Why do I need a wedding video?
Take it from us, (we were married June 2007) the day will
fly by. After spending countless hours planning, the day is over before you know it. Odds are you are not going to remember everything that happened. Even a person with a photographic memory can't remember something he didn't even see! Video will capture more than any one person could possibly remember on memory alone. And pictures can only tell a part of the story. Pictures are great, but to see (and hear) it in motion is like being there all over again. When we showed our family our wedding pictures, they may have smiled or said "awww", but when we showed them our video, it literally brought tears to their eyes. There's just more emotional power in seeing a video.
Why not let uncle So-And-So do it for free?
If you are fortunate enough to know someone willing to put in the amount of work to create a full fledged wedding video, then that is definitely an option for you. But there is a good reason people pay hundreds (sometimes thousands) of dollars to hire a videographer. Videographers have experience recording live events and know how to capture all those key moments that you don't want to be missed. In our case at Flashback Videos, we give you two camera operators and 3 cameras. So if one of our shots gets blocked, we have two others to ensure the moment isn't missed. Shooting and especially editing is a lot of work. Is uncle So-And-So going to be motivated to get that edited copy back to you in a timely fashion, or is he not going to edit it at all!? When you hire someone to capture and edit your day, you know what you are getting, and that assurance alone could be worth the entire price!
What is your style of editing?
The best way to answer that question is to look at the samples on our page. We like to stay true to the chronological order of events in the video. It seems each term has a unique interpretation depending on who you ask, but we like to think of our style as a journalistic/documentary style with some cinematic elements. For instance, for weddings we generally leave the entire ceremony intact, while the reception has a lot of cuts and edits and has a song playing on top of the video at most times.
How come your price is so low?
At Flashback Videos, we won't try to sneak anything past you. We are very up front and honest with you the whole way. The best explanation as to why we are so much cheaper for so much more service, is because the money is not the main reason we are in this business! It really isn't. We both truly enjoy this work and have a real passion for helping people. We think everyone should be able to have a video of their wedding or event to remember it. We can't imagine not having our own wedding video and we remember how depressing it was so see such high prices for videographers (and that was in 2007!). We both have full time jobs apart from videography, so if times are slow in our video business, we will just keep on keeping on because we do not count on that source of income for living expenses. We also do not invest in the most expensive equipment out there. That helps us keep our costs low. We still have great equipment, and you can see its quality right here on our site. We do not invest in unneccessary extra (and, frankly, sometimes silly looking) equipment like glide cams or 10,000 Watt lights. We have our HD cameras and fluid head tripods and our Mac with post production software and that's about it. We rely heavily on our eye for the good shot and the sense for what makes a memorable video. We do all the work ourselves, we do not farm out work to other people. In short, we just do not have the overhead that a lot of the more expensive videographers have. In fact, those other videographers probably get angry at us for offering so much for such a low price. But that is the whole reason we decided to get into this business. We felt there was a void at the affordable level of videography. If we ever feel like we need to charge $2000 to do a wedding, we will get out of the business first. We are all about making affordable wedding videos and providing a great value!
If we remove ____ from the package, can you make the price lower?
If there is one drawback to having such a low price, it is that we cannot therefore remove something from the package to reduce the cost even further. We do offer additions to the wedding package, and you can remove something from the package if you want (such as the growing up photo montage), but that will NOT reduce the price.
Why do you provide a travel rate discount to Independence, MO?
Rachel is originally from Independence and moved up here to Milwaukee after we were married. Therefore we have a good knowledge of that area and also have a place to stay if we shoot an event there. We already travel frequently to Independence, so we will reduce the travel rate if you are having us come out, because we want to be able to visit as often as we can. We are essentially just asking to cover the cost of gas for us to drive down and back.
When do we need to pay you? Is there a deposit required?
We require a non refundable deposit of $200 before we will book your event. Once you are booked with us, we are locked in for you and you alone. We do not book more than 1 event a week in order to provide all the attention we can to your event alone. The remainder of the price agreed upon in the contract is due in full before the start of the event.
How soon will we receive our videos?
Being that this is not our full time job, we cannot guarantee an exact time, but in general, the highlight (condensed) video will be uploaded to a video streaming service and available for you to watch in about 1-2 weeks after the event. Then the final, full video on DVD (including the highlight video) will be delievered in approximately 4-8 weeks after the event depending on our current volume of events we are shooting. It could quite possibly be ready even sooner than that!
OK, I am convinced! How do we go about hiring you?
We are thrilled that you are ready to hire us to be your videographers, but please contact us by email or phone so we can arrange to send out a sample video of a recent wedding we have already worked on. The clips on our website are a great start, but we want you to know exactly what you can expect when you hire us and we don't want there to be any surprises. That is why we would like you to preview a fully edited DVD before you deicide to hire us.
Now, if you have already seen the sample DVD and are ready to sign the contract and send the deposit, it is very simple! The way most of our clients prefer to go about it is to have us send them 2 copies of the contract in the mail. Then they fill out, sign, and mail both copies back to us along with a check for the deposit. We then sign the 2 copies and keep one for ourselves and send the other back to them for their records. If you live near the West Allis area, we are also willing to meet in person at a local restaurant or coffee shop to sign the contract and then you could hand us the deposit in person. Then, as the wedding day approaches, we will be in contact with you to go over the final details.