The Guide To Wedding Video Types

When it comes to professional, modern wedding videography, experts confidently use certain industry terms among each other. And while the professionals seem to understand what they are talking about pretty well, explaining the meaning of specific words to their clients may be rather complicated. There are no universally accepted names for general formats of the wedding niche videos, which complicates things a bit more.

Have you ever had to explain to a client what the terms ‘teaser’, ‘highlight’, ‘feature film’ or ‘full documentary’ actually mean? We’ve decided to provide some brief yet exhaustive descriptions for these particular words and phrases based on over 50 answers we received after polling professional videographer groups’ members on social media.

Teaser

This is the shortest type of wedding film that is no more than 60 seconds in length. So, it can be posted on Instagram or any other social media platform. This may be a promo video to raise hype. It will show brief clips of the event, highlighting glimpses of the essential moments. 

Highlight

This is the most popular format of a wedding video. It’s like a wedding trailer that highlights the most vivid and important moments from the event and showcases them in an artistic manner. This can be a 3-minute clip that briefly shows the memorable moments from the wedding day or a 10-minute film that covers the most important fragments: for example, the groom’s and bride’s preparation, ceremony, speeches, locations, and reception. So, the whole day will be turned into a short story with cinematic editing.

This short-form video, or highlight reel, is usually edited in a motion picture style to look and feel like a movie. This wedding video can be done in either a natural linear or non-linear chronological order. The latter may help add some emotion and spice to the film, especially if the right music is added to complement the original plot. Wedding highlights will help keep the memories of your special day alive.

Feature Film

This is a 10–20-minute video option. We usually call this wedding film an extended version of a highlight. It typically depicts more elongated wedding segments, such as vows, some toasts, cake-cutting, and other important parts of your special day.

Most often, the feature-length video format is chronologically edited with the events from the wedding. Here, a mixture of a dynamic music bed with live sound is used.

Full Documentary

This is a 20-60-minute-long ‘opus’. A documentary film may be even longer for Asian and Indian weddings that take several days to celebrate.

This format of a wedding video is basically a movie about your ceremony that depicts all the going-ons during this important day, in a concise yet insightful traditional storytelling manner. It’s a kind of a chronology of your big day, capturing random, candid moments as they happen – from the very beginning to the very end. Parts will focus on the couple getting ready, arriving at the wedding ceremony, exchanging the vows, and giving speeches, all the way to getting photos taken and heading into the reception.

As a rule, the full documentary is supplemented with sound effects of the day’s events, as well as with interviews of the bride, groom, family, and friends that were recorded before the newlyweds tied the knot. A full documentary video is a perfect way to reminisce over and relive that day many years from now with your children and even grandchildren.

Ceremony Edit

This is another popular wedding video that lasts as long as the ceremony does.

Unlike a teaser, highlight, feature film, or full documentary, this is a non-artist documentary video that shows the entire ceremony from start to finish. There are no additional effects or editing tricks. Sound files from the event are used here, which are professionally added to the footage to create a beautiful mini-film. For example, the bride and groom reading their speeches and vows.

A ceremony edit is a very tender video that is filled with joy, tears, and the newlyweds’ heartwarming moments. It is a great addition to other wedding films that the couple can watch together while reliving the emotions of their special day again and again.

Raw Footage

Numerous videographers offer couples the option of receiving both raw footage and edited films. While some videographers present the footage as it was captured, others meticulously sort it into folders like morning preparation, ceremony, reception, and other segments. 

🎞️ Moreover, certain filmmakers compile all the files into a single video, allowing newlyweds to effortlessly view the entire footage without the need to navigate between individual files. We are pleased to announce that we now provide this service as well. If desired, we can even apply a cinematic touch through color grading to enhance the visual aesthetics.

Newlyweds Often Ask, or FAQ

Videographers may have a lot of questions from newlyweds during the initial communication. We collected the most common ones and prepared answers to them, so next time you can just copy and paste, and save time 😉