For most things that happen on a wedding day, there's at least two main angles -- two things to capture at the same time. For instance:
- Bride gets ready at the same time as groom gets ready.
- When bride walks down the aisle, there's a groom reacting.
- Vows involves two people.
- During speeches at reception, there's speaker and audience.
An unmanned camera is a hope-and-pray camera, because it's super easy for your subject to go out of frame or out of focus. So, in 2025, many wedding video companies that are aiming for mid-tier or higher results will treat two shooters as a minimum.
This is also about logistics and safety. Two people means faster setup and pack down. It also means that, if the circumstances are tricky (for instance, there's a big crowd and guests might block cameras; or movement is restricted at a church or reception venue), then it's likely that at least one of the camera people will get the shot.
A third shooter is a rare luxury, for me at any rate, but it used to be the case that this was fairly standard for the world's most expensive wedding video companies. One person covers the main action; a second gets the "reaction shot"; and the third searches for a creative shot to add that little bit extra.
This is the philosophy that the TV series Friday Night Lights adopted, for instance. It was shot in a very documentary style.
Sometimes these high-end companies will have a fourth person, but they're more of a specialist. For instance, maybe they're operating a drone or camera crane, or maybe they're a dedicated audio engineer.
