Lets say that your filming both the ceramony and reception. How long is your average end product?

I edit short form so I say probably between 40 and 60 minutes for the edited product.


I know a lot of folks that do long form and they're around 1:45 and 2 hours.

Different strokes for different folks.

Lets say that your filming both the ceramony and reception. How long is your average end product?

My full wedding, reception, pre-ceremony, etc coverage usually releases a final DVD of about 45 minutes (depending on the length of the ceremony).

i usually have the full ceremony, so 20-40 min. then the reception edit which is about 40-1.5 hours depending on speeches and then the 5 minute highlight

Typically:
3-5 minutes preceremony montage
20-40 minutes for the ceremony
5 minutes of photo session montage
30-40 minutes of reception

One/two songs for highlights (includes get ready, arrivals, procession, rings, kiss) then seperate clips of speeches, toss, cake, reception - each linked seperatly from the main menu delivered on blu-ray using Sony Vegas.

I give them 2 DVD's for a full wedding.

DVD1 has the bride and groom prep (around 5 mins each), ceremony (most here are outdoors so that's around 15 mins) and the photoshoot (around 10mins)

DVD2 has the reception arrival (2 mins) speeches (up to 30mins) a little bit of dancing (about 6 mins) the cake and first dance (5 mins) and then garter and bouquet (around 5 mins each) and then the farewell (10 mins)

The first disk is normally no more than 35mins but longer for Church weddings

The second disk is normally about 60 mins ..depends on the speeches!!!

Chris

I did a lot of asian weddings. They usually start in the morning with the door games and tea ceremony at bride's house. Then another tea ceremony at groom's side. If they have a catholic wedding, that will be another hour. There will be a photo session followed. Cock tail hour and reception. The final DVD usually 2 to 4 hours. If it gets longer, I will split onto a Main movie DVD and a Bonus DVD.

Depends what coverage the bride wants.
My DVD's can range from 30 minutes to a full 2 hours, but on average it's around 1 hour.

45 mins to 1 hour. Speeches I do not put in the main film cause they drag the piece down, I leave them unedited and put them on disc 2 in their entirety.


From all my feedback 45 to 1 hour is perfect and no one gets bored. I've actually had people send me their 3 hour DVDs ( filmed by another company) to re-edit in a more funky fast modern style.

In my market (Polish weddings) the videos don't get shorter then 3 hrs for "full package".

10-15 min for intro + B&G preps
50 min church ceremony
10 min photoshoot
5-10 mins for coctail hour
2-2.5 hrs of reception (inclu. interviews, speeches, official parts, cake, etc)
10 min highlights

I know it's tooooooo much but ppl are expecting 100% coverage from the day - unfortunately that's my market.

I prefer 3-5 min highlight and 30-45 min DVD for ceremony and reception

A videographer's job is to document the event. If someone delivers a 15 minutes speech, the entire speech should be kept in the DVD. Editing work is done upon cut-aways and taking out dead moment or so. That's why there is a highlights video to show a short version of the wedding.

Ours is 45 mins - 1 hr
that is including preps, ceremony , photoshoot, reception..
We edit each chapter as a highlight reel..

Its a harder edit to keep final movies shorter but in the end most clients prefer something they can watch in a shorter timeframe..

For my company, it really depends on how long the ceremony is. I've shot a number of cultural weddings that traditionally run a lot longer. For instance, a full ceremony for Indian weddings can last up to three hours long.

wow, so what guys you do with the speeches?
do you put them on separate DVD? for example early this year I had a wedding when bride's father was talking for half hour, and he wasn't just talking, he prepared the speech, never mind sisters and brothers and friends and relatives, how you gonna cut that?

one or two song highlight reel (prefer one song) and a documentary edit which consists of the full ceremony & reception cut up by event. Usually somewhere around 45min.. depending on the ceremony.

I must admit I have never had all the speeches run for more than 30 mins. If they did I would probably contact the bride and suggest an extra DVD to stop viewers getting bored. I guess some brides need each and every word on record..if that is what they want then we have to supply it. I also do an shortened version of their ceremony (about 8 mins worth) and then combine that with some of the event highlights to make up their "hilites" DVD which never runs more than 20 mins in total. This is what they usually show people rather than the longer stuff and relatives and friends overseas get the shorter version as well. It's well known the the maximum concentration time of a human is less than 20 mins..(yep, the ad breaks in your favorite soapie are there for a reason!!!) It is logical therefore that the best result would be a DVD of 20 mins or less but you still provide the bride with the longer version purely for her records!!

Chris

this is a really interesting thread and very informative - I've been wondering about the ideal length (Smith - stop gigling!!)

