THE LOST ART OF WEDDING FILMMAKING

I think somewhere along the way we lost the plot a little bit with wedding filmmaking.

There is so much emphasis now on making everything look perfect. Perfect light, perfect details, perfect movement, perfect audio. We have shot lists and timelines and content creators and sometimes three or four different people with cameras all trying to make something happen. And obviously I understand why. I literally make wedding films for a living. I care an insane amount about making something beautiful.

But I also think in trying so hard to make beautiful wedding films, we’ve started interfering with the thing we were hired to film in the first place.

The wedding.

I don’t think your wedding should feel like a production. I don’t think you should spend half of cocktail hour walking through a field because I need one more shot. I don’t think you should have to pretend to put your earrings on again because we missed it the first time. And I definitely don’t want you spending the entire day looking over at me asking what you’re supposed to do next.

I want you to get married.

That’s kind of the whole philosophy behind how we film weddings at Revenir Films. We want to be incredibly intentional about what we’re doing without asking you to be intentional about what we’re doing.

There’s a difference.

Intentional filmmaking doesn’t mean controlling everything that happens in front of the camera. I actually think it’s almost the opposite. It means paying enough attention that you don’t have to.

If I see your dad standing off by himself watching you get ready, I want to notice that. If your grandmother reaches over and grabs your hand during dinner, I want to notice that. If your best friend looks at you during your vows and starts losing it, I want to notice that too.

None of those things are on a shot list.

And if I miss them, I can’t ask everyone to do them again.

That’s what makes filming weddings interesting to me.

There’s obviously a place for direction. We’re still filmmakers. We care about composition and lighting and audio and all of the nerdy camera stuff that nobody hiring us should ever have to think about. Sometimes I’m going to move you three feet because the light is better. Sometimes we’re going to take ten minutes and make something really beautiful.

But that should never become the wedding.

The wedding is your people.

It’s the weird conversations while everyone is getting ready. It’s somebody laughing in the middle of the ceremony when they weren’t supposed to. It’s your dad trying not to cry. It’s the way the room sounds during dinner. It’s everyone losing their minds when a song comes on that somehow your entire friend group knows.

And weirdly enough, those are usually the things that become more valuable with time.

I love a beautiful drone shot of a venue. I love shooting on Super 8. I love great light. I love making images that feel like they could exist completely on their own.

But twenty years from now, the coolest shot in your wedding film probably isn’t going to be your favorite shot.

It’s probably going to be someone.

That changes how we film.

Instead of constantly asking, “How do I make this look better?” sometimes the better question is just, “What is happening right now?”

Then you put the camera there.

That’s the kind of wedding videography we care about. Documentary, observational, whatever word you want to put on it. I mostly just think it’s filming people honestly.

And honestly doesn’t mean careless.

It takes a lot of work to make something feel effortless. It takes experience to know where to stand, when something is about to happen, when to get closer, and when to leave people alone. The goal is for us to be thinking about all of that so you don’t have to think about any of it.

You should be able to watch your wedding film and recognize your wedding.

Not the version of it we created for you.

The actual one.

That’s what we’re trying to preserve.