Wedding Reels

Radiant smiles, bright colours, a soothing background score, moments of cinematographic marvel guided by a powerful narrative — all packaged into a crisp three minute-long clip. No, this isn’t a trailer for a blockbuster film, but it could very well qualify for one. This is just a sneak-peek of an even elaborate coverage of what is a memorable milestone in many of our lives — the wedding day. And documenting the events of the day with the finesse of a professional film production unit are companies such as The Wedding Filmer, The Wedding Story and Reels and Frame.

Established first in the United States in 2010, Harpreet Bachher launched the Indian arm of The Wedding Story in 2011. “We are here to encapsulate your ‘happily ever after’ and to whittle a truncated version into 24fps a little more magically than you imagined,” he says. Be it a pre-wedding teaser or a save-the-date or an only-highlights clip, all the pre-wedding functions can be compressed into one fine feature film. And with the team available at your disposal, here or at a foreign location, for a package ranging from Rs.500,000-Rs.800,000, you can have the events of the day broadcast on a big screen within 24 hours.

However, capturing the wide range of emotions and moments live can be quite challenging. After all, unlike a feature film production, the wedding film company doesn’t have the liberty of a re-take. And in order to ensure they don’t miss out on that perfect shot against the right light and from a favourable angle, the teams don’t shy away from experimenting with new filming techniques sometimes even using a drone or a chopper. “Necessity is the mother of invention,” says Anand Rathi on how he mastered scuba diving and other filming techniques when he started Reels and Frames. A wedding film produced by this Mumbai-based firm would cost you anywhere from Rs.400,000-Rs.800,000.

Another Mumbai-based enterprise that introduces the art of filmmaking to enhance your wedding video is The Wedding Filmer. Started by former visual effects specialist at Red Chillies Entertainment, Vishal Punjabi, this enterprise has produced films for the big day of Bollywood couple Bipasha Basu and Karan Grover as well the GVK Group scion, Keshav Reddy, among other celebrity clients. “We even customise the songs for used in the film, the audio tracks are especially composed by us,” adds Punjabi, which explains why the entire process takes them three months sometimes. A wedding film shot and edited by this brand will set you back by Rs.500,000 and can go all the way up to Rs.5 crore.

So, if you have always secretly harboured a desire to see yourself and your partner on a film poster of that favourite romcom, these wedding film companies can make that dream come true.