How to avoid looking like "the video guy"

[David Grinnell]

Originally Posted by Allan Black

For weddings wear a white shirt and white balance off the sleeve, it drives the single women nuts.

Cheers.

awesome!! haha

[Chip Thome]

First gig, coat and tie to a wedding on the working man side of town. Was only surpassed in dress by the wedding party. Stuck out like a sore thumb.

Next gig, dress down some after last experience, slacks and pressed shirt. This one was out in farm country where I find out they still do it "old school".... coat and tie minimum, suit preferred. Opppps...look like a slob.

Third gig, black slacks and black shirt.

[Jay West]

I can't say that there is a hard and fast rule for the diverse area where I work. I live and work out of a mountain resort town but travel throughout a 200 mile radius covering everything from old style western ranches to the very large churches in two of our state's largest cites to back-country areas around Yellowstone Park.

So, number 1 practice: find out about the venue and how the wedding is set-up. For a lot of reasons, you want to know up front if the wedding is very large and very formal.

Number 2 practice: When making the contract, ask how formally or informally they will dress and how formally or informally they expect their guests will dress.

Number 3, ask the officiant if the church or temple has a dress code. Once in a while, they will have one.

Number 4: pay attention to the weather. Don't wear black to shoot an outdoor wedding in a ranch field on a 90° F day.

Typical for me is a dress shirt and kakhi or gray slacks and polished comfortable shoes. I usually keep a tie and blazer or sportscoat in my car just in case the wedding turns out to be more formal than expected.

[Cody Dulock]

In our questionnaire we ask what the guests attire is and we follow that. If everyone is wearing all white, we would make sure to wear all white. We try to avoid blacks as much as possible because it can potentially save a lot of our shots and the photographers if we get in them. We shot a wedding in Atlanta a while back and the photogs wore all black and ended up in some of our shots and you could actually tell they were the photog. This happened mostly on the dance floor (a gazebo with very minimal room to move around with a ton of people), but also in some other places. When I got in my wifes shot or vise versa, you couldn't really tell with all of the people around us (we shoot with 5D's as well, so that helps). It looked like we were just taking pictures as a guest. If for some reason you get to a ceremony and they only let you use one camera way at the back of the church, you can get around it by dressing like a guest, using a DSLR, and sitting at a pew and poking out to get the shot. James Bond style. This technique also makes guests feel more relaxed as they think you are just a guest as well... less intimidation = more real interactions. Another good idea is to feel the vibe of the couple when you meet them or talk to them... the last wedding I shot was an outdoor Texas wedding in the heat. Everyone was wearing cowboy boots, jeans, pearl snap western shirts and what not. I showed up in Brown pants, brown shoes, and brown western pattern pearl snap shirt. It was great.

As far as marketing goes with your branding on your shirt, it could be good or it could detract. We develop a relationship with each couple, so our approach is different and we set it up from the get go to be that way when we first meet with them. Everyone has their own approach and I'm glad I could share what our ideology is.

[John Estcourt]

We always wear suits except for an outdoor wedding last December at a waterfall in the North of Scotland, high up in the forestry above Fort William. we then wore walking boots, big coats and hats!
It was still cold but prob the most fun wedding for a long time!

[Philip Howells]

We subscribe to the group that dresses to match our clients. I have a morning dress (tails) and I'm in the process of buying an Albert/Edward (slightly shorter jacket). If the client's wearing a lounge suit (business suit) I wear black. My colleague wears identical rig to me. My wife wears black suit with long jacket always.

No-one ever lost points for being too smart; plenty lost them for turning looking like tennis pros - but the real answer must be whatever's right for your market.

[Chris Harding]

I was under the impression that the videographer should always be in black so they are as un-obtrusive as possible..I usually wear a black dress shirt (with company logo on the pocket), black pants and shoes. It's pretty tough here being all in black in Summer when the temp soars to over 100F so normally I take a spare polo style shirt (white) and change tops at the photoshoot and change back again for the reception.

If it's (or I suspect it is) an ultra format wedding, there is always a dark jacket in the car and a tie that I can slip on.

Actually I notice here that photogs seem to not care much about dress at all!! T-shirts with Canon logos and web addresses printed all over them, jeans and dirty sneakers seem to be common place. However all the lady photogs dress very neatly and I only came across one pair of ladies dressed like slobs (and they were doing a $5K shoot!!!)

When one visits the bride, it's a good time to find out the wedding dress code and dress accordingly.

Chris

[Travis Cossel]

What to wear depends on how you shoot, the presence you want to have, and what your client expects.

For us, we wear black shoes, black slacks and a black button-up shirt (whether it's 60 degrees or 100 degrees). We don't wear a suit because with the way we shoot we need unrestricted movement. We wear all black because we want to blend into the background and we also don't ever want to be mistaken for guests during the event.

We ARE considering other options right now, though, because filming outside when it's 100-degrees and you're wearing all black ... well, it's just not fun. d;-) When we first started we had white polos with our company logo on the chest, but one of our assistant's kept managing to ruin a shirt at every wedding and it actually just got cost prohibitive.

[Michael Simons]

I wear all black. This way, If i'm standing next to the groomsmen during the ceremony, I blend right in with them. Also, a photographer once mentioned that I don't show up in his photos as much.

[Sean Johnson]

Originally Posted by Corey Williams

The company i work for makes us wear a shirt that says "Video Guy" on it with a play button. Whenever I go out on a shoot, people always say, "hey it's the video guy." I hate that shirt, but it's great for marketing. They've trademarked the names "video guy" and "video girl"

Does that mean if I wear a shirt that says "video guy" I can be sued? Or does it have to have a play button too? Haha. I feel you pain with this one. It has to be somewhat annoying like using a Fig Rig. "Hey! He's driving the camera."

[Dimitris Mantalias]

Black, it's always black, even in times that temperature reached 40+ Celsius!