Clean Audio for Your Vows, Readings and Toasts: What Your Videographer Needs From Everyone Else

People forgive a wedding film a lot. What they do not forgive is not being able to hear the vows. If the picture is beautiful and the audio is wind, a fan heater and a muffled voice, the most important three minutes of the film are gone.

Clean audio is the part of a wedding film that depends most on people other than the videographer. The officiant, the DJ or band, the venue, and the people giving toasts all have a hand in it. Here is what we need from each of them, what tends to go wrong, and what to tell your vendors before the day.

Where the sound actually comes from

On a well-planned wedding, the audio in your film comes from three places at once:

• Small microphones on people. A lavalier mic is a tiny clip-on microphone with a recorder or transmitter in a pocket. On the officiant's lapel, it picks up both of your voices when you face each other, because you are standing close. A second one on one of you, usually on a jacket, catches the vows from the other side.
• A feed from the sound system. When readers and toast-givers use the DJ's or venue's microphone, the cleanest recording of what they say comes straight out of the mixing board, before it goes through the speakers and bounces around the room.
• Microphones on the cameras. These record the room: laughter, applause, the music, the sound of a crowd going quiet. They are not good at picking out a single voice from twenty feet away, but they are what makes a film sound like it happened in a real place.

The editor blends all three. When one source fails, the others are the backup. That is why we would rather plan for all three than rely on any one of them.

Professional audio is part of every one of our film collections, including The Vow, our ceremony-only film. But the best equipment cannot record a voice it is not given access to, which is what the rest of this post is about.

What we need from the officiant

The officiant is the single most important person for ceremony audio. Please let them know in advance that we will ask to clip a small microphone to their lapel or collar, with the pack on their belt or in a pocket. It takes a minute and they will forget it is there.

A few things to pass on:

• Some officiants and houses of worship do not allow microphones on the officiant, or limit where a videographer can stand. That is their call, and we work with it. We need to know before the day so we can plan another way to record, such as a small recorder near the altar or on the lectern. Our terms ask couples to tell us about venue restrictions in advance, and note that we are not responsible for moments missed because of officiant or venue restrictions, so the earlier we hear about them, the better.
• If the officiant uses the venue's sound system too, we still want the lapel mic. A speaker system's microphone is aimed at the room, not at the two of you.

What we need from the DJ or band

For readings, toasts and anything else said into a handheld microphone, the best recording is a direct feed from the board.

• Ask your DJ or band whether they can provide an audio output from their mixer for the videographer. Most professional DJs and bands are used to this. We plug a small recorder into it, and it records exactly what the microphone hears.
• Ask what the levels will be. A board feed set too hot distorts. A quick check with the DJ during setup, ideally with someone talking into the mic, avoids it.
• Ask them not to play music under the toasts. Background music under speeches sounds nice in the room but makes the toast much harder to edit, because every cut in the speech also cuts the song.

If your venue has its own in-house sound system and no DJ, ask the venue the same question: is there an output we can record from, and who will be there to help on the day?

What we need from the venue

• Their rules on power, cables and where we can stand. Some venues do not allow anything near the altar or on the stage.
• What else makes noise. Fountains, HVAC vents, heaters, ice machines, a bar blender, a highway or a flight path. We cannot turn off a fountain, but we can place microphones away from it if we know it is there.
• Wind exposure for outdoor ceremonies. Rooftops, beaches and open lawns all catch wind. Clip-on microphones with wind covers, close to the mouth, are what get the vows through it.

Mic etiquette for the people giving toasts

Most bad toast audio is not equipment failure. It is the microphone being held in the wrong place. A short note to everyone who is speaking helps:

• Hold the mic a fist's width from your mouth and point it at your mouth, not at your chest. When people turn their head to look at the couple, the mic should turn with them.
• Do not hold it by the top. A hand wrapped around the grille muffles the voice and can cause feedback.
• Wait until you have the microphone before you start talking. The first line of a toast is often the best one, and it is regularly lost to someone starting while the mic is still being passed.
• Do not walk in front of the speakers. That is how the squeal of feedback happens.

The speech order matters

Give your DJ, your coordinator and your videographer the same written list of who speaks, in what order, and roughly when. That lets the DJ have the microphone ready and the levels set, lets us be in position on the right side of the room, and stops a surprise speaker from catching everyone off guard.

If a toast or reading is happening somewhere other than the main microphone, such as at the table during dinner, tell us in advance so we can place a recorder.

What usually goes wrong

• The officiant's mic is on but under a heavy jacket or a stole, which muffles it. Placement is worth a second look just before the ceremony starts.
• Music under the vows. A soft instrumental playing through the ceremony sounds lovely live and makes the vows harder to hear on film. Ask for the music to stop once you reach the front.
• A last-minute timeline change that moves toasts to a different room or time, and nobody tells the videographer.

What to tell your vendors in advance

A short email two to three weeks before the wedding covers almost all of it:

1. To the officiant: the videographer will ask to put a small clip-on mic on you before the ceremony. Let us know now if your venue or tradition does not allow that.
2. To the DJ or band: please provide an audio output from your mixer for the videographer, keep music off during toasts, and here is the speech order.
3. To the venue: who runs sound on the day, any rules on cables or positioning, and anything noisy near the ceremony site.
4. To everyone speaking: when you are on, how long to aim for, and how to hold the microphone.

Copy us on it. The more we know before the day, the less we have to work out during the ceremony.

How we would plan it

For a 5:00 PM ceremony with a reception in the same building and a DJ: a lapel mic on the officiant and a second on one of you, a recorder on the DJ's board from the start of cocktail hour, camera microphones on everything, and the speech order in hand before the entrances. That plan works with any of our collections. If the ceremony and toasts are the parts of the day you care about most, The Verse at six hours and $1,400 adds an extended edit that gives the vows and speeches room to run, alongside the highlight film and the raw footage.

See every collection on our packages page, and reserve your date with a $500 deposit that goes toward your total.