Wedding Planning Timeline: What To Know Before You Hire A Videographer

We’ve uncovered 3 distinct blocks in your planning timeline, this is what you need to know before you hire a videographer for your Cape Cod or New England wedding.

The 3 distinct booking blocks to our videography booking season are:

• Couples who book super early book 18-22 months before their wedding
• Couple who go by the industry standard wedding planning recommendation book 8-12 months before their wedding
• And couples who book last minute book anywhere between 1-6 months before their wedding

What’s the difference?

It really comes down to where a videographer is in a couple’s vendor priority.

Hiring a videographer 18-22 months before your wedding

This is the prefered booking timeline for couples who consider video to be a Top 5 priority

When a wedding videographer ranks among the top 4 wedding professionals they want to hire, a couple will typically hire their videographer almost 1.5 to almost 2 years before their weddings. These people want the team they want and they’re not going to mess around with tempting fate.

BTW, that almost never used to be a thing.

Hiring a videographer 8-10 months before your wedding

The industry standard recommendation.

8-10 months before your wedding was (and still is) the industry standard for when to hire a wedding videographer. This recommendation is in nearly every wedding planner recommendation and almost every blog post on how to plan a wedding. This used to be just the right time for people who considered video to be among their top priority.

And the couples who wanted to have the upper hand on these couples used to inquire 14 months before their weddings.

Covid shifted that timeline. There are more people who understand the importance of videography than ever before and they’re also inquiring sooner than ever before.

A lot of times, we’re giving recommendations for photographers and wedding planners which means the booking hierarchy went: date > venue > videographer > other vendors.

Hiring a videographer 1-6 months before your wedding

We’ve found that when a couple book last minute it’s for 1 of 3 reasons.

1. Wedding video was never in the plans, but now the wedding is so close, everyone they run into keeps telling them they’ll regret it. EVERYONE (friends, cousins, coworkers, people at the grocery store). And so now they’re starting to believe… “Hey, you know, that might be true…. I never really thought of it before. We should get one, right?”
2. Found money. Videography was never a priority, per se, but because other things WERE, it kind of shoved video out of the budget. Now that everything is funded, they’ve realized there’s some extra in the budget they can dedicate to a videographer. Also—mid-April is a very popular time to add a last minute videographer because of tax returns.
3. As a gift from a loving parent/sibling/wedding party. The couple always wanted a wedding videographer, it wasn’t in the budget cards because sh*ts just expensive. But some kind soul has recognized how important it is to them and now it’s becoming a wedding gift. (If this IS the case, do tell your couple BEFORE you hire the videographer… no one needs or wants a surprise videographer or a videographer they have no say over.)

Tips for SUCCESSFULLY hiring the right videographer for you at the right time

1. Understand what dates are the most popular in a wedding season in your area.

Cape Cod couples—every Cape Cod wedding professional is going to have their heads explode if they get another inquiry for the second or third weekend in September.

This is, legitimately, the single busiest two weeks of the entire wedding season on Cape Cod. We love you, we want to help you 1 month before your wedding but it’s almost a miracle at that point to find a vendor who is not booked.

New England couples—peak foliage season is your busiest time of year (and that varies for each state so check your foliage calendars—but you’re anywhere between late September and mid-October).

2. Know where wedding videography ranks in your your priorities.

Not everyone will be upset that they didn’t get a wedding videographer. But I’ve yet to come across ANYONE who regrets that they did.

And I say that only because I want to make sure the one person out of 10,000 reading this who’s thinking “I know myself and I don’t want one.” I see you. That’s fine. But 9,999 other people really will regret it.

I wish I didn’t have to tell you the two biggest things people regret are (1) not hiring a wedding videographer and (2) not allocating enough of a budget.

Which leads me to #3…

3. Have a realistic budget.

Among the top 3 confessions I get from couples inquiring are:

1. We don’t know anything about videography
2. We’re not sure what to ask a videographer
3. We don’t know how much this should cost

I don’t want to tell you that you should spend $10,000 on a videographer if you’re reading this and your entire wedding budget is $12,000.

Nothing is more frustrating than not being considered part of the equation. (personally, I f*****g hate when articles are supposed to show you how to reno a small kitchen and it turns out I can fit my entire house in it—what do they consider to be BIG??)

Videography is not cheap. Expect to pay the same amount for a videographer as you are paying for a photographer—or more—because the reality is that videography is a really difficult job and it’s also expensive for us to operate.

It’s one of those jobs you think are easy and then it turns out to be impossibly difficult because it’s really 4 jobs rolled into 1.

When should you book your wedding videographer?

To set yourself up for success, don’t book at the last minute. Give yourself the best chance of hiring an amazing videographer book somewhere between 10-14 months before your wedding. That’s when you have the biggest pool vendors to choose from. You’ll feel less stress, more in control, and who doesn’t want that?