How to Become a Wedding Videographer (UK)
Hey everyone!
This is my personal story of how I started out as a wedding videographer, I know this story is very similar to a lot of my wedding videographer and even photographer friends. So if you’re interested in how to get into it, or you’re a bride interested in how Daydream Films came about then read ahead!
The backstory: I started with my first camera quite young, in fact it was my first ever phone that could record video too. I would film mini clips and then edit them together to a song in Windows Movie Maker, most of the time they were incredibly moody - staring out the car window as my dad drove us to Tesco, someone playing the piano at school, etc. I then went on to study Media for GCSE and again for A-Level (actually a BTEC in Film and TV production so way more hands on with filming stuff). Then came university, in which I swapped my degree and university a few times. I ended up settling in at the University of Warwick studying Film and Television studies (shout out to some of the best people I’ve ever met in my life). It was a theoretical course, but it taught me so much invaluable information that has contributed to my filming style. Then in second year, they announced a partnership with the London Film School to do a production module taught by them. I of course did that, loved it, created a short film called Left Behind, and ended up with the best grade I’d pretty much ever received in my whole academic life.
The first wedding: ***During third year, a family friend asked if I’d ever considered filming weddings and asked if I’d film their wedding day a week after my graduation. I said yes, I was worried I’d be shit at it, can’t lie, but the couple were great and said we know you haven’t done this before we just want some form of recording of the day. So I filmed their day and it ended up being an absolute dream, this ended up being my first highlight - Kloe and Ant’s wedding in July 2018. I made mistakes, the kind of mistakes you’d expect for a first timer with no experience of how weddings worked in terms of filming them. However, Kloe and Ant ended up loving their highlight film and I ended up with a new love for wedding videography. Then a couple weeks later, my sister’s best friend was getting married and I asked if I could tag along and film their wedding. They already had a videographer, and this was probably my biggest learning curve. Charlotte and Tim were amazing for letting me film their day and I can’t thank them enough for letting me, however, looking back now, rocking up on the day without the official videographer knowing I was coming was a bad move on my part. He was extremely professional with me all day, but it must have been so annoying to have a newbie there trying to get shots. Do not do this, learn from my mistakes. Instead of doing this, I would recommend reaching out to videographers and asking to shadow/assist them/be a second shooter to get experience.
A few more family friends ended up booking me for their weddings the following year after seeing Kloe and Ant’s and Charlotte and Tim’s highlights - the power of social media and people actually sharing your work is massive. I then made a Facebook page, an Instagram and a website with Wix - took out the best plan I could afford and made a simple, clean, easy to navigate website with my videos on. Luckily, I knew a fair bit about social media, marketing and SEO so I did my best to manage that. Other people then started to see my website and Instagram and the enquiries started coming in, some were booked, some were not. I also joined a lot of wedding support Facebook groups, posted my services in there a couple times, but I’d mainly use them for commenting on posts of people looking for videographers. Be careful with these groups though, they may be discouraging at times.
In 2019 I started filming weddings basically every month, with my summer months being a bit busier. I had a few people approach me at weddings asking if they could have my information, so I always had a pack of business cards on me to give out. Then referrals came in from previous couples and my SEO and social media presence was starting to work for me. 2019 was pretty amazing, however as we all know 2020 has sucked, but 2021 is looking very busy!
So simply:
Reach out to engaged friends/family and offer your services. I did it for experience, but if you wish to charge a small amount then that’s your business. On the opposite side, reach out to local wedding videographers and ask if they would consider you assisting them on a shoot.
If you don’t know anyone that’s getting married, join wedding groups on Facebook. There are so many out there and a bunch of brides/grooms who will appreciate someone offering their services as a beginner/first timer. You could also do some styled shoots with people who are not getting married. This is quite common, vendors get together from all realms of the wedding industry and do shoots together in order to add to their portfolio and meet people in the industry.
Set up a page on all social media channels going. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Linkedin YouTube, etc. If you have no wedding content yet, repost news stories about wedding, funny memes, anything wedding related just so you have some presence.
Print marketing is NOT DEAD. Get a business card handy to give to anyone and everyone, especially guests at weddings you attend.
Get a website - Squarespace and Wix are so easy to use and have affordable packages. Then delve into the world of SEO, link building and how to get your website seen. (This was my day job for a couple years so I could do a detailed blog post on this).
Once you have a wedding under your belt, post it EVERYWHERE. Get your couple and their family to repost, your friends and family to repost, etc. Take as many stills from the wedding video as you can and post these consistently on your social media platforms. This is FREE ADDITIONAL CONTENT TO MARKET YOURSELF. Then tag all the vendors you know who worked at that wedding, make some pals!
If you have the money start social media ads on the key players like Facebook/Instagram and of course Google/Bing Ads. (Again I can go into a lot more depth with this in a separate blog post).
Hope this helps!Em x