Why hire a videographer for your wedding in Belgium?

by Fred

Let’s be direct: you’re going to spend weeks, if not months, organizing, planning and perfecting every detail of your wedding. But in the end, it’s only one day. Not in terms of importance, we’re clear on that. But in terms of length, a day is a day.

So all that energy, all that care... wouldn’t it be nice to be able to relive it?

Traditionally, that’s what photos are for. They freeze moments, stop time, keep a trace of who you were that day. And that’s already huge. But more and more, video is finding its place at weddings too. And if you think it’s just a second angle on the same memories, then we haven’t had the chance to talk yet.

The story of wedding video:
from film reels to digital

How I started in video, and why I didn’t film weddings right away

Shooting vidéo à l'IAD en 2010 pour mon projet de fin d'année en section Multimédia.

More than 15 years ago, I was doing a master’s in multimedia at IAD. It was amazing, I got to shoot and make such fun projects, like a music video for a rock band, animations, little video games...

I worked in a dark editing suite on Avid, an editing program that cost several thousand euros and was reserved for schools and big professional studios. That’s when I discovered the power of editing. Everyone had to make a film from a handful of silent black-and-white shots, adding music and an intention. In the end, nobody had the same film, and I thought that was incredible! I had other aspirations at the time and it probably wasn’t the right moment to dive in. But now that I’m here, I’m here to stay!

Yesterday’s video: a matter of reels and machines

Poster for The Jazz Singer (1927), considered the first talking film.

People often compare analog and digital photography, but for some reason they rarely do the same for video. Yet what cinema gave us was enormous reels, yards of film on bulky cameras, and for editing, a machine that took up half an apartment.

Silent cinema dominated until 1927. Theaters had musicians playing live during the screening. The first film with synchronized sound is The Jazz Singer (1927, Al Jolson), an absolute revolution. Before that, it was impossible to keep a voice, a laugh, a sound moment. What cinema discovered in 1927 is exactly what a wedding film gives you today: not just images, but a complete sound experience.

And even though my idols like Wes Anderson or Tim Burton still give us masterpieces shot on film, for a wedding film, let’s say it’s not the most practical.

Democratization: when video became accessible to everyone

Today, video is everywhere. What used to require an entire production studio twenty years ago can now be done with a compact camera and a laptop. Instagram was originally for photos only, then TikTok arrived, YouTube exploded, and our smartphones film in near-pro quality. The medium has spread everywhere, and everyone is filming all the time now.

So weddings became a fantastic playground for creativity, and brought me back to my loves from back then. I tried it out of curiosity and never stopped. As if the universe had given me a little wink: “there you go, this is your moment now.”

Sound in wedding video: video’s superpower

Voices, laughter, music: what no photo can capture

Let’s start with the most obvious one... We could have started with movement, sure, that’s also something a photo can’t convey. But video’s real superpower is sound. The laughter, the applause, the speeches that tighten your throat or give your cheeks a workout.

If you can’t cheat with light in photography, you can’t skip a sound in video. Your partner’s voice breaking during their vows, or that pause they force themselves to take so they can keep going without cracking. In the moment, it will stay with you far more than their outfit, 100% guaranteed. But in five or ten years, when memories start to fade, a photo will remind you of them. Video will bring them back as if you were there.

And don’t get me started on music. Some songs automatically take you back to a moment, an era, a version of yourself. The sounds of my teenage years (and yes, I admit, there was some boy band), objectively don’t deserve a second of listening attention today. But thanks to the memories attached to them, it’s gold. The song of your first dance, of your entrance into the town hall, of your arrival at the reception (can someone please gently talk Mic out of playing AC/DC for ours?^^). All the music that means something to you has its place in your memories. And so in your film.

Discreetly perfect sound

Cindy & Kristof’s wedding in June 2024.

If the presence of these sounds is essential to a good wedding video, their quality is crucial. Try this if you get the chance: watch a video with a mediocre image but clean sound, then another with a gorgeous image and terrible sound. I’d bet a couple session that you’ll find the first one much easier to watch.