I'm only a beginner in the wedding side of things and I find I'm supplying 2 DVD's - one with highlights of prep, ceremony & photo shoot & reception and another with complete footage (minus the wobly bits) of prep, ceremony & reception

I think I might be overloading them..

I also do an shortened version of their ceremony (about 8 mins worth) and then combine that with some of the event highlights to make up their "hilites" DVD which never runs more than 20 mins in total. This is what they usually show people rather than the longer stuff and relatives and friends overseas get the shorter version as well. It's well known the the maximum concentration time of a human is less than 20 mins..(yep, the ad breaks in your favorite soapie are there for a reason!!!) It is logical therefore that the best result would be a DVD of 20 mins or less but you still provide the bride with the longer version purely for her records!!

Chris

That in my opinion is a long form edit/highlight.. which I have personally always frowned upon; I think its way too long. Stick to a 3-5 min song and make it fun, then put that online and let their friends enjoy it in just a few minuets instead of an agonizing 20.

my ave lenght is 25 mins

Hi Michael

I guess brides are different here!! I used to offer a 3 min highlight set to music for them and no-one was interested, not even on-line!! On line they want the ceremony vows and rings so friends overseas can watch it!! Different places and different tastes.
We have to cater to what our clients want not what we think they want.

Chris

Really.. that's interesting! I guess I could see that considering the location restraints of overseas guests.

The way I now offer it, and the same way I know a few company's do it, is to offer the speeches uncut as a special feature as an extra cost.

The way they end up in my final feature's is cut up, and alternating back and forth.

i.e. If there's a shot of, for example, a father saying, "[Bride or groom] has always been a bit reserved." Cut to the Best Man's speech, "I remember when the three of us decided to go rock climbing..." (Bad example, but you know what I mean).

I use reaction shots from the bride and groom to cover any bad cuts. Whole thing is about 6 or 7 minutes long.

Most people think they want all 30 minutes of speeches, but you'd be amazed how effective the best bits trimmed into a short sequence can be.

I read the above and I'm thinking "some people are just lucky, I want that too" :) . In Greece, wedding video tends to be between 2 and 2 1/2 hours long, sometimes less, sometimes even more. Main highlights video is around 4-5 minutes, bride-groom preparation and other stuff until the entrance to the church last around 15-20 minutes, the ceremony lasts around 40 minutes (the smaller ceremonies last around 20 minutes, when the priest is in a hurry :) ) while sometimes it may last 50-55 minutes! Since we offer full multicamera coverage, everything is going to the DVD and unfortunately the ceremonies are not that nice like the ones in the US/Canada/Western Europe, with all those words and touching moments.

Another thing that can add to DVD time is something that bores the hell out of me. After the ceremony (and inside or outside the church), all guests approach the couple and family and say their wishes. It sounds good but it's not. It's about 500 hundred people getting in the row (sometimes not in a row, but like being in a heavy metal concert) and giving hands to the couple. That can last from 20 minutes to 40. This is genuine bore, it's nearly impossible to approach it artistically and the couples want it badly (so they see who was there)! If I had the choice to remove one thing from Greek weddings, it should be that one. It takes DVD space and breaks to the middle the creativity of the rest of the shooting.

After that, it comes the photoshoot, which I don't count as time-consuming , since almost everything that's being shot, goes to the main highlights video. If there is too much material, it goes to a seperate video.

And then the dances. This is by far the most space-consuming part. After the entrance of the couple and their dance, the traditional dances begin. It is unspeakable for a Greek traditional wedding not to cover all the dancing of the main members of the families (parents, brothers, sisters, couple, and of course the best men etc). This can make the dancing part reach 1 1/2 hours time! At last we do it all in steadicam so it's fun to watch!

Imagine rendering all that material in 1920X1080 H264 for Bluray authoring. It literally takes days on a quad-core PC.

In the UK everyone does the 2-3 hour video, so why bother trying to compete?

We do a 20-30 min main movie which includes the ceremony down to just 3 mins.

OMG!! I hear some of you cry. But be honest, what in the ceremony do the couple want to see over and over?

If they want the full 3 hour edit, plenty of others offering this.

Give it a go at least once, see what the folks think.

There's this thing called "editing"... it's part of the skill set you have to develop, and it can be awkward.

If you're shooting an all day affair, I'll suggest you'll be able to edit it down to around 20 minutes of "gold" that would actually hold the attention of a moderately interested viewer, and the 3-5 minute "highlights/trailer" for the attendtion deficit crowd.

