MCT Images

Free Digital Photography for your wedding

Posted by Martin:

I got a good response for this promotion the last time I offered it a couple of months ago, so I want to start it up again.

So here is the deal.  I will give you FREE digital photography of your wedding when you purchase a video package worth $1000 or more.

I am doing this to increase my photography portfolio and to get our name out.

Email me if you are interested in finding out more information on this offer.

10 reasons to have your wedding videotaped by a professional

Posted by Martin:

When it comes to weddings people tend to book a photographer first and over a videographer, nothing wrong with that.  But what happens is that people get their Uncle Larry and Cousin Joe to try and record the wedding, again nothing wrong with that.  But you get what you pay for.  After all, would you really leave the photography up to Uncle Jeff? 

So here are ten reasons that over the last 12 years of videotaping weddings that I have come to realize are good reasons to have a professional videographer record your wedding.

10. Professional Equipment
Unless your previously mentioned Uncle Larry is well off and intro electronics, odds are they are not going to have a camera that can make your dress and the groom's tux look like it should.  Do you really want to spend all that time thinking about the dress only to have it look gray on the video?

9. Audio
This really could go with the previous number.  I always put a wireless microphone on either the groom or the person leading the service, the vows sound a lot better when things are close up.

8. Editing

Family videos can be just the tape straight from the camcorder.  If your uncle Mark left the camera running when he placed it on the floor to go dance, well that can make very boring video.  If I leave my camera on for no reason, well that video disappears, and it is never seen on the final video.

7. You're free to enjoy the wedding

I used to videotape wedding for friends.  I don't anymore.  I never got to enjoy being around my friends. When I am videotaping I am working, and when I am working it is very difficult to enjoy being around friends.  Choose to do a good job making a wedding video, or chose to have a good time with family and friends.  You cannot do both.

6. See things that the photographer missed

I don't follow the photographer around.  I will get moments on DVD that the photographer did not get. 

5. Comments to the Bride and Groom

I don't usually do this one, but people do come up and ask to say something to bride and groom through the video.  You can't do that with still photography.

4. Silly things people do

Seeing your cousin Bob dance is funnier on video than it is in still photography.  People also say silly things to each other and to the camera, years from now those things can be used as blackmail, or just a good laugh.  (For the record, I recommend the good laugh.)

3. Getting toasts on camera

This is always a big deal at all receptions.  Photographers get the people giving the toast, but they obviously can't record the toast itself.  With a video you get the toast preserved forever.  My own mother had her toast recorded at my sister's wedding, she wanted it erased, but I wasn't having anything of that nonsense.  It stayed in the video.  See the original post about that here.

2. Cutting of the cake and tossing of the bouquet

Photographers will always (or should anyway) pose the bride and groom before they cut the cake.  Video will give you how it actually happened, silly comments and all.  And if you're the bride and groom who try to get cake in each other's face, well video was made for you.

The tossing of the bouquet also falls into something that the photographer will do once posed.  (Often times as a fake throw to get the bridesmaids in action.)  Video though will get every bridesmaids diving over each other.  Typically a photographer will only capture who caught it, not HOW they caught it.  (And killed in the process.)

1. Reliving the ceremony for future anniversary's

You may not be able to place a video in a frame and place it on the wall.  Actually you can, but most people don't do it.  But if you are like many couples I know, including my wife and me, watching the video can become a tradition every year.  So in many ways buying a video is like setting up a future tradition.  And image being able to pass it down to future generations and have them see what you looked and sounded like all those years ago on that happy day.

There are probably other reasons to have a video professionally done of your wedding, but over the years I have come to realize that these ten keep popping up.  If you are getting married in the Richmond area, including Central Virginia, email me or check out my main website for MCT Images.

Feel free to share this article, just please remember to link it back to http://blog.mctimages.com.

All pictures in this article come from weddings that I have shot under MCT Images.

Reasons to have your reception taped.

Posted by Martin:

I was speaking with a potential client this afternoon and after going through the different costs of different packages we offer, he mentioned that they weren't interested in having the reception taped. 

That got me thinking about why people should get their reception taped.  One of the main reasons is the toast and speeches that are given.  The benefit of a video is the audio recording of the day.  As much as I love photography, photography doesn't record the embarrassing or memorable speeches that are given.  I had my sister's wedding taped by two camera people, and after a speech made by my mom, Boy! am I glad I got THAT on tape!

Secondly, you get to see people dive for the bouquet, you get to see uncle Al dance badly, and you get to hear your sister Sally perform Karaoke.  I once taped a reception where the DJ's soundboard went out, and instead of complaining the bride and her friends began singing songs that they all knew.  That atmosphere of ingenuity and downright fun would have never been completely captured with  still photographs alone.

Third, by having a videographer at your reception you now literally have two people giving you coverage of your reception thus making sure that everyone at the reception is seen either on DVD or in a photograph.

So as you plan your wedding consider what I have just mentioned when debating about getting a videographer.