Most wedding videographers will only show up as a solo shooter and still charge about $3,000-4,000 in Bozeman and Big Sky, Montana.
There’s too much risk with only having one person film your wedding. (Think car trouble, illness, travel delays, equipment issues, etc.) I’ve seen too many wedding videos ruined by unexpected events or bad business practices when only one person is booked to film a wedding.
What about the husband and wife photo/video teams?
The husband and wife teams that have become very common in the wedding industry may seem like a good value, but ONLY if both are videographers. When you hire only one photographer and one videographer, it can short-change the investment in your memories.
Optimal wedding videography is not captured by one person. A second experienced person needs to be capturing the big moments (ceremony, getting ready, toasts, and first dances) rather than a second camera with no heart and no brain planted on a tripod.
Videographers that capture high-end and celebrity weddings are not working solo, because that’s not what professional videographers do. Pro videographers work with a team backing them.
Those wedding videographers are actually not comparable…
As you work to compare wedding packages, make sure you are actually comparing apples to apples. Most wedding videographers do not include a team in their pricing, so the pricing is not comparable! Two companies that charge $3,500 may not be offering even remotely the same amount of value.
Since 2015, we have filmed every wedding with a team of two people, and I think the difference can be seen and heard in our films. These are story-driven films where the memories are palpable and you’re hearing the voices of loved ones. They are not rushed, cookie-cutter, filterized music videos that will look and sound skin-deep when you revisit them in your golden years.
While we do publish our highlight films to social media, the stories we capture are not meant to be shared in 10 second sound bites for disposable, forgettable social media. They are 5-7 minute films meant to pull you back into the deep moments of the wedding. This is much, much harder to achieve when only one person is filming the wedding. There’s too much risk involved in hiring one person for a day that you are investing tens of thousands of dollars to pull off.
Bottom line: don’t settle for a wedding videographer that is filming the wedding by themselves.