When Should You Book Your Wedding Videographer in Ireland?

When should you book your wedding videographer in Ireland?

The short answer: if video matters to you, enquire once your date and venue are confirmed, rather than leaving it near the bottom of the list. For popular dates that's often a year or more ahead. That isn't a scare tactic, it's just how one-wedding-a-day vendors work. If video is more of a maybe for you, you can still ask closer to the time, you'll just have a narrower choice of who's free for your date.

I've filmed weddings across Ireland for well over a decade, so here's the honest version, without the pressure.

Why popular dates go first

A videographer can only film one wedding a day. So availability isn't really about how far ahead you are in general, it's about how sought-after your particular date is.

The dates that book up first are the predictable ones: Saturdays in summer, Fridays (hugely popular for Irish weddings), bank holiday weekends, and dates at the most in-demand venues. If your wedding lands on one of those, the good videographers for that date can be gone well over a year out. A quiet Thursday in November is a very different story, and you may have plenty of choice much closer to the day.

So the real question isn't "how many months should we wait," it's "how likely is our exact date to be someone else's exact date too."

Why a solo videographer fills up differently

A lot of Irish wedding videographers, myself included, work on their own and take on a limited number of weddings a year, so each one gets proper attention from the first conversation through to the finished films. That's good for you on your day. It also means there are only so many dates to go around, and once a date is booked, it's booked.

Bigger studios can sometimes cover more weddings on the same day with different shooters, which is worth knowing when you're comparing. But if you've found one specific person whose work you love, their calendar is finite, and that's the calendar you're trying to get into.

Where video usually sits in the order of booking

Most couples sort a few things before they think about video: the venue and date first, usually the photographer, and the ceremony details. That's sensible, and video does slot in naturally after them, because a videographer needs your date and venue before anything else.

The mistake is leaving it so late that "after the photographer" quietly becomes "a couple of months before the wedding." By then, for a popular date, a lot of the people whose work you'd have loved are already booked. You can still find someone good, but you're choosing from who's left rather than who you'd have picked.

What to have ready before you enquire

You don't need much. Your wedding date, your venue booked, and a rough idea of whether video is a definite or a maybe. That's genuinely enough for a videographer to tell you if they're free and roughly what would suit your day. Everything else, coverage, style, the details, can be worked out in the conversation. It's also worth having a look at the questions worth asking before you book so your first enquiry does more work.

What if the wedding is soon?

Don't assume it's too late. Short-notice weddings happen all the time in Ireland, and dates come free through cancellations and quieter times of year. If your wedding is only a few months away and you've decided you want video, the answer is simply to ask now rather than talk yourself out of it. The worst case is a "sorry, I'm booked," and then you move on to the next person.

When to book, in one line

If video is a must-have, enquire as soon as your date and venue are set. If it's a maybe, ask whenever you're ready, and just know the choice narrows the closer you get. Either way, the only way to find out about your date is to ask about your date. If you'd like to check mine, check your wedding date and I'll let you know straight away. You can also read how I work on the day if you want a feel for my approach first.