A lot of couple’s have been hearing about the words ‘live streaming’ recently among all this coronavirus business effecting the country. Well, today we’re going to give you an explanation of what live streaming is and what it isn’t and if it benefits your upcoming wedding.

Okay, what is live streaming?

A live stream is when a device broadcasts an event, like your wedding ceremony, to a public forum like Facebook or YouTube for example.

It’s a great way to allow friends and family to attend your ceremony without actually being there in person.

Many wedding companies have been offering live streaming over the last couple of months as a way to benefit their clients and make an upsell too.

Does live streaming benefit our wedding?

Well, this depends. If you have friends or family that can’t attend the wedding, then yes, it can be very beneficial to you, otherwise, it’s a waste of money or resources if it’s included in your price.

Under normal circumstances, live stream is a nice to have option, but it rarely benefits the couple.

What live streaming is generally not.

When most wedding videographers (and a few photographers) live stream a wedding ceremony, it’s most times unedited or raw video and audio from just one camera. Many couples think it’s a full on edited video and while it could be, most companies offer a single camera and mic.

When you get live stream, you’ll get a camera and mic and it’s generally a wide angle camera of the ceremony. Check out this example that we live streamed recently.

There are some exceptions when it comes to edited video like those using something like Live Stream Studio or Sling, both are professional grade and cost thousands of dollars to operate.

We use a Mevo Plus for our weddings, it’s a 4K camera that broadcast’s in 720p to just about any social media platform as well as YouTube.

The advantage of having this self contained system is that it also records the video and streams at the same time.

Why is this important?

Because if the live stream breaks for any reason the recording can then be uploaded from the point it stopped and simply continued.

Connected to a hotspot or cell phone that does a hotspot will be more than enough to broadcast online.

Some companies will use propriety systems like these and others will use DSLR/mirrorless cameras with special devices to broadcast. Honestly, most of them will offer about the same level of quality and abilities for your wedding.

Since the idea is to broadcast live your wedding ceremony, just about any of these will work great.

Okay, what about using a smartphone instead?

Truth be told, you can use a cellphone if you want too, although they are not designed specifically for streaming, most smartphones are going to eat their batteries fairly quickly and they’ll be limited on being able to zoom, fade or other basic functions that these devices can do.

There are usually a couple of disadvantages here, recording to media and battery life.

Battery Life- Most iPhones or Android phones for example are going to eat down the battery by live streaming and a few of them, like the iPhone 8 for example have been known to overheat when streaming for too long.
Video Backup- The other issue is that they don’t record to media, they record to the device. That’s not always a problem, but recording to a device is a lot more secure and many times easier to copy than just pulling it from a phone.
1,000 Followers on Youtube- A professional will be able to tell you that using a live stream device or your desktop/laptop doesn’t require 1,000 followers, but if you cheap out and use a smartphone, you’ll need 1,000 or more followers.

What is the deciding factor in getting live stream for the wedding ceremony?

That’s pretty simple.

Are you going to have family that will miss out on the wedding? If yes, then live stream may be a great option.

Generally speaking, it usually boils down to a few issues that include:

Elderly family member, like grandparents or loved ones that are in nursing homes or hospital’s
Family that is overseas or in the military
Loved ones that physically can’t attend due to a variety of reasons

If any of these apply to you, then you should consider it.

How much should we pay for a live stream of the wedding?

Well, this is going to depend on the business and what they have in the way of the technology. Our thought is that $250 for a basic live stream seems pretty standard, although some will charge more if they have multiple cameras and additional microphones. We’ve seen some companies charge upwards of $750 for live stream but that seems to be more on the upper end of the spectrum.

Live Stream Pricing

Live Stream Stats to Consider

Only 12% of couples will opt for any sort of live stream option, that being normally. During coronavirus, those numbers have sky rocketed and will remain high until things settle back down.

While this is a great option to have it’s not for everyone that is getting married and its something to consider when planning your wedding. Photographers and videographers alike seem to like having this as a way to help get their brand out there and couples love the ease that it provides.

What do you think about it? drop a comment in the box below and let us know your thoughts on live-streaming the wedding.