Nashville wedding videography runs from a few hours with one camera to full-day films with clean audio on every vow. This guide walks through what a full wedding day looks like on film, what you get afterward, what it costs, and what to plan so the moments you care about make it into the film.
Everything below is how we work at I Do Films, and most of it comes from the planning calls I have with couples before their wedding.
What a wedding film includes
A wedding film is usually several films. With us, every wedding gets a highlight film, the story of your day with your voices leading it, plus a 60-second teaser that arrives with it, made for sharing. Both live on a private film website that stays yours forever, and your films come on a USB keepsake too.
When I film your wedding myself, you also get a second filmmaker, a longer highlight film, and the full ceremony edit with clean audio, every vow and every reading. The reception edit, a Guest Messages film and the Video Book are add-ons. Your raw footage is archived forever either way, so a new edit years from now is always possible. The details for each option are on the pricing page.
The full day, or a block of hours
Many videographers sell a block of hours, and when the block ends, the filming stops. We cover the whole day with no hourly limits. On his planning call, Jamil told me: “You’re the only one we talked to that did not have a time limit.”
If you’re comparing quotes, I break down what each price range usually gets you in what a wedding videographer costs in Nashville.
The day, part by part
This is the order most of our weddings follow, and what we plan for at each part on the call before.
Getting ready
The morning is the quiet part, before anyone is watching. If you’re writing each other letters or private vows, this is when we film you reading them. Couples often tell me the slow getting ready is one of their top moments of the day.
The first look
There are a few ways to do it, and I walk couples through them on the call. You can stand back to back, hold hands and say something to each other before you turn around. She can walk up and tap your shoulder. You can turn on a three-count without the tap. Or you can save it and see each other for the first time at the church. Any of them works on film, and whichever you pick, we stay far back and let it happen.
The ceremony
Both of you and the officiant wear a small microphone. On a dress it’s a white one, taped so you don’t feel it, and it comes off at the end of the night. If your ceremony has a printed program, send it to us. It tells us what happens when, so we’re never filming someone’s reaction while something important is happening at the altar. When a ceremony has traditions I haven’t filmed in a while, I read up on what each part means before the wedding, so I can give each one its time in the edit.
For Coptic Orthodox weddings, we film the crowning from the entrance to the exit and keep the hymns and the priest’s words in your film. Our Coptic wedding films page walks through every part of the rite.
The toasts
We record the toasts clean, and one camera stays on the faces of the people listening.
The entrance and the first dance
If you enter to a high-energy song, have your guests stand and cheer where they are instead of opening the dance floor. When the hype songs run long, everyone crowds the floor and then has to go back to their seats for the first dance.
The private last dance
I recommend this one. While your guests head outside and line up for the send-off, which takes a few minutes to set up, the two of you get the dance floor alone for one song. It’s one of the few things I remember clearly from my own wedding. Some shy couples skip the first dance and keep only the private one.
The send-off
Most send-offs are sparklers or bubbles, with guests in two rows and the two of you running through. Some couples do a pretend send-off at sunset so more guests are in it, then the real one at the end of the night. We’re there the whole day, so if you do it twice, we film it twice and use whichever is best.
Planning the day with your filmmaker
The first call is a brainstorm, about 45 minutes. Only a paid retainer reserves your date. A 50% retainer locks the date, and the balance is due a month to six weeks before the wedding.
About six weeks before the wedding, we have the planning call I lead. We go through your timeline, the moments you care about most, and what you’re hoping to avoid. Then we share the timeline with your photographer. We work next to photographers every weekend, and planning together means we share golden hour with them.
What it costs
We have two options, chosen by who films. Bebo, personally: from $5,000, with a second filmmaker. I Do Films Teams: from $3,000, with one filmmaker from the team I trained, and I still lead the planning. Both are full-day coverage with no hourly limits. The pricing page has what each one includes.
Nashville venues and the towns around it
Every venue films differently: where the light falls at ceremony time, how sound travels in the room, and how far apart everything is. I wrote up the ones couples ask about most in best wedding venues in Nashville, and each has its own filming notes on our venues page. All of Middle Tennessee is home for us, from Franklin to Murfreesboro, and the areas we serve page covers each town. We travel too, and we go over travel for your location on the call.
Before and beyond the wedding day
Some couples start earlier. An engagement film is a short film of the two of you, and we keep that footage for the wedding film later. We plan proposal films with you and film them unseen, with a hidden microphone on every word. A save the date film is 60 to 90 seconds, built around an idea we come up with together. And elopement films get the same full-day coverage, whatever the guest count.
Choosing your videographer
Ask each videographer for a full film to watch start to finish, and ask every one of them the same questions. I put the eight I’d ask in questions to ask your wedding videographer, and if you’re still deciding whether a film is worth it at all, start with is a wedding videographer worth it.
After the wedding
Your highlight film arrives in about six weeks on average, and your contract caps it in writing at under three months. The teaser comes with it. If a clip needs to go or a section feels short, tell us, and we keep going until it’s the film you’ll still be watching decades from now.
Your raw footage stays on our drives. The weddings we filmed nine years ago are still there, which is what makes an anniversary re-edit possible years later.
You can watch real films from our couples on the films page, and read how we film a whole day on our Nashville wedding videography page.
Save this guide and come back to it as each part of your planning comes up.
Bebo
