I have to preface this post by saying I was not at all interested in having a wedding videographer.  If you look at the pricing out there, it’s easy to suffer from sticker shock.  And, if you look at the finished work of those vendors who guarantee a fantastic deal, you see just how lame videographer’s can be.  (Ok, this is not an absolute truth here! There are some gifted and up-and-coming videographers who charge reasonably.  They were just booked.)  To forego this seemingly unneccessary cost, we thought we’d recruit Kenny’s best friend’s wife to video the ceremony and the best man/maid of honor speeches. 

Basically, Kenny and I were professional videographer nay-sayers.  But my mom, on the otherhand, was not.  Every day, she’d weave-in her key messages of the importance of having a videographer capture the big day.  No matter what the conversation!  Talk about the art of persuasion or maybe the saturation of messaging, but she broke me… she beat me down with her videography campaign.  (Not to mention, my parents are giving us a generous chunk of change and they have some say in where it goes.)

Two Penny Productions

Two Penny Productions

Anyway, I begrudgingly jumped on the bandwagon and started looking at videographers.  I started with the extremely reasonably priced vendors, but I wasn’t at all impressed with their sample videos.  Not that I wanted a full production with a cinematography director and all that, but I didn’t want it to be the epitomy of lame either.  This is when I come to the realization:  All prices are negotiable – especially for those vendors who run their own businesses.    

So, I made tons of phone calls.  It was time to wheel and deal and get the vendor I (ok – my mom-) wanted at the price we could afford.  

Top three picks and why:
Castle Video Productions - This by far is the best deal out there! This finished product is amazing and you can’t beat the price.  This is a woman-run show and she really has this videography thing nailed down.  It’s no where near lame.  It’s elegant, eloquent and you feel like you’re there.  You get a superior quality product for a reasonable price.    However, she books 18-24 months in advance.  I almost spiraled into a depression when I found out she was booked.  She did recommend Tri-foot Productions and Two Penny Productions.  

Two Penny Productions – All I will say is you HAVE  to visit their site and check out their videos.  The second I navigated onto the site, I didn’t care about any other call backs.  (And by this time, I left several messages with several vendors.)  Until I saw their work, I always connotated a videographer with the word lame.  This started back in highschool.  But I must say, these people are really good at what they do.  And, you work with them with crafting a theme.  I was sold right away, but their price was more than what we wanted to pay.  But, after talking with them, we negotiated an awesome deal.  (It’s a really, really good price!)  So, we booked them! Oh, and this was the one vendor my mom wanted.  Everyone is happy, especially the mom! 

Tri-Foot Productions - Another great deal in the making.  Check them out.  Their getting a lot of buzz on the Knot.com Detroit message board.  If I wasn’t able to negotiate with Two Penny, I would’ve booked Tri-Foot.  Now this is an up-and-coming videographer.  Their reasonably priced and you get a great video.   

I called several other vendors and I’ll post their info on my vendor details page soon.

All of the above vendors send two people to video the wedding.  Oh, and when you’re shopping around for videographers, make sure they include several copies of the dvd and the raw video footage in the package price.  Some vendors charge more for that.