Content Creator for Weddings
The following story will be supplemented with family background, childhood events, education, and any preceding jobs, when that information is available. In the meantime, ‘Wedding Content Creator’ seems to be a viable, emerging way to financially support a businessperson who is willing to learn the trade and work within a flexible schedule. Having fun while ‘working’ is always a bonus!
WEDDING CONTENT CREATORS ARE MORE THAN PHOTOGRAPHERS AND VIDEOGRAPHERS
Wedding content creators typically deliver hundreds of shareable photos and videos to the married couple within 24 hours following a wedding.
By contrast, traditional wedding photographers provide couples with preview images within a week of their event and then the couple must usually wait up to six weeks for their complete photo gallery and up to four months for the video (per early 2024 technology, which is always improving timelines).
While wedding photos and videos remain a top priority for newly married couples, many also want to document, via social media, the in-between moments not normally captured in voice and pictures.
One bride said about wedding content creators: “My husband and I put so much time and effort into planning our wedding and we wanted to see it all. I expected the value of the photo album, but we are really enjoying the videos of our guests dancing and eating, as well as some special moments that we had no idea were happening at the time.”
Content creators use a smartphone to capture candid, behind-the-scenes (BTS) moments, then edit the photos and short-form videos and set them to trending audio or to the couple’s favorite songs. Next the content creators post the finished product to the couple’s preferred social media platforms. Postings can be done in real time during the celebration.
Said Lauren Ladouceur (LL) a New York city-based wedding content creator and the founder of Plan with Laur, “I step into the couple’s shoes and live-post behind-the-scenes moments of their wedding day with captions that feel authentic to them on their Instagram account.”
TYPICAL WORKDAY FOR A WEDDING CONTENT CREATOR
LL arranges her schedule to be on the event site for 10 to 15 hours. Her husband works with her, so she’ll go with one person while he’ll go with the other. “Utilizing the two of us enables the capture of those candid, natural moments that happen as everyone is getting ready. We want to preserve friends’ reactions when they show up at 8 a.m., if either of the couple is crying because they’re so happy or is one of them relaxing playing cards?” said LL.
It’s also important to LL that her team gets detailed shots showing how the wedding venue comes together.
SOCIAL MEDIA CAREER MAY SUPPLEMENT ANOTHER CAREER
LL’s main career involves a ‘9-5 job’ in corporate marketing. Both her weekday marketing duties and her evening and weekend wedding content creator tasks are concurrent dual careers, obviously not performed at the same time.
When not engaged in her office-based marketing job, LL creates content for her YouTube channel.
While participating in ‘National Planner Day’, LL met the social media planning team, “bloom daily planners” with whom LL will collaborate on marketing their brand to event planners.
LL is simultaneously launching the ‘Plan with Laur Community’ which will offer content about planning, accountability, time management, community, live video calls, freebies and more. She notes that there are five different tiers which range from becoming a community insider up to 1:1 creative coaching and brand / business development.
“From my corporate background to social media / influencer experience, I have the depth of knowledge to share,” said LL. “I hope to use this new platform to connect on a more personal level and provide more value to the community and followers.”
Wedding content creators can offer guidance on the best type of content to shoot and curate, and most are up on the latest posting trends. “An experienced content creator has the ability to adapt to the ever-evolving landscape of social media,” said Persephone Maglaya, a founder, and the chief executive of the ‘Media Socialites’ in Dallas, “such as before-and-afters and editing techniques like specific timing and cuts.”
2024 COSTS CHARGED BY ONE WEDDING CONTENT CREATOR
For about $3,000, LL captured BTS moments of a 2023 wedding weekend, including the rehearsal dinner, the pre-wedding family bowling night, the wedding day and the post-wedding brunch.
Because the bride was an influencer on social media and had been doing daily TikTok Live videos for the past three years, like posting about her bodybuilding competition, the bride decided to have her wedding ceremony streamed in real time.
CAREER SATISFACTION
Unlike wedding photographers and videographers who capture special wedding related shots, wedding content creators – with the totality of their ability to capture otherwise private conversations and emotions of the wedding party and their guests – make every attendee feel like they were part of the wedding.
Hiring a professional creator removes from friends and family the burden of feeling pressure to take on time-consuming responsibility for capturing special moments and letting everyone just participate without organizational duties.
Some wedding couples plan to use the multiple short video clips prepared by the content creators to create compilations and montages for their future wedding anniversaries.
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This career story was based on a news article written by Ivy Manners, published by the New York Times newspaper on January 14, 2024, plus internet research.
