I bought a new camera recently, the start of February. I have shot two weddings with it, on the 2nd and on the 15th.

It is called the Sony PMW-EX1 and it really is an impressive piece of kit.

The one difference with this camera is that it records onto Express Cards, which are a type of memory card. Why is this posting caller “Fear”?

Well,  I am used to shooting onto tape, and these original tapes would always be stored. With the new camera, the work flow is a little different. I just copy off the footage onto my hard drives, make backups of it and then wipe the cards to be used at the next wedding. If I had a wedding on the Friday and again on the following day, I would need to copy off the footage when I got home, and have them wiped for the next day.

After my first wedding with the camera back on the 2nd, I avoided wiping the cards until I really have to.

Basically, I was sitting outside the church yesterday, poised to wipe the cards. This is when the fear set in! Did I copy off all of the other wedding correctly? Even though I had double and triple checked what I was doing, that felling of fear and dread was amazing!

I suppose a small does of paranoia is a good thing!

I have decided to stop using my Blackberry as I think it was turning me into a slave, rather than the other way round.

I could be sitting down playing with the kids, but my mind would be elsewhere. “has somebody sent me an email”, “have I received another wedding video enquiry”, etc. The temptation is always there to go over to the mantle piece and check the Blackberry for messages.
I think many people are in the same situation as me, and it is very hard to be without a device like that when you are so used to it. I took the sim out of the Blackberry this morning and put it into a normal basic mobile phone, a phone without email facilities. Then I went out to shoot a wedding. I was very surprised with the way I actually missed not having it, but as the day went on, I realised that I had been given a lot of freedom back. I was no longer obsessing over who was trying to email me etc. I think I will stop the email subscription tomorrow.

After all, if it is really urgent, somebody could ring the mobile, rarely do I see an emergency wedding video enquiry! I will just stick to a routine of checking email once or twice a day. I must cut back on this aswell, but one step at a time!

Selecting the music for your wedding DVD can be a tricky business. I normally ask couples to pick a selection of 10 fast songs and 10 slow songs. I don’t use all 20 songs, but need that many to give me some options.

A few bits of advice on picking your wedding songs.

1) Make sure that the music reflects the taste of both the bride and groom, try to keep it as balanced as possible.

2) If one of you likes a song and the other hates that song, DON’T use the song!! There are lots of songs in the world and you don’t want someone to have to listen to a song they hate for the rest of your lives.

3) Listen carefully to the lyrics of the songs you pick. For example, recently a couple selected a song by Snow Patrol entitled “Open Your Eyes”. I had a listen to the song and some of the lyrics went like this…

“my skin feels cold”

“I feel so tired and old”

“Anger swells in my guts”

“I don’t feel slices and cuts”

You get the idea. Musically the song is perfect for wedding video usage but the lyrics don’t really work.

4) It can be difficult to use some songs because of the lyrics (e.g. “Wonderful Tonight”, “The Way You Look Tonight”). The fact that these two songs use the word “Tonight” in the title, restricts the song to usage in the evening part of the DVD. Sometimes I ignore this and just use the song where I feel the music works, but that isn’t ideal.

There is a lot of pressure on the bride and groom during the ceremony, and even though they may practices their prayers etc, sometimes when the giggles bite….

 http://www.momentsvideos.com/showprivateclip.php?day_field=14&month_field=07&year_field=07&bride_field=Prayer_Of_Married_Couple&groom_field=_

(a big thank you to Elaine and Mark for giving consent to share this clip with you)

You can’t go into a TV shop nowadays without being bombarded with Hi-Def televisions. How did we ever survive without them!

I believe though, that many people don’t know what Hi-Def really means, so let me explain.

Hi Def basically means that the picture you are seeing has a greater resolution and is in widescreen format.

What does greater resolution mean? Well in Standard definition (what we had all along), the resolution was 720*568. You can picture that your television screen is made up of rows and columns of dots, each with a different colour. So, standard definition had 720 columns of dots and 568 lines. Hi Definition has a few different flavours but I will talk about the one that will become the norm. It has a resolution of 1440*1080. This means 1440 columns and 1080 rows. This means that you have twice the number of rows and columns of dots than standard definition which means a much clearer picture with more detai.

What does widescreen mean? In the past most televisions were not widescreen, they had an aspect ratio of 4*3. This means that for every 4 dots across, there were 3 dots down. This means that the TV was nearly square. Widescreen television have an aspect ration of 16*9 which means that for ever 16 dots across, there are 9 dots down. It is a much more rectangular shape.

If you are watching a widescreen movie on an old style TV, you would see black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. This is because you are viewing a rectangular image on a square TV. If you have a widescreen TV this doesn’t happen, as the movie and TV have the same shape.

Older video cameras used to record in non-widescreen mode. They were designed for producing video to be played back on older televisions. You could switch many of these cameras into a widescreen mode but there was a sacrifice in quality.

