Using College Students to Shoot your Wedding

May 4, 2006

This is a tough one.  So many brides come to me for ideas on how to trim their wedding budget.  They ask me how I feel about hiring college students to photograph or videotape their wedding.  I say that it all depends on the students and their level of experience.

I’ve shot a number of weddings as a videographer and it’s not easy.  You really need a lot of experience to make sure that you get the shots you need without the shaky “Blair Witch” effect.  You don’t want your parents to get nauseous watching your wedding video.

But, I’ve worked with experienced grad students that have shot documentaries and weddings and understand location sound enough to make sure that the audio is picked up throughout the wedding day.  Those grad students did a great job every time. 

Some people have hired inexperienced undergrad students to photograph their wedding and it just didn’t come out the way they planned.  The photographer didn’t get the shots she was supposed to get even though she was given a shot list.  She didn’t have the ability to catch those spontaneous shots and just walked around and waited for something interesting to happen.

Another couple hired a student to videotape their wedding and they didn’t show up wearing proper attire - jeans do not qualify.  The student videographer spent a lot of time trying to pose the couple instead of capturing moments in a documentary fashion.  It just wasn’t the right fit.

If you are decide to hire a student, here are some things to remember:

1) Hire an advanced student or graduate student that has shot at least 5 weddings before yours.  That level of experience will be invaluable if things go off schedule that day.

2) Ask to see their reel.  If they don’t have a reel, that could be a red flag.  I say “could be” only because they might have a few documentary films to show you and outtakes from other weddings that they’ve shot.  If they show you a good body of work, then consider them for the job.  Still talk to other videographers.

3) Ask for references from couples with whom they’ve worked.

4) Write up a contract with all of your requests in writing, their wedding attire, the shot list, start time and ending time for the day, # of DVDs in the package, etc.

I would still interview experienced videographers because many of them have great deals on their video packages.

Take care!

Alison

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