VideoBro / Weddings
Your guests already have angles no hired camera gets near.
Your videographer covers the ceremony. Everyone else is filming too, and none of it reaches you.
You already know this is happening
Look around during the toasts and count the phones. Your wedding party, your parents, the friend who never puts theirs down: they're capturing angles no hired camera will ever get near. The table you weren't sitting at. The look on someone's face during the vows. The dance floor once it actually gets going.
None of that reaches you. A few clips land in the group chat, and the rest stays on other people's phones until those phones get replaced. So how do you collect videos from everyone at a wedding? Not by asking for it afterward. You give guests one place to put their videos on purpose, while they are still filming, and tell them beforehand: what to send guests so they actually film.
Why a shared album never becomes a keepsake
Couples try the usual fixes: a shared album, a Dropbox link, a hashtag. They collect, sometimes well, and what you're left holding is a folder of unsorted clips with no order and no shape.
Collecting was only ever half of it.
That's a chore, not a keepsake. You open the folder once, maybe twice, and then never again, because sorting through clips with no order is work, and nobody signed up to do the work. If guests have already put clips in an iCloud Shared Album, you don't have to start over: pull them onto the wedding tape with Add Clips, each placed by the date saved with it, and Develop it into one film. How that works.
How a wedding tape actually works
Set it up before the day, and the day mostly runs itself.
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Start the tape ahead of time
You, with an account, tap New Tape a week or two out and name it like a label: Sam & Alex, June 14. That's the only decision.
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Pick your filmers, not the guest list
Tap Collab, then Invite, and send the link to the people you'd actually trust with a phone at your wedding: the wedding party, a parent, the friend who films everything anyway. A tape holds 8 people, including you, and invite links last 7 days, so send them the week of the wedding. Filmers need the iPhone app, not an account. What to send them.
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Give each filmer a part of the day
The two getting-ready rooms, the cocktail hour, the far tables, the dance floor, the late night. A filmer who knows their part covers it; eight people told to "film the wedding" all film the first dance from the same spot.
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Run a second tape for the after-party
A tape holds 2 hours of footage, but on the free plan its owner's 2 GB, about an hour of footage, fills first. Give the reception, the after-party or the rehearsal dinner a tape of its own, started by someone else in the wedding party, so it counts on their 2 GB, not yours. What counts against your 2 GB.
On the day, filmers tap REC and shoot with the Camera app they already know, held sideways, and every clip lands on the tape in the order it was shot. Anything filmed before REC goes on with + the morning after. When you're back, anyone on the tape with an account taps Develop, and the film lands in the Tape Cabinet of everyone on the tape, the two of you included, with one link for the guests who were never on it and the relatives who couldn't come.
A wedding guest video checklist
Hand this to whoever's filming. It's not "27 must-get wedding shots," it's what a hired camera won't be pointed at.
- The morning, at both getting-ready rooms. It happens in two places at once, and a professional camera can only be at one.
- The room before anyone's in it. Chairs set, nobody seated yet.
- Whatever's happening away from the aisle. The wedding party pacing, someone fixing a boutonniere, the minute right before you walk out.
- The table nobody official is filming. Whatever your actual friends are saying to each other partway through dinner.
- Getting people onto the dance floor, not just once they're already on it. The ones who need convincing are usually the better footage.
- The cleanup, or whoever's still around at the end. The part of the night nobody photographs because the photographer's gone home.
- The next morning. Whoever's still there, telling the story back to each other.
Different friends end up standing in different places for the same ten minutes, which is the real advantage of a crew of phones over one hired camera: you get vantage points a single photographer physically can't be in.
For the people holding the phones
A wedding has rules a party doesn't. Send these to your filmers with the invite.
- An unplugged ceremony means phones down. If the couple has asked for one, the tape starts at the recessional, and the hired videographer has the vows.
- Stay out of the aisle and the photographer's line. The professionals are working. Film from your seat or from the side, and never lift a phone above the heads in front of you.
- No flash, ever. Not in the ceremony, not in the first dance. The room's light is enough, and the flash ruins the professional's shot as well as yours.
- For the speeches, get the sound. Sit close to whoever's speaking rather than next to a loudspeaker, and keep the phone on them; the laughter comes through either way.
- Film the first dance from where nobody else is. The videographer has the front. The guests watching from the edge are the half of it only you can get.
This is not a replacement for your videographer
If you want the ceremony and the speeches covered properly, the vows in focus, real audio, two cameras on the kiss, hire someone. They will do a thing that eight people with phones cannot, and this doesn't pretend otherwise.
This is the other film. The one nobody was ever hired to make, shot from inside your own wedding by the people who were actually in it, with all the parts a professional was politely not standing next to. It's the one you'll probably watch more often. Neither one replaces the other, and plenty of couples reasonably book both: a professional for the ceremony and the portraits, a tape for everything happening around it, including the bachelor or bachelorette weekend that led up to it. The same idea works for the rehearsal dinner or the engagement party, and for the family who couldn't make the trip but would still like to see it.
Questions couples ask
Does this replace our wedding videographer?
No. If you want the ceremony and the speeches covered properly, hire someone. They will do a thing that eight people with phones cannot, and this doesn't pretend otherwise. This is the other film: the one nobody was ever hired to make, shot from inside your own wedding by the people who were actually in it.
Should guests film during the ceremony?
Only if the couple wants them to. Some couples ask for an unplugged ceremony and leave the vows to the professional; then the tape simply starts at the recessional. If phones are welcome, filmers should stay seated and out of the photographer's line.
How do we get good sound of the speeches on a phone?
Get close. A phone's microphone hears whatever is nearest, so a filmer at a table near the speaker gets the words, and one beside a loudspeaker gets distortion. Keep the phone on the person talking and let it run past the end, because the reaction is part of the speech.
Will a whole wedding fit on one tape?
A tape holds two hours of footage, and until it's developed its clips count on the owner's 2 GB, about an hour of footage on the free plan. Eight guests filming all day can fill that, so give the reception or the after-party its own tape, started by someone else in the wedding party: it counts on their 2 GB, not yours.
How do I collect videos from everyone at a wedding?
Start the tape before the day and invite the people you actually want filming, up to eight total including you. Whoever films needs VideoBro on an iPhone, but not an account of their own: your invite link is enough, and it costs them nothing. Starting the tape, inviting people, Developing it and sharing the film all need an account.
More questions like these, for every kind of group, are answered on the questions page.