Wedding days are a unique moment in time when we celebrate the marriage of people who plan to be together through thick and thin for years to come.

Likewise, the wedding and reception are occasions for the happy couple and their family, friends, buddies and others to celebrate with them.

Photographing the occasion is a special art, and making a video even more so. Whilst professional videographers do charge, if you want a special memoir of the happy day, we suggest that it is worth it in the end. Here are five very good reasons why you should not video your own wedding.

• For all you may think you are great with a camcorder, you may not be as great as you think. Do you really want your new mother in law to hold a grudge for the next twenty years because you caught her falling out with her hubby? Recording is one thing, but editing is another job best left to the professionals.
• You will be busy. Getting married is a frantically busy business. Being on time, getting over the hen party, or stag night, drinking session may leave you with a thick head and a bit shaky. You do want the resultant movies to be watchable, don’t you?
• It is a one off occasion. A permanent recording needs to be one that you are happy to bring out and watch with the children one day. An amateur, badly shot, wobbly and embarrassing video may give you a laugh in years to come, but is this what you really want – a slightly cranky movie that is not really fit for purpose.
• Your new wife or husband needs your support. Weddings are highly emotionally charged times. If you are filming, you are not paying due attention to the person that you are there to share your wedding, and the rest of your life, with. At the least they are going to be fed up and at worst it is going to start your married life off with a blazing row. Not a good start to married life, there is plenty of time for that – after the wedding!
• A professional can and will do it better. The person filming needs to be separate to the business of being married, watching but not in the way, leaving you to concentrate on your spouse to be. Even at the reception it is better to have the services of someone who will remain sober.., who will treat all the guests with due respect, and whose only interest is to produce a product that you will be proud enough of for him or her to obtain referrals for the next wedding. A professional stands on his or her reputation for doing a great job. Forget DIY Video for weddings, splash the cash and get a professional to do it for you, then in years to come you will be proud to show the video to those generations to come. 

Enjoy your day.