Advice on doing a Marry-oke?

[James Stevens]

Does anyone here do Marryoke? I have a superhero themed wedding next year and wanted to experiment with doing a Marryoke (to "I need a hero!") but wasnt sure of the best way to organise it. I have seen a few people do a Marryoke corner after the first dance, where they just film for an hour and guests come along, but those look pretty lame. I like the ones taken through the day with guests miming to a few words. I assume you just print out the lyrics to the song, and cross sections out on the day?

[Adrian Tan]

I've never done a marryoke. Done a few music videos though.

For what it's worth:

-- I think an iPhone or iPad with the song might be useful, so people can sing in time to it, can dance to it, etc
-- instead of recording just a little piece here, a little piece there, I think you should have a couple of people sing complete runthroughs, as a butt-covering measure -- so you can always fall back on those during the edit.
-- I think the more you plan and previsualise and structure in advance, the better the end result will likely be...

[Paul R Johnson]

Not my thing - but when we do similar with theatre stuff, we look at the people carefully and work out which ones are able to really put on a performance, and which ones are weak or embarrassed. We then do full length stuff with the good ones, and do short pieces with the weaker ones, so everyone is in it, some just a bit more than others. I guess this would also work well with the wedding people?

[James Stevens]

Thanks, thats a really good idea about the complete run throughs with the more confident. Nice, thankyou!

[Dave Partington]

The big problems with marry-oke are

• Getting enough people to participate that can sing in time and know / can read the words

• Having the words readable from a distance (they need to be big)

• Having enough variety that you can capture through the day and know you'll end up with a finished product, rather then be a couple of lines short and totally screwed

• Not piss the photographer off because you keep stealing his subjects (and visa versa)!

• Still allow the people to enjoy the reception (they prefer drinking and eating to being forced to mime to a song most of the time)

• Keeping track of what you got and what you haven't got yet

• Ability to sync all the clips & edit it fast enough if you need to show it on the same night

Personally I think that M/Os can get in the way and spoil the day. You almost need a videographer & assistant dedicated to doing them (if they are being done during the day) so that the main videographer can keep filming the wedding, otherwise you could end up chasing people to do their bit, get the marryoke bit done and have time for nothing else.

All the marryokes I've done have been filmed before the day to be shown at night before the first dance. I'm not doing any more.

[Malcolm Debono]

Did my first marryoke last week upon client's request. This was actually a destination wedding who only requested the marryoke specifically without any other coverage, so that was my only job for the day.

Some observations:
- Coordinate with bride before wedding and ask her to pick up someone from the bridal party / other guest (ideally someone who knows as many other guests as possible) as this will be invaluable on the day, both with helping coordinate who's doing it at what time as well as for encouraging guests who may be rather reluctant in participating

- Advice bride to send lyrics to guests so that they're prepared for the song

- Plan some interesting simple dance moves or similar based on song's lyrics to make it even more unique

- Coordinate with selected guest to find the best times to shoot them (e.g. not during photographer's shooting group shots, band playing loud music nearby, dinner being served, etc.)

- Song can be played from your phone if it's loud enough. Be wary of the environment though since guests might have problems hearing it resulting in them singing out of sync.

- Record whole takes rather than small portions of song, especially to help guests build up confidence. Also, don't just go up to guests and start shooting. Spend an extra minute introducing yourself and explaining the concept. If you're really tight and can't record whole takes, have a sheet with lyrics handy, record individual parts and mark parts which have been covered.

- Shoot cutaways (venue, couple, ceremony, guests, etc) to be inserted into parts of song without lyrics. Also take some extra shots of people just dancing around without singing for these parts.

- Extra tip: for unreluctant guests, emphasize that video is bride's request and everyone's obliged to take part :-)