We’ve been getting lots of questions from couples asking if they can chose the song to their wedding film. We think it’s important to fully explain to all interested clients why we MUST be the one’s who pick the song and license it correctly.
Wedding documentaries are a commercial product and even though we don’t distribute DVD’s we do provide a finished product to you, the client. The music played in the background to your wedding video is a large part to the overall project. Since it is a commercial transaction we need to ensure that our music has the correct license. This means we cannot simply go on iTunes and download any track at free will for a $1. Right now, licensed music for wedding shorts is a bit limited but it’s becoming more and more popular as more of us event and indie type cinematographers pop up. It’s a win win for artists of all sorts because in reality the music to your wedding video is nearly as important as the video content itself.
We tend to visit sites such as themusicbed.com and songfreedom.com for our music choices. The documentary licenses typically range from $50-$200 per song. Yes, that’s expensive and that takes big hit on the bottom line for us videographers, however, in hindsight it’s the best and most authentic way to create a wedding video. Most of the music we listen to when looking to chose a song for our clients is completely fresh. Now, these artists are no joke, most may not be signed to a major record label but the music we chose is nothing short of amazing.
The other major reason why we pick the music is due to the fact that the music needs to fit the mood of your entire day. Once we look through the footage at least twice we dive into song searching for a good few hours. It’s a fun but long process to find the perfect track. Once we find the right songs for your video, we’re going into editing mode hard!
I hope that gives you a sense of confidence that we are going to do our due diligence to ensure the right music is selected for your video. The music is a mood setter for our story that we are telling and we hope to be telling your story soon!