Your Wedding Day is Over... What Happens Next? How Your Wedding Video is Made

Your wedding is over. All the planning, anticipation and excitement is over. Your day went smoothly and everyone had fun! Your crazy aunt didn't get too drunk and your new husband's groomsmen all mostly behaved themselves. Your maid of honor gave an awesome speech that didn't have any embarrassing memories shared. You're happy. You start to get social media notifications of all the posts people have tagged you in. Several shaky cell-phone videos, and less than perfect photos. It is still fun to see these even though you would have preferred to share your professional photos and videos first. Oh well!  So what happens next with your video?  While you are adjusting to married life and going back to your hobbies that you were engaged in before wedding planning took over your life, here is what we are doing:

1. We drive home from the wedding and as soon as we get back to our home office, we bring the bags with the cameras inside. Our first priority is the security of your footage, so we make sure the cameras and the SD cards are all safely inside our home office. 

---

2. The day after the wedding, we begin transferring the cards to the computer. We create folders on an external hard drive, for camera 1, camera 2, and camera 3. We also have a folder for the drone and another folder for the audio files. We neatly organize our files so that when it's time to edit your footage, it will be easier. This also ensures we don't accidentally delete anything.  Once it has all transferred to the hard drive, we copy the entire folder to another hard drive. Then we note on our master list where your files are being stored.

3. Your wedding is now in the editing queue.  We guarantee delivery within 12 weeks of your wedding day, but we might be able to get you your wedding video before that time. In the first half of the year, deliver can be much sooner. Towards the end of wedding season, in the fall, it typically takes the full 12 weeks. 

4. It is time to edit your wedding! Yay! I personally don't do this, though I'm fully capable and been learning / training to edit for the past year. Nan is our experienced editor and is responsible for 100% of Classic Filmworks edits.  She begins by synching the audio files with the video files for the ceremony and toasts. She works on editing these first, because they have the backbone of the story that will drive your wedding video. She also scrubs through the files to see what type of footage we have as far as a highlight film goes. 

5. She is in full swing editing. The ceremony is complete, with color correction. The toasts are complete as well. She is doing a documentary style full length edit for your video, so she must complete each section of the day. She goes through it linearly, but also jumps around a bit because sometimes creating takes looking at things a few different ways.

6. Once all the footage is on the timeline and in order more or less, she begins to adjust it / tighten it. This is where it starts coming together to look like a real movie. 

7. Next comes audio editing! She adds in music (original music from your day for your full-feature film), and adjusts the audio levels. 

8. Once the feature film is complete, it gets uploaded to Mediazilla where Nan will create chapters for the main events during your film (toasts, dances, ceremony, etc). 

9. After the feature film is edited, Nan takes the very best parts and creates the highlight film. This is usually to one complete song. We choose a song either that 1. fits the style of the music you played at your wedding or 2. that you requested. If you would like to help choose a song, we advise you to browse Soundstripe and Songfreedom to find a song to your liking! We are also happy to help make song suggestions that will work well with your wedding film! Sometimes, we may use two songs for a wedding highlight film. 

10. Once your highlight film is complete, we add that to your collection on Mediazilla (everything on Mediazilla is available for download, ready to burn on Blu-Ray or USB, or streamable). We also put your highlight on YouTube for you to share on social media. The music we use in your highlight is licensed so no one will get sued for posting this online! Yay!

11. You receive an email from us that your films are ready! You watch your wedding video. You love it! You share your highlight and get tons of amazing comments about how wonderful it is. 

12. You write us a great review online! :)))))

---