Streaming for modern weddings and their social media crowd

[Andrew Smith]

Have a look at this development in how people are getting married: Forget the big wedding as more couples 'include' you through Facebook

If the whole notion of the wedding event is turned on its head, then streaming of the event could become the main way of having your non-immediate friends and family attend.

Streaming through Facebook just became a little more important.

Andrew

[Chris Harding]

A lot of brides have decided (I think the mining downturn also helped) that it's far better to have a simple ceremony followed by dinner with a few good friends than spend money on a reception with over-priced food and drink and inviting people you haven't seen for years to a free feed and boozeup. Putting the money into your mortgage or buying a new car (in fact it could be two cars at the price people are paying for receptions) makes far more sense.

Our first 3 weddings this month have all been live broadcast ceremony only! Makes an easy day for us too!!

[Noa Put]

That article made me laugh; "we didn't want to make a big deal out of it" and then they fly over to the Belgian countryside to host a three-day garden after-party - complete with wedding gifts with 65 guests. Probably they hired a videographer to cover that part :D

[David Barnett]

I dunno, I have severe mixed thoughts on livestreaming weddings. On the plus, it'll help out for elderly relatives & those out of state/out of country. I had a polish wedding 2 years ago where the brides family Facetimed it for distant relatives back in Poland who watched.

Outside of that tho, I see limited use for it, but it wouldn't surprise me if demand persists. Realistically, if someone is getting married, and admittedly you're not great enough friends to attend the wedding, or be invited, are you really going to sit & watch it on Facebook?! On a Saturday afternoon at 3PM? Same thing with intros, toasts, & first dance? Yeah, it might come up on your timeline & you might 'Like' it, along with many others who didn't watch much of it at all.

So with that said it's one more thing to set up, and worry about (wifi, connectivity, streaming issues at venues, event halls, and churches) yet the service itself likely wouldn't warrant much of a rate increase, due to its lack of real benefit. So on one hand, I don't see couples accepted a higher rate because you offer it, because they're response will be "My friends can stream it on their phones for nothing". However, if during the setup/ceremony something goes wrong (connection times out, slow connection buggy) and the stream cuts out, there's a possibility of requesting a partial refund because "The Livestream failed". So I see little upside.

If it's a true budget thing, where couples only have a small, intimate wedding, then I get it. But I don't think for the average wedding videographers shoot there's much need for it to be streamed, as I don't think many people will watch more than a passing few moments of it while they're checked out their FB for other random insights.

[Roger Gunkel]

Facebook has already become a part of many weddings, with photos and video clips being posted and streamed by guests as they happen, but I think it is just another part of instant sharing of every moment of modern life. I don't think it will make any difference to couples who want a proper record of their day to look back on in the future. Facebook is very transient and posts are here today and gone tomorrow. Chris also offeres a recorded copy of his streamed weddings and whether they are instant streamed recordings or edited productions, they are something that the bride will store away along with her wedding dress, shoes, bouquet and photos. They all recapture the memories of that special day in their lives in different ways.

Chris, I find your comments on brides downsizing their weddings in Oz as an interesting view on another society and one that I sympathize with as there is too much spent on the wedding and not enough on the marriage. It's not a trend that I see reflected in the UK at the moment though, as weddings seem to be getting bigger and more expensive with every conceivable novelty add on and fashionable twist to outdo their friends weddings. After the last few years of everything having to be vintage, I've noticed that a lot of recent weddings seem to be getting a superhero theme on the grooms side, Maybe a male inroad into the traditional Bride's domination of the wedding theme.

Roger

[Noa Put]

It's not a trend that I see reflected in the UK at the moment though

Same in these parts, last wedding I did I had to hire a second videographer for which they pay extra for, they had 2 photographers, a live band for the ceremony and a live band for the evening part. In the afternoon we including the photogs so 4 persons where given a 2 course meal in a fancy restaurant and in the evening us 4 again including the entire band (about 6 or 7 people) got the main course and dessert. There was also a 15 minute fireworks at the end of the ceremony. The weddings I shoot tend to be more expensive every year. :)

[Chris Harding]

Hi David

Everywhere is different ...Apart from the "send your wedding wordwide" concept it does also have it's good points as we live switch cameras so edit "live" which means no slaving away in front of the computer trying to piece together piles of raw footage. We use bonded streams so if a connect fails it switches to another plus of course the camera records to card too and the computer records to HDD so you actually have a better backup than doing it the traditional way ...a lot of videographers rely on the one single SD card in their main camera for the ceremony and speeches and the card could easily fail ...even the camera. We never stream to Facebook or YouTube either ...On Facebook just blink once and the post has already disappeared down the page..Our clients have a unique event page and nowhere near social media.

Thanks Roger ....We had a big downturn in the mining sector here and the economy fell to pieces ...every second person here seems to want to do weddings so the market is flooded with suppliers yet brides are downsizing as hubby-to-be is still out of work so the grand plans have gone out the window.

