Wedding Content Creator Gave You Raw Footage? Here’s What To Do With It!

What should you do with your wedding footage after your Wedding Content Creator delivers it to you? Here’s 3 easy steps to get you started!

After the music fades, the flowers begin to wilt, and the cake crumbs are swept off the floor – sadly every amazing, wonderful wedding day has to come to an end.

And I promise: no matter how the day went, there is a level of “post-wedding blues” that comes along with the close of every wedding day. After all, it’s something you’ve been looking forward to for your entire life, you’ve been planning and prepping like a crazy person the last few months – and then finally: it’s over.

Hopefully you go on a beautiful, relaxing honeymoon after your wedding day so you can truly enjoy finally being husband and wife – but then you come home and you have to go back to “reality” (a new, sweeter reality with a sparkly wedding ring on your finger and doing life with your best friend, but reality none-the-less).

Thankfully you still have a few things to look forward to – your wedding photos will be delivered from your photographer, your wedding videos will be delivered from your videographer, and your wedding day content will be delivered from your wedding content creator (their content will come within just hours of your wedding day ending!)

I’ve written blog posts about what to do with your WEDDING PHOTOS after your wedding photographer delivers them – but what should you do with your WEDDING DAY CONTENT after your wedding content creator delivers that footage to you?

STEP 1-
Download all of the footage and back it up somewhere safe

It might be tempting to let all of your precious footage just live in Dropbox or Google Drive (or however your Wedding Content Creator delivers it to you), but more than likely, they only guarantee that your footage will live in that space for a limited amount of time. After all, online storage space still takes up space and it’s not your Wedding Content Creator’s responsibility to host your footage for years on end.
(If you aren’t sure how long your footage will be live in Dropbox or Google Drive – check your contract! The terms of how your footage will be delivered and how long it will “live” there should be clearly spelled out!)

So, first things first: sit down on your computer and download all of the footage.
And then, for safe measure, back it up on at least one hard drive or jump drive (preferably more than one, but one would be the bare minimum).

Your footage is still accessible online – and it’s fantastic to have that convenience, especially when you’re on the go and wanting to access it from your phone – but having it downloaded locally and backed up somewhere safe simply gives you peace of mind. After all: just in case you miss that “live” deadline and your footage disappears OR (God-forbid) something happens to that Dropbox or Google Drive and the files corrupt – you still have a safe copy.

These are your wedding memories after all! You cannot go back and re-do the day! So keep those memories as safe as you possibly an.

STEP 2-
Edit the footage

More than likely, along with a few pieces of ready-to-post, edited content, your Wedding Content Creator is sending you hundreds of “raw” files. These files are not edited in any way and are simply the real, honest-to-goodness, behind-the-scenes moments of your amazing day. These moments are precious (and after being married myself for 15 years, I promise, those moments only become more and more special as the years go by!)

However: raw footage, by nature, means that it probably could use a little finessing.
iPhones produce beautiful quality photos and videos in and of themselves, but over my years creating content, I’ve found that even the most beautiful piece of footage, can be enhanced just a smidge more to really take it over the top.

WHERE TO START

Receiving hundreds of pieces of raw footage can be completely overwhelming, so here are a few ideas where to start!

• Go through the footage and mark your favorite moments. Maybe you create a second folder that you duplicate your favorite files into or if you have some sort of culling software (Adobe Bridge or PhotoMechanic etc.) you can add stars or labels to the files so you can easily sort them. Pulling out your favorite moments helps to bring the amount of footage down to a more manageable amount and helps to reduce that feeling of overwhelm!
• Start with some really simple edits. If you are creating reels, shorts, or TikToks, start simple! You don’t have to jump in and make elaborate, over-the-top, crazy cuts right away.
  Maybe begin by simply sharing your favorite moment/s of the day and explaining why.
  Tell stories about why you choose certain details and elements of the day.
  Highlight special people or interactions.
• Focus on telling stories. An easy piece of short form content to create is telling the story of your entire day in 60 seconds or less. But, you don’t have to limit it to the entire day!
  Maybe tell the story of your ceremony.
  Tell the story of your getting ready and fun morning with your bridesmaids.
  Tell the story of why you choose your first dance song.
  Telling stories is a really great place to start and your audience (even if they are just friends and family) love to hear all the thought and planning you put into your day!

WHAT APPS TO USE

PHOTOS:

When it comes to editing photos delivered by your Wedding Content Creator – my favorite tool to recommend is Lightroom Mobile. This is a FREE app that you can download, import your images into, and then do some basic edits on. You can adjust the colors, the brightness, the contrast, straighten or crop your images – and it’s all free.

There is a paid, upgraded version of Lightroom Mobile, but personally, I just use the free version while I’m on the go and it does everything I need it to do!

