As you plan your wedding, you’re going to have to choose a wedding videographer. You can go on different sites and just feel out the videos but you could go down the wedding videography rabbit hole for hours… and even days.

Here’s the first video of my series on what to look for when choosing a wedding videographer. With this systematic checklist, you’ll be able to narrow down your favourite pros and save some time to plan other parts of your wedding… or do other things in life! It’s simpler when you are aware of what to know when hiring a wedding videographer. 

The 4 overarching factors I think you should be considering when choosing your wedding videographer are the following:

• Style
• visuals
• Sound
• Personalities

In this post, we’ll discuss styles.

For the sake of simplicity, I’ve broken down styles into two major groups with different sub-styles:

MONTAGE STYLES
– montage
– slow-motion montage
– music video style

STORYTELLING STYLES
– chronological 
– achronological (not in order)

Montage styles are more music-focused while the storytelling styles are more words-focused (i.e. – words from speeches and vows).

Of course, there will be overlap in styles, depending on the editing, but you can group these in your search based on the most dominant quality.

MONTAGES
The video montage is just that: clips from key moments from the day accompanied by music.

The slow-motion montage will be the same as the former but the action is in slow motion in order to accentuate the epicness and emotion in the scenes.

The music video style will look like just that: a music video. Usually, the editor will use a love song and edit the key moments of the wedding to that song. The music video style usually has less traditional cutting between shots and will have more flashy editing techniques throughout the video.

STORYTELLING STYLES
The storytelling styles will incorporate audio elements from speeches and vows. These sound elements usually sit nicely on a bed of music to carry them along. Within this style, editors can present the day’s events in the general order they happened or totally randomly, depending on how they want to tell the story.

Which style do you think Aperture Lane lands under? If you’re familiar with the Aperture Lane style, you could say that the films we create fall under the chronological storytelling style.

They are very centred around building a narrative around the beautiful words said in the couple’s vows, the speeches, and any other significant speaking. You will hear music, but it serves to inform the mood and support what is being said, as opposed to dictating the tone of the whole film.

The wedding day, for the most part, is presented in chronological order. There are two exceptions to this: the speeches and vows are spread throughout the film as they are needed to build the narrative. The next thing is that you will notice a sprinkling of intimate shots with the couple during the course of the films. These shots of the couple help the words to set the mood.

Everything else is fairly chronological. Personally, I’ve sometimes found myself confused when watching achronological films and I’m very familiar with weddings! So, I put myself in the shoes of a regular person with far less experience with weddings and I thought it wise to stick to the wedding day order. It’s also easier to edit (in my opinion)!

But like I said in the video…

There is no “best” style. You really have to decide which one you like now and see yourself being proud to share for years and years to come.

Stay tuned for part 2 next week where I’ll discuss the visual styles that you’ll be able to choose from.

As we narrate together.

---

Related Articles
How to choose a wedding videographer