When I got married two years ago, we hired my cousin, who did a fine job on our video.  The shots were beautiful, his editing was superb, and we couldn’t be happier.  So why not just send everyone to him?  One word- price.  He was fairly expensinve (though we did take advantage of the, ahem, family “discount”)

After looking long  and hard at the market of wedding videos in Utah, I came to the conclusion that there were two camps of wedding videographers. The first- the artistic type who really, I mean really know how to use a camera and make edits.  David Perry, STC Digital, and others to name a few.  They were magnificent videos- but far from the economic reach of many brides-to-be.  The average wedding budget in Utah is $5,000-$10,000 according to CEO magazine.  So if you’re spending $2,000 on your video, where does that leave you?  Exactly… you end up going to the second camp of wedding videographers: the “others”.

In the “others” category (who will remain unnamed…) are those who took a high-school film class, bought a camera and decided they would set their own hours, be their own boss, and jump into the wedding video business.  They  provide videos of substandard quality (I think my half-blind uncle could have done a better job) and charge a low-rate.

So, as a bride-to-be (or mother of one, who happens to be writing the checks), what are you to do? Bite the bullet and drop two grand on a 15 minute video? Settle for an el-cheapo video? Or skip the video all together?  Unfortunatly, option ‘C’ was chosen more often than not.  I felt bad for my friends and family who had no wedding video, no action footage of the day they would never get to live through again.

That’s how this all started. In my rationalistic thinking, I say why not find some middle ground?  Let’s give them an awesome video, use a  nice camera and good software- but give them a wedding video they can afford?  Well, it’s worked so far.  Those ever-stressed brides-to-be (and their financially backing mothers) are ecstatic about getting a complete video package for less than $700.  Time will only tell how many more brides will appreciate a good wedding video, but in the mean time, I’m just happy that more people can afford the memories.