Wedding Video Costs

The cost of having your marriage recorded professionally can vary from a few hundred pounds, to thousands.

Among the factors are the number of camerapersons, difficulties of the location, whether lighting is needed particularly at the reception, and the cost of post-production. Remember you're buying the dedicated professional services of an experienced company with all of its overheads - even though all you'll see (hopefully) will be the cameraperson on the day itself.

Most companies (including CASTERBRIDGE VIDEO) begin their pricing for recording the marriage itself at around £500.00. For this you will receive a recording of the actual marriage service, edited, with titles and captions introducing the service, in a presentation case. The length of the programme will be about half an hour.

For a production showing the arrivals at church, the actual service, the drive away, and the reception and speeches, relaxed shots of the guests and the overall atmosphere, the price will start at £750.00. Again you'll receive a complete programme with introduction titles, captions, and an ending. (Beware...some wedding videos simply 'stop', rather that 'concluding' the narrative naturally at an appropriate point!) The service will be covered from several camera angles allowing close-ups of the couple and the ceremony, the venue, as well as wider shots of the congregation or wedding party.

The length of this programme will be about an hour and a quarter. Bear in mind that quantity (duration) isn't everything - you want an interesting compilation of the service, speeches and other highlights, properly edited, rather than a tape made by a camera simply being left on throughout the day, which may be extremely tiring to watch. This means considerable work for the video producer - around two and a half to three days of post-production is our average in most cases.

A good average cost for this, which is the product most people like, is £800.00. For that Casterbridge Video will supply three copies in presentation cases, as although you can purchase other copies later (£25.00 each), we find most couples want a tape for themselves and copies for their respective families to be included.

Finally you can spend as much as you would like for full coverage. This may include:

• An introduction, set to music, of a dozen or so photographs of the couple growing up (we would add £70.00 normally)
• A conversation with the couple before the marriage and pictures of them together (our charge would normally be about £200.00, but much can depend upon location and the amount of editing needed)
• The bride at home before the service - though at Casterbridge Video to be honest we discourage this - these are the last moments the bride has with her family and we don't like to intrude (we would add about £100.00 normally)
• The evening and the disco and 'first dance' of the couple, (we would add about £150.00 normally up to 21.00hrs - though we recognise that in some faiths such as the Greek Orthodox Church the evening is the most important part of the day and we would adapt specially for this)
• or even (and we've done this) following the couple to the airport and filming the honeymoon departure!