That’s why we put as much care into sound as into image. On the wedding day, it doesn’t change much for you: we coordinate in advance with the DJ to plug into their setup, and for the rest we have our small, discreet gear that picks up what really matters. What it does change is that you’ll finally be able to understand that joke your witness made during their speech... you know, the one you pretended to laugh at because you were actually thinking about something else at the time. You’ll see.

Speeches:
the words a photo can’t keep

Don’t get me wrong, Mic takes beautiful photos of the speeches. He focuses on the glances and the emotions and manages to convey what the words of your loved ones stirred in the couple.

But call me a cheater if you like, I record every word spoken by every speaker. It’s pure logic, isn’t it? Those words have a very special importance for the couple.

That’s why, in addition to the film, we always deliver a separate video with all the speeches in full. Not cut up, not summarized. Whole. Because in ten years, hearing your witness or your parents say exactly what they said that day is priceless.

Photo or video for your wedding?
Admire or relive a memory?

The photographer and the videographer at a wedding. Mic and me just before Cindy & Kristof’s religious ceremony.

Videre: why wedding video completes photography

The word “video” comes from the Latin videre: “I see.” Not “I saw,” not “I will see.” I see, in the present, continuously. That’s already quite a statement. Where a photo stops time, video follows it. It doesn’t pick one instant among others, it follows the flow, it stays in motion.

And a wedding day is exactly that: a flow. It starts, it speeds up, it slows down, it picks up again. There are moments when everyone is crying and two minutes later everyone is bursting out laughing. A photo can catch one or the other. Video keeps both, and everything in between.

Between the “I do” and the smile, something happens

For a long time, video was thought of as a photo that moves. Technically, that’s exactly what it is: 24 or 25 images per second played back continuously. But in reality it’s so much more than that.

Take the “I do.” No need to explain what I’m talking about, we’re wedding photographers and videographers, so when I say the “I do,” it’s THE “I do.” In photo, Mic will try to capture that moment, and maybe the smile right after. I can have both, but also what happens between the two. And it may seem trivial, but the time taken between the “I do” and the smile often says a lot. It carries a tension, an emotion, that a photo can’t convey, because that moment, taken out of context, would be nothing more than a portrait that’s neither expressive nor smiling.

And this logic applies everywhere. That smile that trembles because someone is holding back a tear: a photo can hint at it, but video really shows it. Two hands holding each other in a photo are always beautiful, but the way those hands found each other tells another story.

A photo can catch a fragment of all that. Video gives you back the whole scene, with its rhythm, its surprises, its texture. It gives you time to look. To be back there.

He freezes, I follow

What Mic and I do isn’t redundant, it’s complementary. He works with the image like a pause on the world: he chooses, composes, freezes. I stay in the videre, in that continuous present. I weave the thread between his images, I catch what happens in the gaps, in the transitions, in what wasn’t planned. We don’t step on each other’s toes because we’re not looking for the same thing. He looks for the perfect image. I look for the right moment. Two ways of seeing that don’t compete, they answer each other. And together, we give you back a complete day.

In the end, photo stops time.
Video takes you back to it.

We work as a duo because for us the two media complement each other. Not to have two different angles, but to give you two different ways of reliving that moment.

A photo is a freeze frame, but it’s more magical than that: it’s a stop in time. You can take each of those moments down to the microsecond and admire it, take as long as you like to look at every detail of your ceremony exit or admire your outfits for hours if that’s your thing. That’s why, for us, a physical object is so important, whether it’s an album or a framed print.

Video makes you relive the whole day. It takes you back to your wedding day and tickles not only your eyes but also your ears. Where flipping through your album you’ll say “oh, remember that?!”, watching the film you’ll say “look at the face he’s making!!!” No cheating either: video shows everything, you can’t embellish a memory. And someone wasn’t there? Don’t inflict an endless slideshow on them, laugh and cry together watching the after movie instead.

And if the universe brought us together for this, we might as well make the most of it, right? Shall we talk?