Meet The Wedding Documentary Company

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There can be very few people in the Wedding Industry with the experience to match Alan Howard at The Wedding Documentary Company. Having given Davina McCall her first TV presenting job whilst a Senior Producer at MTV, Alan has interviewed David Bowie and filmed with U2, Robbie Williams, Aerosmith, Take That and The Cure to name a few. A programme he made for Channel 4 was nominated for Best Documentary Series at The Royal Television Society Awards and that led onto work for ITV, Channel 4, five, Living TV and The Discovery Channel, amongst others. So far Alan has made over 200 hours of Broadcast TV. With a background like that, the Wedding industry seems a very odd area to move into … Visual bride caught up with him to ask why he made the move from Broadcast TV and what’s the big deal about The Wedding Documentary Company.

Why did you get into the wedding film video business?

Alan: It boils down to having kids, needing a flexible lifestyle and a genuine love of capturing real life situations on film.

So how did the idea for The Wedding Documentary Company come about and what’s so different?

Alan: Back in 2006 I spoke to ITV 2 about a programme concept I had called “The Real Wedding Show”. The plan was to follow a Bride and Groom in the few days leading up to their Wedding Day, capturing the moments of nerves, panic, chaos and laughter that surround every wedding. ITV decided not to go with it, but I had an idea that if I could offer a wedding video that looked and felt like a proper TV documentary it could prove very popular. As a snapshot of two families on one day it works very well, I would dearly love to see a proper documentary of my parents’ wedding day and see my great Gran and Granddad walking, talking and laughing, and that’s what we can offer. There are very few times in your life that warrant having a proper TV programme made about you and your family, but your wedding day is definitely one of them.
As for the difference we offer, apart from experience, I think the main one is sound. There are lots of companies that produce beautiful pictures and edit them to emotional soundtracks, but very few seem to include talking! For me, catching the occasional conversation and editing together the hubbub as the excitement grows is one of the best ways of capturing the personalities of the families involved, as well as actually telling the real story of what happened on your wedding day.

So do the couples have to be confident on camera?

Alan: No, not at all. Every couple is different with regards to how much they want to interact with the camera. We’re fully aware that some people just don’t like having a camera poked in their face, but they still want an entertaining real life story of the day. Some of our videos are more “observational” than others, but they all have the basic building blocks of telling a great story of the day.

If these are comparable to TV programmes they must be very expensive?

Alan: No. An average TV documentary would cost somewhere between £25 - £50K… That however includes researchers and preproduction and office costs etc etc etc … From the outset I knew I had to pair the price right down to make it realistic. Our prices start from £1750. (We also offer a filming only package, with the option of editing at a later date from just £850).

Have you done many celebrity weddings?

Alan: No not yet, although Mel C, Sporty Spice, was a bridesmaid at wedding a while back, she was lovely and very down to earth. The Bride was an old school friend and Mel mucked in with everyone else. There’s a section of that video on my website.

Do you have any advice for couples looking for videos?

Alan: Don’t be too impressed with equipment, anyone can buy “Broadcast Quality” cameras now. Also try to make sure that you see an actual example of a wedding video as delivered and not just a showreel. A showreel can be edited over months and by taking just the best bits from many weddings can seriously distort what you can expect from your video when delivered. Lastly don’t think in terms of price, think in terms of value…. What is the better deal, a video that costs £500 and stays in the cupboard forever, or one that costs more but is watched over and over again and becomes a family heirloom?

If a couple are interested in The Wedding Documentary Company what do they need to do?

Take a look at the videos on the Visual Bride website, and call me on 01787 881463.

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