.
There are so many different styles of wedding video out there, ranging from high class celebrity weddings with massive budgets who hire in cinema cameras and multiple operators to film everything, right the way to solo shooters who create fast paced edits that immediately grab your attention. It might take time but it’s important you identify what style most matches your own, or at least the style you want to try to emulate.
Once you have found someone offering work in a similar style, check out their website and social media for any indication on what they charge. Some people will have their exact pricing and packages listed out for potential clients to read before they contact them, and others will simply have a ‘Prices begin at X amount’ on their contact page. Either way, it gives you an idea of what others in the industry, and more specifically the niche you are in, are charging for their services.
I should also note that it’s important to only look within your local area or country, as if you begin comparing the prices of weddings within the different countries of the UK there is a big difference between wedding prices in Northern Ireland, where I live, and with England, and more specifically London. So where you live plays an important aspect of your pricing too!
With this information, and by being honest about your skill level, you will be able to get a much clearer picture of where you sit within the industry.
You want to make sure that you aren’t pricing yourself so cheap that you lower the cost for others in your area, but at the same time you don’t want to be charging three times as much as someone who is providing a better service and end quality product.
As you grow and become more experienced at weddings you will be able to increase your pricing relative to the knowledge you have gained and the added value you are able to provide your couple’s. It’s a slow climb but it’s one that is worth it!!
In terms of how best to create packages and show it to people who make enquiries, I would recommend starting with two or three packages that provide increasing levels of value to the couple. For example, your first package could offer a solo shooter for the whole day and the couple receive a 3 minute creative film and a 15 minute film of the whole day, and your third package could include a second shooter with the films increasing in length as well as full edits of the ceremony and speeches, with the second package sitting somewhere between the two.
Having this choice for your couples allows them to decide on what is most important to them as well as giving you the opportunity to earn additional money by providing them extra value.
‘Making It’ As A Wedding Filmmaker
Setting goals for yourself as a wedding filmmaker is a really important step to making sure you grow continually for years to come. It can be quite difficult to measure the success of something that isn’t necessarily tangible though… As I said at the beginning, becoming part of the wedding industry is hard work, you really have to be passionate about your couples and celebrate their love as much as their friends and family. So how exactly do you know that you’ve ‘made it’ as a wedding videographer?
For me, I knew that I had reached that milestone when I was able to talk to one of my couple’s about an idea that I had for their wedding film and they immediately hopped on board and flew me out to San Francisco because they trusted in me and my work so much that they knew I could deliver. Ever since that wedding I now get a handful of weddings each year that bring me out to cover their destination wedding, and that is so exciting for me!
What your success will look like will depend on the goals you set yourself. If you are currently working in a 9-5 job and want to be able to work from home as a wedding videographer then your road to success will likely be that you’ve ‘made it’ when you are able to earn the same as your current salary from creating wedding films.
Whatever your goals are, here are some simple tips I can give you so you can become a successful wedding videographer for years to come.
Figure out the costs of running your business and then factor that into how much you plan on paying yourself every month. If you want to match what you currently earn then you need to be earning more than you do every month right now. Why? Because you will have to not only spend money for one off things like equipment and training, but also for other things like your website, email, cloud storage, etc. And you will need to factor in that you will have to pay tax on your earnings too.
In your first few years of business you will likely have to cut back on some of the luxuries you might be accustomed to. But don’t worry, it doesn’t last forever. This short term loss for long term gain will only be a small stepping stone on your road to becoming a full-time wedding filmmaker.
And on that note, don’t quit another job until you are ready to do so! Seriously, don’t!! I was lucky when I created my wedding film business as I was fresh out of university, lived at home and didn’t have a mortgage or kids. I was in a position where I could drop everything else and focus solely on my business and it still took me about three years to reach a point where I was able to pay myself a consistent wage.
You will have to be realistic with yourself about how much you can earn, save and spend each month from your business and make sure you are very comfortable with knowing how to make it continue to grow before you remove the safety net of a stable job. The wedding industry as a whole is saturated with hundreds if not thousands of suppliers offering exactly the same as you, so you have to be sure you can draw in the right clients in the right numbers to support your business. Don’t feel pressured into making a leap before you are ready, but at the same time don’t be afraid to set yourself goals that may seem a bit scary to achieve.
Look at what everyone else is doing and see if you can do it differently. This may sound strange, because if everyone else is offering something and it’s working for them then surely it should work for you too, right?
While you’re not wrong, it definitely is important to take a look at what is currently being offered in your niche and figuring out why people are drawn to it. But if you are able to put yourself in a position where you are one of the first people to offer the same product in a new and innovative way then you are immediately setting yourself apart from 90% of other filmmakers. It may not suit every couple, but if you are offering it as an additional extra then they don’t necessarily have to choose it.
Embrace what makes you different, whether it’s the end product you provide, the service you give your couple’s during the enquiry stage, or even how you brand and market your product.
And finally, the biggest and most important piece of advice I can give you is to invest in yourself.
For as long as you run your business it is important to make the effort to constantly grow and develop new skills. Setting aside the time to learn from industry experts at workshops, online courses or reading books will only serve to fill in gaps in your knowledge and strengthen your work not only in practical filmmaking but also in marketing and business development.
Identify what areas you are weakest at in either your filmmaking or running your business and discover what courses are out there that help you bridge the gap between you and your goal.