WHY WE STOPPED DOING WEDDINGS

by Basil Yeo (@basilyeo)

If you've been on the receiving end of a rejection from us on your wedding video requirements, we truly apologise, and we feel compelled to discuss the reasons why so that we are not misunderstood. You see, the problem really does lie with us. Read on further to find out more...

There was a time not so long ago when our company offered wedding videography services just like any other small video production company much like ours. Being new, we used to think that it was necessary to take up all sorts of video projects that came our way just to stay in business just because we were a video company. 

Back then, we were doing event highlights, sports coverage, weddings, seminars, corporate videos and the occasional short film or two. Weddings were, by broader definition, events that required coverage, it was around that time when wedding videography had just started taking a turn towards artistry and craftsmanship with the explosion of DSLR cinematography and cheaper, affordable video tools.

With a readily available stream of projects from couples tying the knot week in week out, it was and unarguably still, an attractive proposition for a group of young 20-somethings to invest in a camera or two and get into the business of shooting weddings, and trust me, it pays really darn well. What could possibly go wrong?

A lot, actually.

Firstly, we found ourselves turning down wedding work often because we were packed with sports coverage and other projects with long term contractual commitments and unpredictable schedule changes which made it impossible for us to forecast our availability in the next 3-6 months.

Next, we slowly realised that while we were indeed working a lot, we were losing focus of our original vision behind starting this company in the first place, which was to be a creator of scripted content for film & television in this region and beyond. Then we saw how many extremely committed and proficient wedding videographers there were already out there, and we realised that we never really saw ourselves being among that group. These videographers also had one trait that we lacked at that time - the commitment to a niche. ​

We realised then, that the notion we had about needing to do every sort of video project that came by was the wrong one, and was actually pushing us further away from our vision. It was never our intention for our brand to be known as a Swiss army knife of video production. 

Hence, our decision to exclude the event highlights as a core business stems from a resolve we made to move towards achieving our creative ambitions and organisational vision. Though our income streams did suffer for a while, we decided that to us, it was important that the vision and the stories must come before the money. Finding your focus can be the best thing you do for your business and we're now beginning to see the the day we dreamt about and nearly... forgot.