Twin Cities Wedding Videographer — Photo + Video Pairing Guide

I shoot photo only. That's a deliberate choice, not a gap in the service: stills and motion pull a shooter in opposite directions on a wedding day, and I'd rather be excellent at one than adequate at both. So instead of selling video, I keep a short list of vetted Twin Cities videographers, and once you've booked photo I make personal introductions — usually two or three names, matched to your style and budget.

Every videographer on that list has shot weddings alongside me before. That matters more than any showreel, because I already know how they move through a room, how they treat a timeline, and whether their footage and my photographs will feel like the same wedding.

The process is short. Book photo, mention video in your inquiry — or any time before the wedding — and tell me two things: the style of film you want and the budget you're working with. Documentary means the day as it happened, in order, with real audio. Cinematic means something closer to a short film — graded, scored, restructured. Dark and moody is its own lane. I match against those preferences, not against availability alone.

What you get is introductions, not a directory. From there you deal with the videographer directly — their contract, their pricing, their deliverables. I stay involved on the one thing that most decides how the footage turns out: the timeline. Before the wedding we share the schedule and the shot list so neither team is standing in the other's frame during the moments that matter.

Honest numbers, because budget is where most photo + video plans fall apart. The Twin Cities videographers I refer run $3,500–$6,500 for the full package — a documentary highlight film plus the complete ceremony and speeches. If that's out of reach, a ceremony-only film runs $1,500–$2,500 for couples pairing it with photo, and it protects the one thing photographs can't: the sound of your vows.

On the photo side, my wedding collections are $3,100 for four hours (Emerald), $4,200 for eight hours with two photographers (Pearl), and $5,300 for twelve hours (Sapphire), with no travel fee anywhere in the Twin Cities metro. If the combined number is tight, protect photo hours first and scale the video down to ceremony-only rather than the other way around — you can rewatch four filmed minutes of vows forever, but you can't recover a getting-ready hour nobody was hired to cover. Full collection details are on the wedding photography page.

Two crews covering one day only works when the logistics are boring. Ahead of the wedding, the videographer and I trade the timeline and the shot list, so ceremony angles, first-look positions, and reception coverage are divided before anyone lifts a camera. During portraits we alternate — video takes the moving moments, I take the held ones — and neither of us ends up in the other's frame.

Light is the other shared resource. A film needs the same golden-hour window the photographs do, so I build one portrait block around the best light of the day rather than two competing ones. In practice that means a slightly longer sunset session than a photo-only timeline would need — worth knowing when you set the reception schedule. The result: the same moments from two angles, not two teams fighting over one aisle.

Whether you take my introductions or find your own, these five questions do most of the sorting:

"Will you film the full ceremony, uncut?" A highlight reel is an edit; the uncut ceremony is the record, and not everyone includes it by default.

"How do you capture audio for vows and speeches?" Clean audio is what separates a professional film from a home video.

"What's the delivery window — and is it in the contract?" Get it in writing; editing timelines stretch in peak season.

"Are you insured?" Venues and coordinators can ask for proof before the day. You don't want to learn the answer that week.

"Have you worked with my photographer before?" If yes, coordination is already solved. If not, ask both of us to get on a call before the wedding — I'm always willing.

That checklist is most of what I mean when I call the videographers I refer vetted.