DIY: Wedding Reception Video

A popular trend at weddings is to show a video of the couple's dating life (which is usually just a compilation of pictures set to music). I've seen several of these and have very much enjoyed such an intimate look into my friends' lives.

Matt and I decided that we wanted to do something similar, but we knew we would have to produce it ourselves, given our budget limitations.

Lo and behold, it wasn't actually very difficult!

1. We scoured our computers and our Facebook profiles for photos we wanted to include. We thought about scanning in baby pictures of us or our parents' wedding pictures, but, by that point in the wedding planning process, we were running out of DIY steam.
2. We also had grandiose visions of interviewing some of our closest friends and family and include some of the footage in our video, but we were only able to do two interviews (which we recorded on my basic digital camera).
   
3. We decided to use Matt's Mac rather than my PC because the movie software is so superior.
   
4. We chose a template together. There were so many options! We ended up going with a casual one, since it reflected our relationship and wedding better than some of the formal ones.
5. We talked about some possible songs that would run in the background.
   
6. Then Matt did the actual work of plugging the pictures and our interviews (as well as a random video from Matt's brother) into the template and inserting the music. Voila!

Our reception site had a TV with a DVD player, so we just used that set-up to show the video. Other possibilities include borrowing an LCD projector (some people use these for their home movie viewing, or if you have any teacher friends, they might be able to borrow one from school for a day). I think this kind of slide show would also be fun to show as people are trickling in to the ceremony and waiting for it to start.

As always, let me know if you have any questions.

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