Wedding Film Styles, and How to Tell Them Apart
Choosing to book a videographer is something that is often debated by couples but as someone who loves films, and is very sentimental, I love watching wedding films. When weighing up the options, I often highlight that videographers (and your photographer) will capture moments of your wedding that you would otherwise not see. Whilst you are chatting to one of your relatives, or off having those gorgeous couple shots, you will get to see a behind the scenes peek of your drinks reception, or moments exchanged between your guests, or when your other half is getting ready before the ceremony, which will make a lovely momento. Photographers are keepsakes, real life works of art that you can frame, but so too is the video captured on your wedding day. A previous client screened their original wedding film at their silver wedding anniversary which was such a special moment for them and the guests attending who remembered the day. So how to choose your videographer? There are a few different styles to consider when evaluating and looking at their work.
Cinematic — Your Very Own Feature Film
Often soul stirring, visually engaging, with a great edit of film and music blended together. Deliberate camera movement, a colour grade closer to a feature film than to life, and moments cut for rhythm rather than chronology.
A good cinematic film is not a record of your wedding. It is an impression of it, the version your memory will settle into after ten years, arriving early. There are often creative styles applied to give it that Hollywood film feel.
The Wedding Filmmakers are a husband-and-wife team that is a great example of the ideal cinematic film edit.
The Wedding Filmmakers — the Brompton Oratory and the V&A Museum.
Documentary — Candidly Captured
You will spend the day forgetting you are being filmed, which is the point, and the film will be full of things you did not see happen, your father's face during the vows, a bridesmaid crying at a joke in the corner. Often the film will follow the day chronologically and include parts of the speeches overlayed on the video.
Sean White offers this natural documentary style with a touch of the cinematic, as does Studio Westlake.
Studio Westlake — Cory & Jamal at Marshwood Manor.
Editorial — styled, composed, fashion-adjacent
Composition first. Stillness rather than sweep. Frames that would sit comfortably in a magazine spread, an eye trained on the tailoring and the table and the light through a doorway.
This is the style that flatters a considered wedding — the one where the stationery, the flowers and the dress were chosen as one decision. It rewards a venue with architecture worth composing against.
Ray McShane Films brings a high-fashion sensibility to it making the film feel distinctly modern.
Ray McShane Films — Olivia & Nico at Goodwood House.
Analogue — Super 8 and 16mm - Bring that Vintage Wedding Feeling
Grain, flicker, soft edges, colours that no grade reproduces convincingly. It looks like memory because it looks like the home movies memory was formed by. These films evoke an elegant, romantic feel, and the best of them merge analogue with digital — so you keep the texture of real film without losing any of the day to it.
Baxter and Ted are the clearest example of exactly that creating timeless videos with this romantic and elegant feeling. Taylor & Porter shoot Super 8 and return the physical film reels to you alongside the digital files — a lovely thing to be handed, and a reminder that the format is a real object rather than an effect.
Baxter and Ted — Kate & Ross at St Giles House.
Same-day social — Wedding Content Creator
A newer role, and a distinct one: someone shooting vertical, on a phone, through the day. It is less edited than a film and turns round far quicker, and it is increasingly booked alongside a videographer rather than instead of one, the two do different jobs, and a phone held at arm's length gets closer to the candid and captures the whole day in a different perspective.
