Wedding Video is formulaic, and that's okay

A good friend of mine has recently started his own production company and one thing he’s been doing a lot recently is weddings. He was even able to video my girlfriend’s brother’s wedding this year. As I was watching the video with the family yesterday, I realized just how formulaic these sorts of videos are. I’ve watched several made by my friend (as he’s wanted my input in the past) as well as other friend’s videos. They all start the same way, with light, soft romantic music covering the prep and anticipation of the wedding. The emotions come to a climax at the close of the ceremony and then the second half of the video documents the celebration and cathartic release of stress by everyone involved with the wedding. While it makes logical sense to divide the video into these two sections (it not only tells a good story, it follows the chronological progression of the event itself) it can sort of seem, cookie cutter approach to documenting this event. These videos are great and touching ways to remember a wedding by. They capture highlights of two people’s very special day, even without knowing everyone involved, it’s easy to capture memories that will last for a lifetime based off of what “makes a good and interesting video”. But while I will say that these kind of videos are very formulaic that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Yesterday, besides watching the video, I made cookies with my girlfriend. She’s a pretty good baker but she doesn’t reinvent the wheel every time she makes a batch of cookies. She follows a recipe, and when things inevitably go wrong, she adapts. (I’m not saying that she makes mistakes often, just that a part of everything in life is that everything does not always go according to plan.) A good baker can roll with the punches and still create a very tasty result. In the same way, even though the wedding video “genre” is very formulaic. It takes a lot of talent to ensure that it is “baked” correctly. If I followed the same cookie recipe with my limited baking experience and skills, I’d be using the same formula, but lack a lot of the insight, experience and problem solving that went into making these cookies. In the same way, anyone can throw together a wedding video, even one following “the recipe,” but that does not mean it will be the same as a truly skilled videographer can create. So while the Wedding Video “genre” does not necessarily lend itself to uniqueness, that does not detract from the quality of the video itself. Following a form or a pattern does not remove the skill required to do the activity in the first place. I just felt like this was an interesting comparison and worth noting. So in short, well done Michael, you may have followed a formulaic approach to making this video, but that does not detract from excellent result.

Also, here’s a picture of the cookies we made because they were pretty stinking sweet IMO