We chose Cinemedia as our videographer for our destination wedding in Florida, and it was absolutely the right decision. Choosing vendors when planning a destination wedding can be challenging…you usually can’t meet them in person before the big day, and unless they’ve got samples of work that emulates your vision exactly (and let’s face it…that’s kind of impossible!), you’re basically choosing a style and hoping it works for you in the end. We determined early on that photography and videography were extremely important to us. I knew the day would fly by, and I wanted to make sure that we’d be able to relive those special moments later, and “see” everything we’d missed in the joy of the day.
Steve at Cinemedia was so patient with me during the selection process…I sent him a TON of questions and we did telephone meetings several times before we decided to trust our guts and go with Cinemedia. We liked the style of the video samples on their website, but more importantly, we liked that Steve (and his team) seemed very committed to delivering a quality product that would capture our day and who we are as a couple. Now that we’ve had a chance to work with them on our day and we’ve received the finished products, I can say that we chose the best team to work with for our wedding. They were extremely professional, they were unobtrusive, they worked hard to make sure we were comfortable and that they were capturing all the important moments…but they were very careful not to intimidate or get in the way. They arrived early on the day and got right to work. They coordinated beautifully with our photographers, and the communication with a nervous bride before during and after was exceptional! The finished products are truly works of art…they are beautiful, professional and emotionally moving. We would highly recommend Cinemedia to any couple wanting a truly special wedding day film that they will treasure for many years to come.
Here’s a link to that short 5 minute short story video if you want to take a look:
Brooke and Frank’s Wedding Video
During the selection process, there were a couple of deciding factors for us, besides how much we liked Steve and what he had to say: Price was definitely a factor. Videography is an expensive element, and many will advise against it to save money. We did a lot of research and then interviewed a number of companies before selecting Cinemedia. Price-wise, they came in a little higher than the “middle” of the vendors I researched, but I really liked them the best so I went slightly over budget to work with them. Having seen the end result—I think we got a bargain!!!
Another factor: Cinemedia includes the leftover raw footage as part of their standard package—there is no arguing for this and no extra hidden fees. This was very important to me. While I totally trusted Cinemedia’s artistic vision, I knew the finished products could not possibly include every moment of the day they recorded. While I have faithfully promised NOT to inflict endless shots of setup at our venues on anyone else, I wanted to have every last minute of the footage that got recorded. Many vendors do not offer this at all, or they charge extra fees to include it. Another big factor in our decision was the timeframe for delivery. Many of the vendors we spoke with promised delivery 6 – 8 months following the wedding. Cinemedia promised delivery in 3 – 5 months. We got our video a little less than 4 months after the wedding, and Steve was great about communicating with us about delivery. He even went above and beyond and got us the documentary edits of our ceremony and reception early since we were going out of town to visit relatives that hadn’t been able to attend the wedding.
What we got in our package: a team of videographers for our ceremony and reception, and additional coverage of our getting ready/pre ceremony activities (including WONDERFUL coverage of BOTH of us for our “First Look”) and Steve returning several hours later to cover a dessert party/fireworks show later in the evening.
The finished product includes a 5 minute “short story” video that is a beautiful “highlights” of our day and really shows who we are. This is the masterpiece…the quality is incredible, very professional and not at all cookie cutter. It really feels like they spent a lot of time reviewing our day and selecting the most important moments and told a unique and special story of us and of our day.
Also included in the finished product are a documentary edit of the ceremony, the reception and our dessert party. For the ceremony, it is edited footage from several cameras capturing the entire ceremony from start to finish and including a little post ceremony/exit footage as well. This was edited beautifully and I am so grateful that we have this…our ceremony was really very special and to have it captured so professionally and beautifully means everything. For the reception and dessert party, the documentary edits are basically short films of edited footage from several cameras showing the highlights from the two events. Many moments I’d forgotten already are there…having these memories on film are priceless. Finally, we also received approximately 2 hours of “leftover” footage that didn’t end up in any of the other completed products. This footage is not edited, but rather the shots that didn’t fit anywhere else or were duplicated from another angle. I LOVE our raw footage. There’s a lot of stuff from getting ready in the morning, and even watching our venue get setup as the videographers are working on technical setup is magic for me. I know many brides won’t care about this stuff…but for the crazy ones like me who want to know what happened every moment of the day…this goes a LONG way to satisfying that!
I realize this is a long review, but videography can be a large percentage of your wedding budget, depending on your budget and there are a lot of things to consider. I wholeheartedly recommend Cinemedia—they are extremely talented, very professional and priced very fairly. They care about producing a high quality product and they understand the importance of the events they are capturing. We could not be happier with their performance on our wedding day and with the quality of the beautiful finished films they produced.
Click HERE to visit their website and learn more.