If you’re planning to get married, you more than likely consider a portrait photographer to be indispensable to your plans. Wedding portraits are an excellent way to capture memories of the day, and most would consider hiring a wedding photographer absolutely essential. But, what about other ways of documenting your wedding?

Wedding videography has been around for some time, but has become increasingly popular due to improvements in video technology. While portrait photography can capture individual moments of striking beauty, a wedding video can be something more — a record of your wedding in living, breathing motion!

Of course, if you’re thinking about having a wedding video made, there’s a lot to consider. In this week’s blog post, we’d like to offer some tips on choosing the right videographer to commit your big day to film.

Decide What Kind of Service You Want

Depending on how much you wish to spend, and what you want from your videographer, there are a number of different types of service available. The most basic, what might be called “point-and-shoot” videography, will provide a no-frills video record of the day. While basic, you may decide that a simple recording of the day is adequate to your needs. If considering this option, be sure to check whether there are any amateur videographers among your friends and family. Perhaps you know someone who is up to the task?

At the other end of the scale, you may opt to have your wedding shot on 8mm or 16mm film. While costly, this approach results in a beautifully cinematic effect. Another increasingly popular approach is to hire a videographer who will shoot your wedding in a journalistic or documentary style, creating a video that really tells a story.

Seek Recommendations and View Previous Work

When searching for a videographer, you should start by seeking recommendations from friends and family. If you’ve already hired a portrait photography service, you should check whether they also offer videography services, or if they can recommend a videographer.

Once you have a few names on your list, start making contact and asking to see samples of previous work. Viewing previous work is absolutely essential and under no circumstances should you hire a videographer without seeing a portfolio first — there’s no other way to know whether a videographer’s style is to your taste. It may be a good idea to ask to see a complete video of one wedding, rather than a compilation of highlights.

Make Sure You Get Along Well with Your Videographer

Before you hire a videographer, make sure to have a few meetings, so that you can be confident you’ve found someone you can work well with. This piece of advice goes for any vendor you’ll be working with on your wedding day. However, it’s doubly important in the case of someone who’ll have a camera pointed at you throughout the biggest day of your life. For your own confidence and peace of mind, it’s vital that the person behind the camera is someone who makes you feel comfortable.