Documentary wedding video, and what the word is doing

Search for a wedding videographer in any major city and almost everyone will describe their work as documentary, candid, unposed or authentic. The words have been used so widely that they have stopped narrowing anything down, which is a shame, because the underlying distinction is real and it changes your entire day.

The actual difference is who is in charge

A directed approach treats the day as raw material for a film. The videographer will ask you to walk back down the aisle, hold a moment longer, redo the first look for a second angle. The results can be genuinely stunning, and there is nothing dishonest about it — it is filmmaking.

A documentary approach treats the day as the thing itself. The camera positions itself for what is about to happen instead of asking for it again. The trade is direct: you lose some of the perfect frames, and you keep your day.

Most studios sit somewhere between the two. What matters is where, and whether they will tell you.

Four questions that separate them fast

1. "How many times will you ask us to repeat something?" A documentary answer is a number, usually a small one, and it is honest about portraits being the exception.
2. "What happens if we are running forty minutes late?" Directed shooters need their portrait window and will tell you what gets cut. Documentary shooters shrug — lateness is just what happened that day.
3. "Can we see a full film where the weather was bad?" Highlight reels are all sunlight. How a studio handles rain tells you whether they film the day or their plan for it.
4. "Who do you talk to most on a wedding day?" If the answer is the couple, they are directing. If it is the planner and the venue coordinator, they are staying out of your way on purpose.

What documentary costs you

It is worth being clear that this approach has real downsides, because studios that only list the upsides are selling.

• Fewer flawless frames. Nobody fixed the crooked boutonnière, because nobody stopped the moment to fix it.
• Less control over the look of specific moments. If you have a shot in mind from Pinterest, a documentary shooter may not get it, because they are filming what happens rather than producing it.
• It depends more on your day than on the videographer. A wedding with lots of unstructured time gives a documentary crew far more to work with than a tightly-run schedule.

What you get in exchange is a film full of things you did not know were happening. That is the trade, and it is worth making it consciously rather than because everybody's website used the same word.