Hi Def video cameras are designed to record in widescreen mode so you are getting more detail and a video that is designed to be played on your widescreen TV.

For a more detailed explanation, just go to…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi_def#Standard_resolutions

During a wedding ceremony, the bride and groom can pretty much sit back and enjoy the show, BUT there are two parts of the ceremony where they have to do a little bit of work.

1) the vows

2) the prayer of the newly married couple (optional, around 60-70% of couples say this)

A little while back, one of my couples came to collect their wedding DVDs and were dreading watching their vows and their prayer of the married couple. I didn’t remember their vows being any better or worse than anyone elses.

They told me that in all their wedding preparations, they didn’t ever actually practice their vows or marriage prayer. Then I realised that most people probably don’t, I know for my own wedding we didn’t.

For the vows the priest will often prompt you through it, so you normally just repeat what the priest tells you. Placing the rings on each others fingers can sometimes be tricky. You are meant to say “In the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit” and many people try to hover the ring over different fingers as they say “father”, “son” and “holy spirit”. Not sure what is the correct way to do this, but I imagine whatever you are comfortable with is fine.

The Prayer of the Married couple is a different kettle of fish. This is a pretty long prayer that the two of you read out together. This is where the fun begins! Not only do you have to read out a prayer, but you have to try to read it out at roughly the same pace as your better half!

So, my advice is, the week or so before the wedding, just run through the vows and prayer of the married couple together a few times. 10 minutes set aside for this would make the world of difference and you can go into your ceremony knowing that you won’t have any surprises!

It seems to be the norm for the priest to inform the couple of how they will stand during the wedding vows. I don’t think that couples realise that they can probably change this if required.

The two most popular options are…

1) The couple facing the altar with the priest in front of you, and the rest of wedding party facing the altar also.

2) The couple facing each other, with the rest of the wedding party facing the congregation.

From a videographer and photographer point of view it doesn’t make a huge difference. The first option means that your photographer and videographer will be up on the altar shooting at around a 45 degree angle. Sometimes the priest may block the view a little with mass booklets, so getting the ring shot can be difficult. Normally it works out fine, but if the priest crowds in and blocks the view, there isn’t much a videographer or photographer can do at that stage. Stopping the proceedings is not an option. The videographer and photographer would normally have a higher vantage point that the couple, as the altar may have a few steps.

The second option means that the photographer and vidoegrapher would more than likely shoot up the church from the centre of the aisle. It is much easier to get the ring shot. The vantage point for the videographer would be lower than the couple, as they may be up on a step.
So which option is better?

In my opinion they are both as good as each other. The first option means that the congregation doesn’t get to see the rings being placed on the fingers, BUT if you are a little bit nervous about standing up in front of everyone and doing your vows, facing away from the crowd would probably be a good option.

The second option is more like the way they do weddings in the USA. It gives the congregation a better view of the vows, but it means you also have a view of the congregation. If you don’t mind being a little more visible to people, then it is a good option.

It may sound very obvious, but chewing gum at weddings is a very bad idea!

I see it quite regularly, one of the bridesmaids of groomsmen chewing away on gum all day long. This will cause your photographer and videographer a lot of problems as the chewers mouth will nearly always be in a strange pose during the photos!

So, if you or one of the wedding party need to chew gum on the wedding day, sneak away off somewhere secluded, get your chewing fix and then get rid of it!

I notice more and more that wedding bands are starting later and later. Sometimes I see the first dance starting as late as 11pm!

Let me stress that it is RARELY the bands fault for this, in fact it is nearly never their fault. After all, it is in the bands interest to get on early, so they can finish at their planned finish time. If they go on an hour later, they feel obliged to play on for a little bit extra. This then forces your DJ to start late, but the hotel will normally make the DJ stop at a fixed time regardless.

Your band will normally arrive to the hotel well in advance of their planned start time. Then they just wait around for the speeches to end and for the hotel staff to clear the room. After the speeches they may need to clear tables away from where the band is going to set up and they will also need to clear tables off the dance floor.

What factors influence the band’s actual start time?

1) If you arrive to the hotel very late your meal may start very late. Then your speeches will be later, ripple effect.

2) If your speeches are very long (e.g. an hour long). The average would be 25 - 30 minutes.

3) If your band can have their gear set up earlier on in the day this will save a lot of time. Some hotels won’t allow this as there will be tables where the band is meant to go. However, some hotels have a stage or a dedicated area for the band. Also, not all bands will set up earlier in the day, but may do so if you ask them (nicely!) in advance.

4) It is very common for the band to be set up and ready to go, then they have to wait for the bride and groom to come back into the room to start the first dance. It is a good idea to be there ready to go.

If the band goes on late it’s not the end of the world either, BUT to get the best value for your hard earned cash, it is good to have then start on time.

Finally decided to see what all this fuss is about Blogs! I have created this blog to be a place where I can document my thoughts about all things wedding. Hopefully some of these posting may help you when planning your wedding.