Should you hire a content creator at your wedding?
image via @bylucy.weddings/instagram
WORDS BY DAISY HENRY
iPhone shots, camcorder footage and edited reels.
From formal, ’80s-style portraits hung on mantlepieces to photo carousels on Instagram, wedding photography has come a long way. While our grandparents might have hardcopy photo albums gathering dust, most people’s wedding photos live primarily online now.
The way we capture weddings has also evolved. Instead of styling stiff poses on Church steps (though some definitely still opt for that), we’re seeing more candid shots, low-fi footage and collab posts. In a way, it makes sense that wedding content creators are increasingly popular.
Interested to hear how others navigate the world? Head to our Life section.
You’ve likely come across their work before, whether you’ve realised it or not. It’s often the close-up iPhone photos or grainy camcorder footage a couple might post the day after their wedding, offering a ‘sneak peek’ before the full photo library of professional imagery comes through.
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The appeal of a wedding content creator
Depending on who you choose, most wedding content creators offer packages involving a variation of iPhone imagery, camcorder footage and film photography. Often shot with a documentary-style approach, they capture the candid, fleeting moments of a wedding day.
For Newcastle wedding content creator Lucy Flook, she focuses on the couple themselves, but also what’s happening around them. Having first launched her business, By Lucy, in 2023, her portfolio is full of photos and short-form videos, from perfectly crafted tablescapes and candle flames flickering, to close-ups of a bride’s wedding dress, guests arriving, champagne pouring, grandparents dancing and other small, intimate moments.
In the case that there’s also a wedding photographer, Lucy follows their lead, rather than directing or staging moments herself. Instead, she’ll often capture the moment from her perspective – whether that’s off-centre, zoomed in or even slightly out of focus.”I’m constantly moving throughout the day rather than staying with one moment for too long, which means their final library feels dynamic and gives me lots of beautiful moments to work with when creating their Reels,” she says.
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Lucy’s pricing starts at $2,000 with three different packages available. The first tier involves four hours of coverage, one-on-one consultations, a private gallery of unedited photos and videos delivered within 24 hours, and a 30-second edited reel delivered within one week.
Based in Melbourne, Your Day by Ruby also offers different tiers – a four-hour package starting at $1,500 and full-day coverage for $2,500. Depending on which you select, you’ll receive a set amount of iPhone and video content, raw camcorder footage and 35mm film.
“I first began capturing wedding content purely for fun at my friends’ weddings,” founder Ruby McLean says. “As more people began noticing my eye for capturing weddings and the way I documented those raw moments, I realised there was an opportunity to turn something I genuinely loved into a business.” That was two years ago, and the demand has only increased.
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How does it differ from traditional photographers and videographers?
In Ruby’s opinion, wedding content creators might be a missing piece of the industry. “We document a wedding day from a completely different perspective.”
Initially, writer and podcaster Jasmine Wallis and her now-husband, Laurie, were torn between having a videographer and content creator. Ultimately, they opted for the latter. “I’d seen the high-quality content that was on Modern Day Romance’s account and knew that snippets of our day would be enough to capture its essence and some memories,” she explains. “The cost was about one-quarter of the videographers we were considering so it was a no-brainer.”
Alongside iPhone shots, Modern Day Romance captured camcorder footage of the ceremony, Jasmine and Laurie laughing and holding hands, cake cutting and more. “They gave such a 2000s ‘home movie’ feel to our day and captured the warm, fuzzy emotions that were in the room,” she adds.
Pairing it with more classic photography meant the day was captured in a range of different format – and meant there was no need for Jasmine to reach for her iPhone.
“It’s really about adding another layer to the way your day is documented, giving couples a collection of those smaller, in-between moments alongside the beautiful, more polished work of their photographer and videographer,” Lucy explains. “It also gives them a bank of content to share on their own social media, as well as an easy-to-access collection of memories to revisit and share with friends and family.”
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The unpolished, immediate nature
Waiting for the final selection of professional wedding photography or videography requires a level of patience. In some cases, it can take weeks, if not months, to come through, often involving selection, editing and formatting before it’s ready to be sent through. Professional imagery needs to be high-quality, so it can survive being printed out, blown up and framed on a wall. Most iPhone shots wouldn’t make this cut but that almost doesn’t matter.
Typically, wedding content creators are able to send through a file of raw, unedited footage within a day. For many, this means they can relive the atmosphere of the day, reminisce and share with friends and family. It also means there’s a library of content ready to post directly online.
When Australian digital creator Jacquie Alexander got married, she didn’t just post a final video of the day. She shared TikToks of her getting ready, doing shots en route to the ceremony and compilations of videos stitched together with text layered over the top to trending sounds.
For Jacquie, posting online is part of the job. But the increase in demand for wedding content creators reflects a shift in the way a lot of people use social media. “We’re so used to having our phones with us, capturing little moments, sending things straight to friends and sharing parts of our lives online,” Lucy says. “It makes sense that this has naturally found its way into weddings.”
Having a content creator at your wedding is less about replacing professional photography and more about complementing their work. It’s less polished and mimics the kinds of scenes you’re likely to capture on your own phone. Perhaps the biggest drawcard is that it means you (and your guests) don’t have to don’t have to have their phones or constantly clean the back camera – sometimes else is already onto that.
For more on wedding trends, try this.
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