Lights, camera, mangalyam: Wedding videos now look like big budget romantic films

A road. A man in a jeep and a woman on a bike. Will they race? Will they fight? Will they go out for coffee?

Smoke Weddings/YouTube

The woman on the bike now dazzles in pristine white in front of a waterfall. How and why did this happen? And where did the man go?

Smoke Weddings/YouTube

Oh, there he is! Do these two know each other? What's the story here?

Smoke Weddings/YouTube

A pristine waterfall. A man walks towards a woman.

Smoke Weddings/YouTube

This could be from the next Gautam Menon film. There's song and dance and a mushy proposal.

Focuz Studios™/YouTube

A moment to cherish for eternity with the sea as its witness.

SDS Studio/YouTube

After a ride on the helicopter, the couple are welcomed with a flower shower.

R media/YouTube

These gorgeous shots could be one right out of a movie, but are moments captured from real life weddings. 

The new trend in wedding shoots is grand, resplendent, larger-than-life and everything in between. Couples now want that-something-extra to make their special occasion even more memorable. 

So wedding shoots are now being scripted and shot in ways that make them indistinguishable from dreamy music videos and the latest rom-coms. 

From elaborate locations and sets to couples who are not shy to pose, dance, hug or kiss in front of the camera, wedding videography is undergoing a major shift.

"Films are everybody's passion and what is better than your wedding being like one," Hridya, a 25-year-old Chennai-based doctor whose wedding day had the right mix of filmy elements in it, says. 

Their wedding video followed the proper schedule of a film release: a teaser of the song was first released online; then came the wedding highlights a few months ago, before the final wedding video was finally ready. 

Image credit: Smoke Weddings

Image credit: Smoke Weddings

Image credit: Smoke Weddings

Image credit: Smoke Weddings

Nizam Abbas, a creative director with Kochi-based Smoke Weddings, says the next big thing in wedding photography will be 4K technology. 

"We now shoot in HD using DSLRs. The next generation will, however, be 4K videos and photographs and theatrical wedding films. We plan to showcase the wedding films in multiplexes for the bride and groom, and their friends and families," he says. 

Clients are now also demanding an array of different services. "Like instant photographs during ceremonies that guests can take with them. There's a lot of requests to live-stream the function. And then there's people wanting LED/LCD walls at weddings where we play candid shots of the couple."

The shoots are elaborate and even includes usage of drone cameras and helicams.

For Anjali Suresh, a video jockey from Thodupuzha who got married last year, it was wanting her wedding to be captured in a candid way. 

"I didn't want it to be shot in the usual manner. I wanted people to speak on camera. My family wanted a traditional shoot, but my wedding became the first of its kind in the family. We had helicams for both my engagement and wedding," she says. 

Organisations usually discuss the theme and concept of the shoot with the would be bride and groom prior to the ceremonies. Some want to act, whereas there are also those who like to keep it natural and yet stunning. 

SDS Studios from Palakkad gets an equal number of requests for concept (with script) and cinematic (without much scripting) wedding shoots.

"Some want a traditional shoot, some don't want to act. So we have a session with the couple prior to the wedding to understand their likes and dislikes. Also the acting you see in these videos is not exactly like the ones in movies. It is perhaps 40% of the acting in film,” says Sabareesh, co-ordinator of SDS Studios.

"We usually require a script for outdoor shoots. The location is selected according to the song. We also see if some of the shots can be matched with the lines in the song," he adds. 

Image credit: Coconut Wedding Cinemas

Image credit: Coconut Wedding Cinemas

Image credit: Coconut Wedding Cinemas

Image credit: Coconut Wedding Cinemas

Image credit: Coconut Wedding Cinemas

Image credit: Coconut Wedding Cinemas

Speaking about her wedding, Thrissur-based student Saranya Mahadevan says, "Our's was a feel-good video, where we insisted on keeping the affection between us to the minimum. It had shots of all the happy moments of the wedding, where I was being me, without any pretension. And moreover, I want my children to watch the video and see how happy their mother was on her wedding day," Saranya says. 

The cost for such shoots can range from anywhere between a lakh and can go up to Rs 8-9 lakh. And couples are more than happy to shell out the big bucks to make their once-in-a-life time moment an everlasting one. 

Akhil Shan, creative head of the Kochi-based Coconut Wedding Cinemas, says that prior to the digital revolution in the early 2000s, people wanted their weddings captured for keepsake. "But now with the advent of social media, they want to showcase it."

This has led to an interest in the aesthetics of photography and also brought about many more changes in the form of art, he adds. "Earlier people used to shoot from the front, which made the subjects more conscious and the emotions portrayed would be very plastic in nature.”

Now, the focus and demand is mostly candid photography. Adding to that, a lot of photographers now also have international exposure.

On an average, Coconut Wedding Cinema covers weddings for Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh. 

And it does not stop at just weddings. Post-wedding videos are also a thing. 

Watch this video by Vikhyath Media Videography.