As many of you know, My FI and I moved out to California a couple of months ago. We made friends with our neighbors who just got married in July. Wmet some of their college friends that moved out here and hung out with them a couple of times. So to get to the point of this...one of their college friends has been videotaping everything they've been doing the past couple of months(concerts, parties, etc). He loves to do it and he showed my FI and I his clips that he put together for a video. He's really great at it and It's his hobby and as a joke, I said you should do our wedding! He said he would really love to do it and for free. We said we'd pay him, since the wedding is in NY and we are all in California. He said he wants to do it for free and he was going to visit his sister in NY anyway so he can stay with her. My question is, my FI and I want to give him something, but what should we give???
dubliner
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How about a gift certificate for a shop that he uses for video equipment?
jpsgirl
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a bottle of Moet, a gift certificate to a fancy restaurant and night in a fancy hotel, sounds good to me, figuring he's saving you a couple of thousand dollars probably!
Claud2001
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I would be very careful with this offer...it is very generous of him, but it may not even be possible for him to tape your wedding b/c your hall might not allow someone who is amateur and without professional insurance to work on their premises.
michele31
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I agree with Claudine. I have heard these nice offers posted on this board before and there are many times that 'life' happens and your free video guy doesn't show. Also, without a professional doing the video your sound quality will be awful. You need to have a wireless mic hooked up, and the editing is not as easy when you have 8-10 hours that you need to get into 1 hour. I would let him do all the video taping he wants but I will still hire a professional.
julykbride
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My FI and I didn't even want a professional video, but figure if he's offering, we'd let him do it. Our neighbors, his good friends, are coming to the wedding anyway, so we'd sit him with them. We don't want him to videotape everything. We are having a microphone for our ceremony and we'd just want highlights of our reception set to music so we don't need to worry about sound for the reception. He's pretty much going to be a guest at our wedding that is videotaping a lot so do you still think that I would need to clear it with the hall. It's not like he will have equipment, just his camera. If he doesn't show, that is fine as we weren't considering getting a video anyway. We just didn't know what to give him as a thank you. Thanks for your input as always!
shepppy
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You could buy him the plane ticket out to NY.
mv1003
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champagne, a nice bottle of wine- broadway tix while he was here for him and his sister? I'd ask the hall- just to be safe, but what if he were a family member who just likes to videotape? (We have an uncle who will videotape the whole thing, even though we hired someone)... they can't help that. I would've never thought of that.
LisaT
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where in CA are you?
livinnsin
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Please check with your catering hall, I know that the halls need the video people to have a million dollar insurance policy before they will let them in. I just discussed this with my event cord. last week. She said that a few years ago at a hall in LI an elderly woman triped on the video guys equipment, broke her leg - well you know what happens then she sued everyone including the bride and groom. This is just what I heard though. But definetly check into this.
KarenK122
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I would get him a gift certificate to a nice restaurant or maybe tickets to a sporting event that he likes.
I don't think you will have any problem with your hall as long as he's not bringing huge pieces of equipment like lights or the such. Guests video tape weddings all the time and don't need to recieve permisson.
Good luck!!!
nrvbrd
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I agree with Michelle and Claud.
Find out if your hall will allow this.
Becky
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It sounds like this person has a good quality hand hald thing, no wires or cords. I can't imagine how he is taping parties and concernts with a big contraption! I think if you hire someone they have to have insurance. But a guest can videotape can't they? My parents have a videocamera that we use frequently. It is not a huge deal, but my sister ususally tapes everything for my family. I can't imagine that they would ask a friend or relative not to use a hand held, battery operated camera.
For someone who wasn't going to get a video at all, I think it sounds like a pretty good deal
Stacey1403
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I say his tickets to NY too!
LisaT
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since he's not a profession, this wouldn't be any different than someone bringing their camcorder to the reception - so I don't think the hall would have any objections or insurance concerns.
would he be using any special equipment, cameras or lights that would need plugs?
