You. Yes, you can pick your music for your wedding film. Although with one big caveat. Hi, I’m Jason Monroe, owner and operator of highway 61 films. We’ve been making wedding films in Chicago since 2009. And when couples ask me this question, I will first off tell them that we do license all the music that is in our films. And there were websites that were created specifically for the purpose of wedding filmmakers and independent filmmakers to easily obtain licensure for music used in their videos. And these websites were created specifically for that purpose. And I’d say there are about six or seven websites that we pull music from. All the music that you hear in our wedding videos was pulled from these websites. Sometimes couples want to be really collaborative with us and are very picky about the music that we use in the films. And we love the collaboration. Although sometimes once couples see kind of what’s involved in that process, they kind of lay low and let us do the heavy lifting and do all of that. But we can send them playlists of songs that we think would work well for their wedding film and then we think would be very good for their edit. And we can send them those playlists and they can kind of pick and choose what they like and what they don’t like. But ultimately, if there’s a song that’s a popular song that everybody knows that they just can’t live without, ultimately we could go through the process of requesting the use of the song from the publisher and then the songwriter. Those are the two people you need it from. But sometimes that can be a long, laborious and even expensive process to go through. But most of the time, they’ll just leave it up to us and we’ll pull from those websites that were created for the specific purpose.
Here are some tips and tricks to film a great video that stops the scroll:
You’ve got 3-5 seconds to stop the viewer’s scroll. Be creative… start with a phrase like:
We’ll put your name and bio in the title and links, so you can say something more general like:
Give them your hot take, and don’t hold anything back.
check out how Sal nailed it in this video and so did Megan in this one and Nichole told it straight (from her car).
Do you feel like the industry charges more “because it’s a wedding” and they know it’s an emotional purchase?
Do companies think that they can charge more for weddings since the bride and groom may be willing to spend more on their dream wedding?
Hey wedding pros – is this higher price tag justified? Why? Do you charge more for your service if it is a wedding?
This is a taboo topic, whispered but not discussed… until now.
Welcome to The Uncorked Project!
2 comments
I have been asked this so many times... does the wedding industry inflate prices when they hear it's a wedding?
Here is my honest answer (as a former wedding photographer)... NO. Did I charge more for a wedding than a 50th birthday party or a family portrait session? Yes, absolutely. I charged A LOT more for a wedding.
Was I taking advantage of the emotional sell? Absolutely not.
The main reasons I charged more for a wedding were: the unseen amount of work involved in the 12+ months leading up to the wedding, the skill level needed on the day, the INTENSE pressure to create perfect "portfolio level work" no matter what the reality of the situation- but mostly it is to compensate for the time AFTER the wedding in post production.
Little known fact about wedding photography - the real job is sitting at a computer editing photos. Photographers spend many hours behind the computer carefully selecting and editing photos. They make adjustments, crop, and adjust colors to ensure each image it's best. Don't forget the time it takes for batching, renaming, importing, exporting and uploading the photos and preparing them for delivery.
Do you think this justifies why photographers charge more for weddings than for other types of shoots?
Couldn’t agree more! And on the videography side its an absolute ton of data + editing discipline.
Its a double sided coin- weddings are extremely high pressure but also high reward when we nail it.
Our products (photo video) in particular are the only thing that genuinely will last forever . Having fun and ALSO nailing the product is worth the price of entry and frankly more.