The average cost of a wedding in Australia is about $35,000.  I like to use the pie analogy.  Consider you have large apple pie and this pie represents your wedding budget.

You have to cut it up into various sized pieces and allocate them to various wedding vendors.  Some couples have a love for cars whilst others want extravagant wedding rings.  These get a bigger slice of pie.  Some couples would rather save on the Reception so it gets a smaller slice of pie.

The point being, at the end of the day, most people have the same size pie to divide up.  Nearly every wedding has a photographer whilst only a small fraction has a videographer.  My research indicates that only about 20% of couples actually get a wedding video, even though the quality and creativity of wedding videos has drastically improved in recent years.

Those who don’t prioritise wedding video but still want one are often left in a difficult position.  Keeping with the pie analogy, wedding videographers are usually served last (that is, we are booked last by nature).  By this stage there is often only a broken off piece of crust, a smear of apple filling and the foil tray left.  What kind of video can you get with this?  Not a very good one unfortunately.

Source: Google Images

I can speak from personal experience as my wife and I had both a wedding photographer and wedding videographer for our wedding.  We have an awesome print on the wall at home and we absolutely love it.  We did decide to get an album and it looks great.  The last time we looked at it was probably 5 years ago, having now been married 8 years.  Our wedding video is not great.  It is single camera, standard definition letterbox and has no highlight reel.  It has cheesy special effects and it makes us cringe when we watch it.  The point is, ‘we do actually watch our Wedding DVD’.  A lot changes in 8 years.  My grandparents are no longer with us and my mother-in-law has also passed away.  This wedding film is the only family video we have at that point in our lives.  It now acts as a nice memento for our family and more so, my wife.  Photos are great but they cannot replace the video footage of loved ones enjoying our wedding or the two of us saying our vows.

So, if wedding video is important to you and your fiance and you have saved us a piece of pie, congratulations.  You will not be disappointed.  For those still considering video, think carefully before you dish out all of that apple pie.  Have a serious think about video and look at the quality of work available from different studios before you decide video is an investment you are willing to sacrifice.

For more information please refer to our Melbourne Wedding Video Packages and Our Work.