How to Make Your Own Wedding Video, and Save Money !

Your wedding is the most important day in your life. Romance, love, family, friends, and celebration will all contribute to memories that you will cherish for a lifetime.

Your wedding video will capture the day and evening for you so that you will be able to relive your wedding day again and again, whenever you want ! Capturing the sights and sounds of your wedding is a job that many leave to a professional videographer.

There's no question that if money is no object a good videographer can help to make your wedding a perfect day. The problem is that videographers have cornered a market that allows them to charge confiscatory rates for a job that you can easily handle yourself, saving a boat load of money, with a little help from a family member or friend, some basic equipment, and a few video tips.

Here's a few tips on how to make your own wedding video:

Make sure that whoever is going to do the honors of shooting the video is familiar with the camcorder or equipment that you use. Have a checklist of all equipment that is needed at the ceremony and reception including fully charged batteries (have extras ) Check the equipment by shooting a minute or two with sound on in advance of the ceremony to make sure all the equipment is working.

• Avoid using cables or cords wherever possible. Portability of movement will allow your videographer to move about with ease, capturing all the action.

• Set up a tripod at the ceremny and reception to help with shooting scenes that are steady and clear.

• Check lighting and sound levels to make sure that your video and audio is being captured correctly

• Before the ceremony take some shots of the location and guests arriving

• Get some short interview clips of friends and family who will want to leave a special message for the newlyweds. This adds a wonderful personal touch to any wedding video

• Get shots of the ceremony, the reception and all the goings on from different angles to make the wedding video more interesting.

• Be sure to capture all the important points in the reception such as the wedding toasts, first dances and cutting of the wedding cake.

• Pan the crowd during the reception to capture the feel of the celebration.

• When in doubt take more rather than less video. You can always edit out excess footage later