How long is your average wedding video

[Buba Kastorski]

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?

[Michael Padilla]

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.

[Chris Harding]

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

[Paul Mailath]

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..

[Michael Padilla]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

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.

[Don Pham]

my ave lenght is 25 mins

[Chris Harding]

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

[Michael Padilla]

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

[Matthew Craggs]

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.

[Dimitris Mantalias]

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.

[Danny O'Neill]

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.

[Dave Blackhurst]

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...

[Mark Ganglfinger]

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.

[Chad Whelan]

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.

[Susanto Widjaja]

Originally Posted by Paul Mailath

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...