That said, providing a "full length" uncut (or only slightly cut for length/dead spots/pauses) of the ceremony and any major parts of the reception/event seems like a requisite (the bride and groom, while they are "there", don't actually get to experience much of the day - too much of a whirlwind from my experience, so they get to "enjoy" the day more from a good video!), so that could affect the length of the delivered product significantly.

Obviously you're not going to have the same run time with a 15 minute protestant wedding as a hour long Mass. Speeches can run all over the place, literally and time wise.

Capture it all, edit the bad stuff, edit judiciously to give them a "short" to share that won't bore the living daylights out of anything breathing... Then lightly edit the "real" events and burn them to whatever disks are needed - they may bore you silly, but may mean the world to the client!

For that, I seem to average around 40-60 minutes total run time, and try very hard to make it watchable and interesting. Of that, a "best wishes" walkaround is usually a fairly long section, and hilarious...

Mine used to all be over an hour, but over the last few years the ceremonies have gotten much shorter. I used to always worry about them going over an hour and running out of tape, but now the average ceremony length is about 15 minutes.
So now most of my videos are 45-50 minutes.
They are also shorter now because nobody is ordering extras like photo montages or rehearsal dinner coverage. They just want a basic video without a lot of fuss.

I offer 3 different packages, a long form which is 1.5 - 2 hrs. A short form which is 20-25 mins. A combo package that has both versions. I do a complete edit with montages on the long form but my short versions is of course what everyone likes the most. I am thinking about maybe just offering 1 package which is designed around the short form video and then just include a rough cut almost raw version with it. I hate the long form videos, who doesn't, boring. If I eliminated that option all together I could really I think sell a bit of these packages, I just take the risk of also eliminating the economy brides as well.

this is a really interesting thread and very informative - I've been wondering about the ideal length (Smith - stop gigling!!)

I'm only a beginner in the wedding side of things and I find I'm supplying 2 DVD's - one with highlights of prep, ceremony & photo shoot & reception and another with complete footage (minus the wobly bits) of prep, ceremony & reception

I think I might be overloading them..

i'm doing the similar thing paul. One long edit, one short-form and PLUS!!! a trailer edit (or highlight for most people) I'm thinking of ditching the short-form cause my long-edit is already cut quiet nicely...

In the UK everyone does the 2-3 hour video, so why bother trying to compete?

We do a 20-30 min main movie which includes the ceremony down to just 3 mins.

OMG!! I hear some of you cry. But be honest, what in the ceremony do the couple want to see over and over?

If they want the full 3 hour edit, plenty of others offering this.

Give it a go at least once, see what the folks think.

Danny, I completely agree. So far in my short stint as a wedding videographer, NOBODY has complained at the length of my videos. 20-30 minutes for what ends up being a cinematic style fusion video of the entire day, and I also do the full edit of the entire ceremony on a separate disc. They get the best of both worlds IMO. One really entertaining video to show friends, family etc., and the other disc for when they want to remember the ceremony itself without sifting through a bunch of other stuff. I could put both on the same disc if the couple wants. (Some people really feel like they get "more" with 2 separate discs. =P)

It's a love it or hate it offering.

Mine is 1.5 hours long, depending on the speeches. I am okay with doing a 45 minute finish product, but I don't think the client would want it. I am slowly going mainstream, all my bookings for next year are not in my present market, my present market are very devout Catholics, it's a "sin" to not include the communion, gospel in the finished product. It's all a big no no not to include the receiving line ( attendance check).

But I am open to ideas as soon as the season becomes dead, I'll edit a 45 minute version and present it to the client

when I started doing short form a number of years ago I slowly started including that with the ty[icallong form. In the good ol' days of tape,they were 2.5 3 hours long and bored the hell out of me, so for chuckles I included the short form. After doing this for a few months and asking the couple which they watched they were in 100% agreement they watched the short edit. AH-HA.
I do include the ceremony uncut in a seperate disc so grandma can see everything (only 1 copy of that) but my selling point is a short or creatively condensed video that they can watch with only 1 bowl of popcorn :-)
IMO whatever style you do as long as the client knows it and likes the style...that's the most important thing. If they don't like your style they'll hire someone else.
Remember, some will, some won't, so what...Whos next!

Brad, totally agree. We also include the ceremony, full speeches and anything else of note on a sepeate disk, basic edit, nothing fancy. No one watches it, just keeps them happy.

There are some brides which will compare what we offer, feature by feature and see Joe Bloggs offers 3 hours. So why would they want us who give them 30 mins. Surely 3 hours seems like better value.

But as our prices rise we want these type of clients less and less. Those who are looking to save every last £ are not going to want what we offer, even if they think they do.