Real Dubai Bride Maja Lunsjo: To Hire A Wedding Videographer Or Not?…That Is The Question.

After describing how she decided to create her own wedding invites in her post last month, our real Dubai bride Maja Lunsjo returns with her latest diary entry as her big day draws ever closer. This month, Maja addresses the issue of whether to spend money on a videographer to capture her special day, and how to go about finding someone you can trust. After all, for those of us on a budget, a videographer may be seen as an extra expense, particularly if you have already invested in a good photographer. However, as you’ll see below, Maja has some great reasons for wanting to allocate some money towards a videographer. Find out what she decided to do below. Enjoy!

“Tell me honestly, how many times will you actually watch a video of yourself getting married? For that price, aren’t we better off spending the money on our honeymoon?”

It was about the fourth time in one week that Chris had asked me this question. The debate on whether or not to get a videographer had become our daily dinner topic. I’ll admit he had a point; videographers are a huge expense at a wedding and often one that is deprioritised in favour of photographers. But after hearing several friends say that their best wedding advice was to slow down and enjoy the day because you blink and it’s over, I was adamant to find a way to capture all of the details of the day that I may miss whilst away taking photos or getting ready.

I knew it would be hard convincing Chris, especially since we were already approaching the top of our budget, but this time I had my answer prepared.

“Getting married is an incredibly special moment, Chris,” I said firmly. “It is something you are supposed to share with all your friends and family but we are getting married 4,000 miles away and not everyone can come. Don’t you want to capture the day in a way that we can share with all the people back home? And if that’s not important, imagine when your kids ask about your wedding day and you can actually sit down and show them, wouldn’t that be amazing? Or getting the video and sitting down with some champagne and watching it together just us two for the first time, it would be so romantic!”

I think by this point Chris knew the videographer was a non-negotiable, but we had agreed to make every decision together, so I still had some work to do. To help get the final stamp of approval, I decided to reach out to a couple of videographers for quotes and samples. I figured if I could show Chris exactly what he would be getting for the money, it would seal the deal.

I reached out to four different videographers, one of whom was Denis (pictured below, with business partner Max) from Denee Motion, whom I found via BCME’s vendor club. I had seen some of his work on their website and spotted a couple of videos they had done at our wedding venue, so I felt comfortable that he would be familiar with the location and would know how to capture the beautiful details of Al Qasr. What’s more, Denee Motion works globally and have done wedding videos at a number of venues we had considered back in the UK, so it felt like a good fit.

After having shown Chris a few of their sample films, Chris agreed that not booking a videographer would be a decision we would regret later on. We did some rejigs with our budget and we have now gone ahead and booked Denis and his team for our day, which we are super excited about! We will be getting a 90 minute film for personal use, a 3 minute film for social media and an Instagram highlight clip as well. The turnaround time is about 6 weeks, which we were happy with.

Ultimately, the decision to book a videographer is not easy and understandably so. It is comparably pricey and the value of a wedding video varies greatly from couple to couple, especially when you are on a budget.

Personally, I would advise on getting one, but only if you can find room in your budget.

If you do decide to go ahead, my key advice would be:

• Make sure you see samples of their work so that you know you are happy with the style of the final product.
• If possible, try and find someone who is familiar with your venue. That way they may be more familiar with some of the great spaces for the video.
• If you have certain elements of the wedding that you definitely want in your video (not counting the obvious like your vows and speeches) then inform your videographer of this.
• When booking, consider how many hours you need them for. Chris and I did our wedding timeline and used this to figure out how many hours of video we wanted, from one hour prior to the ceremony to the end of the first dance.

I can’t wait to get our video and I will be sharing the three-minute film here after the wedding. Hope you all like it!

xX Maja Xx

Don’t forget to log on next month to see Maja’s latest bridal diary post!