I will be celebrating my seventeenth wedding anniversary this coming August. When my wife and I were married we had a friend and a relative volunteer to video tape our wedding. This is back in the day when camcorders recorded on VHS and apparently before the invention of the tripod. Needless to say the footage was sentimental, but of extremely poor quality. One of the VHS tapes is literally falling apart. The other has serious tracking issues.
The technological development of the digital era has made it possible for couples to have their wedding and reception memories preserved in a format that will retain its quality for many years to come. My reflection upon my own wedding videos has helped me develop my approach to capturing and preserving wedding and reception footage that will not only retain its quality, but the significance of the wedding.
Today's modern wedding DVD contains the entire wedding ceremony and all of the traditional reception events. There are some really creative wedding DVDs that include "engagement footage". This type of footage is well worth the additional expense.
To clarify, the "engagement footage" is usually footage of the bride and groom to be engaging in romantic and sentimental activities such as walking through a park or slow dancing as they stare into each others eyes. This footage also
includes the couple narrating, in a documentary style, the story of how they met and the development of their relationship with one another.
I take advantage of this style of footage and use it to enhance the meaning and significance of the wedding DVD. A couples wedding day is one of their most meaningful and monumental moments of their lives. The wedding DVD will be most sentimental after many years of marriage. Most couples will watch their wedding video on anniversaries and other milestones landmarks over the course of the marriage.
The traditional wedding DVD that contains only the wedding ceremony and reception footage will fulfil its purpose of bringing back to recollection the events and memories of the glorious day of the wedding. However, a wedding DVD that also captures the "Love Story" will take the couples' hearts back to the very day of their wedding. The couple will be able to hear and see the passion and youthful love they had for one another. Hearing and seeing themselves tell of their love for one another will be priceless and deeply cherished.
