Why don’t we gush?

At a recent wedding fair I was asked why our blog is so unlike other companies’ blogs.

It’s true, we don’t spend time telling you “what a wonderful wedding we recorded last week, how the bride looked stunning and the event was simply heaven to be at” – all that gushing, celebrity mag sort of thing.

There are two reasons why we’re different. First, regardless of where they’d come in the airbrushed celebrity mags, every one of our brides looks simply stunning on the day. Secondly, making sure the event’s a success is part of our job, along with all the other suppliers. In reality that means making sure that any little problems that arise aren’t noticed by the bride and groom and are never allowed to become big problems.

In fact, that part of our job starts almost as soon as the girl slips on her engagement ring for the first time. Every decision the couple make about their wedding has the propensity to become a disaster because unfortunately the wedding business has as many sharks and conmen as the plumbing trade.

Here’s a few we’ve encountered personally.

Dress shops that sell the bride a wedding dress which patently doesn’t fit; menswear hire companies which send out suits without buttons; wedding cars that break down because they’ve not been serviced; church organists who play as if they’ve seventeen fingers on each hand; hotels which discount the price of the food for the wedding breakfast but double the bar prices to compensate; photographers who behave as if the church is a studio not a place of worship and think the entire day’s a photo shoot; DJs who insist on playing every record at full volume; and video cameramen who simply don’t know their craft or the art and skill of making television programmes.

How does the bridal couple avoid these pitfalls? Mainly by checking out the truth of every claim or statement that’s made. Most important is to ignore testimonials supposedly from other couples – “Thanks for a great DVD, you’re a star – Jason and Lynn” – even if Jason and Lynn are actually real people and not figments of the video producer’s imagination, would their message be printed if it wasn’t complimentary? When did you last see a testimonial which said, “My bouquet fell apart before I reached the church but the flowers on the altar were OK. I’d certainly recommend ABC florists etc”?

And finally, don’t rely on what other couples tell you. Referrals are supposed to be the best recommendations but in reality they’re only as good as the other couple’s taste and judgement. Some people like McDonalds, others Burger King, and still others detest all hamburgers. Whose advice should you take?

It’s the same with wedding suppliers, check out exactly what you’re buying – which is the message underlying most of the articles you’ll read in this blog. Caveat emptor – let the buyer beware – is always the best advice we ever give.

A persuasive experience

All the research wedding magazines carry out continues to show that couples rank the
importance of having a wedding video much, much higher after their wedding than before.
It’s as if they’ve realised at the wedding that the day is passing before them in a joyous blur
and that at least some of their family and friends won’t be around at their next family event.

Conveying this to couples I meet at Wedding Fairs and other events needs tact and discretion
and both of those need time which we don’t always have at the larger fairs. Even putting it in
print on our website needs careful phrasing so it was with great pleasure I discovered the
following passage in Donald Spoto’s biography of Ingrid Bergman which I read recently.
I’ve paraphrased it a little due to space constraints but it carries most of the dialogue from the
original.

In 1979 Ingrid Bergman, already diagnosed with cancer, was honoured at a dinner held at
Warner Bros Burbank studio – where Casablanca’s interiors had been shot 37 years earlier.
In response to the many tributes, she showed and narrated a black and white film.

“When my father discovered something new had happened – motion pictures,” she explained,
“he was so enthusiastic that on my birthdays and special days, he rented a hand-cranked
movie camera.” The film flickered on to the screen. “That’s me on my mother’s lap, my
grandparents are behind me. That was my first screen appearance, one year old in 1916.

Now here, I am two years old, and there is my mother who pushed me around in my little
wheelbarrow – my first stage prop.

Now there is my mother – and how happy that makes me – since there I can see her move and
smile. I didn’t know what to do in the scenes, nobody gave me direction, but here I am three
years old and I am coming to my mother’s grave, I am putting flowers on her grave.

You can understand why I am so happy to have those earlier shots, where I can see her move
and smile and hold me up – how lovely that was.”

I don’t think I could have put it better.

Silence in Church

Video producers get on very well with wedding photographers – not least because we work very differently and can usually keep out of each other’s way. In fact, at PHP Weddings, when we’re commissioned to videorecord a wedding for which a stills photographer has also been booked, we get in touch with them and make sure that we sort out any possible points of overlap well before the day.

There is just one aspect of digital stills photography which some people are finding irritating and that’s the clack-clack-clack of the camera. Although there’s no technical reason why they make such a noise – unless it’s to tell the photographer the picture’s been taken – the noise only becomes an annoyance when the photographer fires off pictures like a machine gun, often without looking at what he’s photographing at all.

At PHP Weddings we avoid recording most of the noise on the video by using miniature radio microphones hidden on the clothing of the main participants. Unfortunately some vicars and even some registrars are beginning to object to the intrusion of the noise on the ceremony and are limiting where and how the stills photographer can work in their church or venue.

If you think it might bother you, check carefully with the photographer before you book him.