Wedding video order

[Nathan Quattrini]

Here is what I have from my shoot, i`d like to know if the video should mainly stay sequential with my limitations?

-Establishing shots of the 'venue' (Outdoor wedding by the water)
-Establishing crowd shots
-Cutaway style bride and groom shots (used to introduce them)
-Bride and groom walk to the podium
-Vows
-Photo shoot w/family after the vows
-Establishing shots indoor dinner area
-Toast
-Bride and groom before dinner first dance
-Dancing after dinner

Doesn`t seem like I can really mix it up too much but I may be only seeing it one way...extra options are always a plus.

[Rick Steele]

Why would you want to mix things up out of chronological order... especially the ceremony?

You can timeshift most everything for a hightlight clip maybe but I'd leave the order pretty much the way you have it.

[Hank Castello]

Preparation shots might fit nicely between your opening shots and the ceremony. Also, there are ways to use time-shifting while still keeping a sequential time sequence. For instance, during the first dance, you can show a PIP, perhaps edge blended, sort of romantically, of the couple at the alter, first kiss, etc. Same sort of thing with the father/daughter dance, showing the father bringing his little girl down the aisle, etc.

You could take the same idea with audio, during the photo session, take a key piece of audio from the greetings and use it over the music, as you show each person. Etc.

Hank Castello

[Don Bloom]

Nathan,
You definately need to have the B footage - the detail stuff to use where appropriate. Always good to have BUT unless you plan on doing a short form type production be very carefull of time compression especially in the ceremony. I certainly use time compression for the highlight portion and the reception but the ceremony pretty much stays in the order that it happpened - much shortened though as I do short form editing. The purpose of a wedding video or any video (in my opinion) is to tell a story-the story of the B&Gs day so my main rule when editing is
"Does it make sense?"
You sound like you have the ideas flowing in your head and ready to jump out and thats good but keep in mind you don't have to put EVERYTHING into one project. Maybe it won't work the way you thought it would so try something else.
My suggestion is to shoot everything you see and then a bit more-you can't edit what you don't have-load the footage in your computer and look at it. See what you have to tell the story in the way you want to and then does it make sense in that way?
If you're doing long form you actually have (again in my opinion) more leeway then in short form. When I do my typicaal short form I have only between 30 and 40 minutes to tell the story in long form you might have as much as 2 hours so you can fudge a bit sometimes.
Just keep asking yourself "does this make sense in the telling of the story?" and maybe you can have a friend watch the different segments as you edit to get an outsiders opinion. Sometimes we get too close to the subject to make a true judgement.
Good luck
Don