Additionally: it seems like everyone and their brother sells Lightroom Mobile presets – this is a very easy one-click way to add a certain look and aesthetic to your images. Chances are, you might have even purchased some Lightroom Mobile presets in the past! And if not, a quick search will lead you to a lot of awesome presets you can purchase (and they usually aren’t that expensive!) If you are brand new to editing photos and not sure what all the sliders mean – presets are an excellent place to start!

A few other apps I’ve seen people talk about using to edit images are VSCO and Snapseed. I haven’t really played around with either of those very much, but if Lightroom Mobile isn’t your style – maybe VSCO or Snapseed is!

VIDEOS:

Depending on what you are creating videos for, will likely determine how you edit them. Both Instagram and TikTok have built-in video editors that are fairly user friendly. They do have their limitations though, so if you are looking for something a bit “more”, I’d highly suggest checking out CapCut. This is another FREE app that you can download on your phone and/or computer and it has MANY more editing options than the built-in Instagram and TikTok editors. You can adjust the colors, add titles and transitions, apply filters, and use pre-made templates for super-easy editing! And best of all: it’s all formulated specifically for social media, so you can rest assured that your finished videos will be optimized for whatever platform you’re looking to post it on.

Again, there is a paid, upgraded version of CapCut, but again: I’ve only ever used the free version. It does seem like they are stripping back what is offered in the free version with each new version that comes out, but I’ve still found it to be an excellent free tool.

Additionally, if you have a Mac, you likely already have iMovie built into your OS. iMovie is a fabulous tool to create awesome videos (it’s the program I taught myself to edit videos on back-in-the-day!) It has a set of titles and transitions built in, you can do minor color-grading, and it’s an overall very user-friendly video editing software. And it’s built into your Mac, so it’s free!

A few other apps I’ve seen people talk about using to edit videos are InShot and VN Editor. I haven’t really played around with either of those very much, but if CapCut drives you crazy and you want to try something else, give those a try!

Lastly, I’ll mention Canva.
You probably wouldn’t think of Canva as an option to edit photos or videos in, but with Canva’s vast gallery of different templates, it’s a great place to start if you are looking to create specific pieces of content: specifically, slideshows or static social media posts. The options are literally endless with Canva and it’s an amazing resource if you don’t want to build a slideshow from scratch, but want to start with a pre-made template!

A NOTE ABOUT ADDING MUSIC:

Just like back in the day when pirating music online and burning it to a CD was illegal (it still is, but no one has the ability to burn CDs anymore!) – there are a lot of licensing nuances when it comes to using music in videos that you create.

If you are simply using a piece of music that’s built into Instagram or TikTok – you’ll be fine. The licensing is already there and you can use it. However, if you are looking to create shorts for YouTube or longer form videos that you want to post to YouTube or Facebook – simply downloading a popular song and using it in the background is not going to fly. You will get copyright flagged and your video may even get taken down.

So, if you want to add music for something you’re creating and you want to avoid the licensing stickiness – there is a lot of music you can find online that is royalty-free. A quick YouTube search of “No Copyright Sounds” will lead you down a long and winding path with tons of options you can use! Additionally: YouTube itself has a selection of music built into it that you can download and use – so there are lots of different options out there for adding music in a safe and legal way!

STEP 3-
Share!

This is the most fun step! Actually sharing what you create with your family and friends and audience!

• Inviting them to re-live portions of your wedding day will bring back all the happy memories.
• Telling stories about the different potions of your day will give your friends and family insight into the meaning and thought you put into your wedding day.
• Sharing the love you have with your spouse will inspire other happy couples and remind them of their own beautiful love stories.

But above all: have fun! The process of creating content after your wedding day is meant to be FUN. If you find yourself getting stressed out or overwhelmed, take a break and come back to it at a later time.

In today’s day and age: you don’t have to be a professional editor to create beautiful content. No classes or courses are required! You can simply take your creativity and let it fly!

Derrick and I got married 15 years ago and while “Wedding Content Creators” weren’t a thing back then, we had our own form of content creation at our wedding. We handed two family friends camcorders and asked them to record our ceremony and reception for us. An official videographer was out of our budget, but we knew that video footage was important and so that was our solution.

After the wedding, I digitized all of the footage they captured (because yes, it was all on tapes) and I used it to create a highlight video and a bloopers reel from our day. We’ve watched those videos countless times over the years.

But I’ve also used that raw footage to create reels, pieces of short form content, and just a few weeks ago, I used it to completely re-cut our wedding highlight video. It was such an immense JOY to go back and re-watch the videos that they captured for us – 15 years down the road. Moments that didn’t mean anything to us when we first got married, are absolutely precious to watch and re-live now. And I imagine that that footage will only become more precious as more years go by.

I’m beyond thankful for the ability to edit and continue to play around with my own wedding footage! It’s such an immense blessing to have that footage of our wedding day and I love being creative with it!

And that’s why I love being a Wedding Content Creator: I’m not only capturing the raw, real, behind-the-scene moments and delivering it to my couples within hours of their wedding day ending, but I’m giving them the ability to edit and play with that footage for years to come!