Who Actually Makes Your Wedding Film?

Most wedding videographers are a one man band, and there is a lot to be said for that. You deal with the same person from your first email to the day your film lands. It is personal, it is consistent, and you always know who to call.

I work that way too, mostly. But not entirely, and you should know exactly where the difference sits before you book anyone, including me.

Like most videographers, you deal with me

From the moment you enquire, you are dealing with me. I answer your email. I arrange the video call. I am on the call. I answer the questions, including the awkward ones about budget.

There is no account manager, no sales team, and nobody else answering emails with my name at the bottom.

Like some videographers, the admin runs itself

The moment you book, a system starts working in the background.

You get a client portal with everything in one place: your contract, your invoice, your schedule and your questionnaire. If you are the sort of couple who plans eleven months ahead at 11pm on a Tuesday, it is all sat there waiting for you.

Six weeks before the wedding, reminders go out automatically for your questionnaire and your remaining balance. Not because I cannot remember, but because in the middle of August I should not have to.

I still email, and I am on Instagram and WhatsApp if that is easier for you. The automation is not there to keep you at arm's length. It is there so nothing slips through a gap while I am stood on a dancefloor somewhere.

All of it runs through Wedola, which is used by some of the best videographers in the business.

On the day, you are with me

I film every wedding personally. That is not something I am planning to change.

On some weddings there is a second videographer alongside me, either because you have booked the Complete Story package or because the day calls for it. They are a trusted individual who runs their own business and whose style matches mine, not a pair of hands hired off a list. Two cameras means reactions and angles that one person physically cannot be in two places to catch.

After the wedding, this is where I differ

Here is the part most videographers do not spell out.

I have been filming weddings for four years, and working professionally in video and photography since November 2014. In that time I worked out what I am good at, what I am less good at, and what a House of Tattersall film actually is: how it looks, how it moves, how it feels.

Once I knew that properly, I knew I was ready to bring people in. Not videographers. Editors.

My films are edited by Bride & Groom, and Vlad has cut my films for around eighteen months now. I have met Serge, who owns it, and I am seeing him again at Coda Conference shortly. This is a relationship rather than an outsourcing arrangement.

Every film goes to Vlad with a brief that is, honestly, far too long. It covers your day in detail. Which moments mattered and why. The song choices. How the film should open. How the grade should feel. Where the story should build and where it should sit still. Nothing is left to guesswork.

He is better at editing than I am, and it is his whole focus. I am good at explaining the vision. That division is the entire point.

What that actually means for you

I book Vlad in well before your wedding, not after it. Your first draft usually comes back to me around four weeks after the day.

That is why your teaser arrives within six to twelve weeks, why I aim for six to nine even in the busiest part of the season, and why everything else follows within a week of that.

No editing queue stretching into next spring. No email in March asking where your film has got to. The reason so many couples wait six months or more is not that their videographer does not care. It is that one person is trying to film all summer and edit all summer at the same time, and there are not enough hours in it.

Then it reaches you

Your films land on Vidflow: your own private page, watchable on any smart device, downloadable, and stored for ten years. Here is exactly what that looks like when it arrives.

So who is actually on the team?

Loosely, three people and two platforms.

• Me. Lead filmmaker and director. I shoot every wedding, write every brief, and I am the human you deal with throughout.
• Vlad. My editor at Bride & Groom, around eighteen months in.
• An associate videographer. A trusted second filmmaker on the days that call for one, running their own business, with a style that matches mine.
• Wedola, which is effectively my personal assistant: CRM, contracts, portal, reminders.
• Vidflow, which hosts and delivers your films.

I could have called that a team of five or six. It is not. It is three people and two pieces of software, and I would rather tell you that than dress it up.

Why I am telling you this

Because at some point you are going to wonder whether I edit it myself, and I would rather answer that before you book than after.

Some couples want the person who filmed their day to also sit and cut it. That is a completely reasonable thing to want, and if it is what matters most to you, book a true one man band. There are plenty of brilliant ones.

What you get here instead is a film shot by the person you met, shaped by the person you met, and edited by someone better at editing than the person you met. Back in your hands in weeks rather than months.