Considering all the goods and services purchased for a wedding, none other is like video.  It recreates the life of the event like no other medium; it is a time machine through which the wedding couple and their children can relive the day.  It is the most far-reaching of all wedding-related purchases and is surpassing photography as the primary commemoration medium for weddings.

History of Wedding Video

Prior to 1978, those who wanted a motion image record of events depended on movie film.  Super-8 sound cameras became available in the 1970's.  It was impossible to make an uninterrupted recording of the ceremony because of the limited run time; cameras were also very noisy and performed poorly in low light.  But some enterprising super-8 filmmakers successfully marketed wedding filming. 

With the market introduction of Betamax and VHS for home video recording, consumer-affordable portable color video cameras and VCRs became available.   Although heavier and less sensitive than sound movie cameras, these camera-VCR combos could capture an entire wedding ceremony for a fraction of the cost of film. 

Early wedding videos were crude by today's standards --  poor image quality, bulky light-hungry equipment, and lack of professional techniques by the videographer. Even so, wedding video offered consumers something unmatched by short home movies or still photography.

Quality was still below that of professional and broadcast equipment, but wedding clients still wanted their events preserved.  Many potential clients were turned away by the poor quality and intrusion of this video, and the videographers grew weary of lack of proper equipment designed for event work.

- Mark Goldberg’s Wedding Photography and Video FAQ’s, by Mark Goldberg.