1. Make sure your shooting team has the below information
about your wedding!
Information on Groom End
Groom Name:
Groom Contact number :
Groom Address :
Groom wake up time:
Information on Bride End
Bride Name:
Bride Contact Number
Bride Address:
Bride makeup time:
For Chinese Wedding:
Time to enter Bride’s house:
Time to back to Groom’s house:
For ROM:
ROM ceremony address:
Guest arrival time:
Ceremony start time:
Wedding Banquet
Wedding Banquet address:
Quantity Tables of the Wedding Banquet:
Guest Arrival Time:
Cocktail session:
Dinner Time:
Wedding Banquet End:
Double-check all the information above is correct, especially the address. You would not want your videographers to go to the wrong location, and hence spending more time to reach your place and delay the shoot.
2. Create a WhatsApp group. The bride and groom, photographers and videographers should all be added into the WhatsApp group
This is very important especially if you are conducting your wedding in Chinese Culture where the groom needs to go to the bride’s house, and vice versa. During the journey, communication is very important. Here are a few reasons:
- Videographers and photographers need to take the shot of the groom’s car arrival. Therefore, they have to reach the place before you. Hence, you need to inform all the shooting crews when you are about to arrive so they can prepare everything for the shot. They would need time to change lenses, equipment, (especially if they are taking the drone shot), discussing strategies between each other and etc to get the perfect shot.
- If you request the shot of your car traveling on the Highway, you need to let them know which route you are taking to the Bride’s house. This is very important as some roads have more traffic, while some are spacious. This allows the crews to plan which part of the path is safe for them to overcut your car and take the shot. Also, remember to slow down when you see they are about to film you! 😉
- Besides, good communication also allows everyone to know if the bride is ready for the groom to break the door. The crews can manage their time better and probably take more handsome shots of the groom and groomsmen before breaking the door of the bride. More shots means your video would be better, and hence making your payment more worthy! 😉
3. Assign a middleman/ coordinator to communicate on wedding flow/time management on the day
On your wedding day, time management is very important, and you can’t predict what would happen. It would be the best if you can hire ‘Daikamjie’ as a middleman or flow coordinator, she would know what to do, and will control the time to keep you on the schedule. Normally, she will communicate with videographers on the time, so that we can plan our shots without delaying your schedule. If there is no ‘Daikamjie’, you might ask one of your family members to help you out, be the coordinator to prevent you from running out of time. But if you are not assigning one, you may need to communicate with the videographers, because we wouldn’t want to delay the time on your special day too! Therefore, communication is very important.
Another tip to prevent you from running behind the schedule is to prepare the tea ceremony name list. The tea ceremony is a very important part of the wedding in Chinese Culture. It is a ceremony for the couple to formally introduce your spouse to your elder family members. You would not want to miss out on any elder because it’s a sign of respect for you to serve the tea for them. Also, it’s a ceremony for the couple to gather wishes from all the elders, relatives, and friends!
Therefore, it would be great if you can prepare a list, writing down the sequence of the elders that you should serve the tea for. The order of serving tea is very important. It shows how the couple respect their seniority.
You may list down with the below order:
Parents
Grandparents
Grand uncles and aunts
Uncles and Aunts
Elder siblings
Also, you would need to prepare the list of younger family members to give wishes to you!
You may list down with the below order:
Younger siblings according to seniority
4. Tell your videographer what time you need your SDE (same day edit video) to be played in your dinner
Normally, a videographer would need at least 5 hours to edit your wedding highlight. So, you would not want them staying too late in the morning ceremony, because this means they have less time to edit, and a rushing work would be less likely to be good. By making sure they know what time you need the video, they can arrange their time and decide when to leave in your afternoon ceremony.
5. About crew meal
If you are taking a full day package, and require an SDE video in your wedding dinner, you might need to include crew meal and dinner for the videographers. The shooting crews would need to have their dinner earlier than the guest. This is to ensure the crew to be ready and standby to capture the moment of guest arrival and other important parts after that. Therefore, if you are ordering crew meals from the hotel or other service provider, you need to make sure the meals are ready for the crew before the guests arrive.
6. Tell them your dinner schedule
Dinner schedule would be easier. You may prepare your wedding dinner schedule as below:
Guest Arrival time:
Cocktail served time:
Ceremony start time:
March in time:
Food served time:
Program 1 time:
(suggestion: show some photos of the couple when they were young)
Performance time:
(Bride should use this time to make up and dress up for the second march in)
Second March in Time:
(Followed by cake cutting ceremony, champagne popping, family member toasting on stage)
Time to play morning ceremony photos slideshows and SDE video:
(We recommend this session to be after the second march in so the couple can watch the videos together with every guest)
Speech from Groom/Bride family members/ friends:
Table to table cheering session/dancing session:
Escorting the leaving guest at the photo booth while taking photos with them:
Videographers might charge OT from you if you need them to shoot over time. So you might need to control your time too during the dinner! 😉
A wedding is definitely a special day in your life, we would like to ensure that it would run as smoothly as possible. As videographers, it is our responsibility for us to help you out at our best on your wedding day. Therefore, communication is very important. Hope this article will help you in conducting a smooth wedding.