[Chris Harding]

Brides here have taken to the concept very well! We did a wedding ceremony on Friday and Saturday and on the Saturday one (on the beach) the signal wasn't as good as usual so we decided to lower the bitrate a tad to ensure a continuous broadcast ..however we also record the stream to SD card if we are using a single camera like in a beach situation with only a few guests or with receptions we not only record the mix to the HDD but also record to the camera cards so there is more backup than if we did a conventional wedding if things go wrong! If we have a really poor signal a;ll we do is re-broadcast it again a short time later when we are at a venue with a great signal and replace the lower bitrate copy with the better one directly thru the switching software. Response is great ..if I do a carefully crafted hilite video the traditional way and put it up on YouTube I'm lucky to get 50 views and it takes me a lot of edit time! Our streams usually attract between 300 and 600 viewers who always post great comments. The idea of finishing your shoot and going home without the daunting prospect of a 2 or 3 day edit session is also a huge bonus!!

I guess if sitting in front of your computer piecing together hundreds of video clips and trying to sync to music is your cup of tea then good for you. It's not my idea of fun!!

[Noa Put]

The idea of finishing your shoot and going home without the daunting prospect of a 2 or 3 day edit session is also a huge bonus!!


I guess if sitting in front of your computer piecing together hundreds of video clips and trying to sync to music is your cup of tea then good for you. It's not my idea of fun!!

Well some people like to create art with a paintbrush, others just enjoy making the frame that holds the painting. To each their own. :)

[Chris Harding]

With people now trying to convince brides the only way to have a wedding video is to let the guests record with their iPhones the wedding market is getting interesting to say the least so I'm not surprised that live streaming is finding a place in the market as budgets tighten and brides cannot afford food and drink for 100 people at a posh venue so they are looking for simpler methods.

Brides will always want a big wedding with the whole family and friends attending and a $40,000 price tag but some also have decided that it makes more sense to have a smaller wedding, ditch the reception and take the $35,000 they have saved and toss it on their home mortgage or replace the family car. Although the concept is gaining popularity there, of course, will always be room for the creative artist for those brides that want to keep the traditional wedding video.

Despite having close to 2000 civil celebrants in our city, the registry office is the only one where there is a waiting list ..get married with a few iPhone snaps and all done and dusted in 15 minutes! There is place in the industry for all from the simple to the lavish but the market IS changing whether we like it or not!!

[Giroud Francois]

if you choose to treat wedding like a live production (mixing on the fly, getting result immediately, eventually making a cleaner version in post later), streaming is natural evidence since it does not require any additional work and is mostly available for free. (youtube, facebook, periscope)

if you still shoot wedding old style, with video extracted from cam and edited after wedding, that is a lot more difficult, but you could still use only one cam dedicated to streaming.

Personnaly , i avoid the "shoot first , edit after" and try to do everything "live" because it cut the work almost in half.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Giroud

From a business point of view a live edit is more cost effective as we can control a 3 camera shoot at a reception thus eliminating the days of editing after the event. That's the reason big production studios will do an event like a rock concert live (even if it's broadcast later) because it eliminates post production. However if something like a wedding costs you say, 10 hours to shoot and 30 hours to edit and you need to make at least $100 an hour for your time then you need to charge, in theory, $4000 for the event. If you live edit the event then you can in fact double (or even more) your hourly rate so the vent can be charged at $2000 and you are making twice as much per hour too.

However while this sounds good business practice, Roger has pointed out that one's total income for the event has actually been cut in half and traditionally weddings are scarce during the week so being able to charge your time out when you are NOT shooting is also a good thing as it provides work for the videographer during the week to sustain the overall income level. If you rely on editing as part of your income and have no other income source then doing live video can actually earn you less money!

[Pete Cofrancesco]

I'm glad I don't do a lot of weddings it seems to be a race to the bottom.

Why do you want to provide something anyone can do on their phone (live streaming)? I do video conferencing. Over wifi its low quality and unreliable. I don't see anyone paying much for this service and lots of potential downside. Besides who would want to attend a wedding remotely?

I also don't get live editing. You need multiple camera operators, wireless video transmitter/receiver/mixer and dedicated operator mixing it live without making any mistakes. I know people here are always trying to reinvent the wheel but honestly.

It be as crazy as suggesting the wedding photographer use a Polaroid camera so the bride and groom could get their photos immediately and you could save the time it takes to edit the photos.

There is a tried and true way of making a movie. Do that one thing well and don't try to make things anymore complicated than it needs to be.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Pete



I love posts like this. The more people you convince live broadcast is a really bad idea the happier I become ..more business for me!

[Pete Cofrancesco]

I have a different view of things and see it as an artistic endeavor, editing is part of the creative process. I agree if you could remove all the creativity videos could be produced more efficiently... I think live mixing and streaming devalues it as an art form.