When Alejandra Hernandez bought married in April 2022, she sat her 14 bridesmaids down the evening earlier than the marriage with one request: “Please seize as a lot of my wedding ceremony as doable. I would like to find a way to look again on this and have that behind-the-scenes content material.”
She is aware of it was a tall order, Hernandez tells CNBC Make It: “It’s onerous to ask somebody who’s supposed to be having fun with your day with you to say, ‘Hey, are you able to additionally work for me?’ You may as effectively simply rent them then.”
That’s when a enterprise thought hit. In April 2023, a 12 months after her personal wedding ceremony, Hernandez, 37, of Redwood City, Calif., launched a marriage content material creation enterprise, Always A Bride Events, the place {couples} can rent her to get all of the video content material they need from their huge day to submit to TikTookay and Instagram.
For wherever between $800 to $1,800, Hernandez spends six to 12 hours with {couples} to seize all of their wedding ceremony moments. Standard packages embrace a set variety of edited movies, with particular consideration on clips that use the platform’s trending sounds and transitions, behind-the-scenes moments outdoors of the ceremony, or complete recaps of the day.
There’s loads of room for customization. In May, Hernandez spent per week in Las Vegas to seize moments together with the bride’s spa day, the rehearsal dinner, the marriage itself, and a post-ceremony journey down the Fremont Street zipline. For about 21 hours of labor, she charged $2,200 (that features a low cost for early purchasers).
Hernandez is one among many social media specialists banking on an rising wedding ceremony pattern. As a brand new wedding ceremony season will get underway, you are sure to see plenty of images and movies from occasions in your feed — and there is a likelihood the newlyweds can have paid somebody hundreds of {dollars} to get that good TikTookay or Instagram clip.
Couples need to unplug and relive their weddings instantly
It wasn’t a query that Kelsey Wilkins, the Las Vegas bride, would spring for a marriage content material creator on prime of hiring a marriage photographer and videographer.
Wilkins, 29, of Fayetteville, Ark., says social media performs a big position in her life as a small enterprise proprietor. She determined to add “content material creator” to her $50,000 wedding ceremony funds considering it might be a pleasant contact.
What she did not count on was that, by hiring Hernandez, the couple was shopping for peace of thoughts. They did not have to fear about having company seize behind-the-scenes pictures when they need to be celebrating. “I could not take my greatest good friend away from having fun with the second with me, or make my mother do it,” Wilkins says.
The newlyweds held an unplugged ceremony , so the footage from Hernandez’s cellphone is all they’ve to relive the marriage instantly till edited images and movies come in.
It could be a blur for newlyweds to bear in mind every little thing that occurred on their wedding ceremony day. If not for their professionally captured social content material, Wilkins says, “I would not have been ready to see me in my gown and florals,” or her husband’s getting-ready course of, or the entire ceremony from a visitor’s perspective.
To find a way to relive these moments together with her husband on their honeymoon was effectively definitely worth the cash: “It’s so lovely to look again on the footage coming off the excessive of the marriage itself,” she says.
‘You want to cost folks for this’
Lanise Harris was already good at making social-media clips when she attended weddings for family and friends. Then, in the course of the pandemic, Harris says, “My sister messaged me and stated, ‘You want to cost folks for this.'”
Harris, 33, of Houston, launched her business, Babe Events, by the summer season of 2022 simply as the marriage trade was rebounding after pandemic-related delays. She was a bridesmaid for a good friend’s wedding ceremony in September and was additionally employed to pull collectively social content material all through the day, from the time the bridal celebration was preparing all the best way to the couple’s kiss as they departed the reception.
Harris now affords three packages for her companies, starting from $350 to $1,200, together with widespread a la carte objects like creating a marriage hashtag and strategizing an Instagram takeover, which might be one other $300 a pop.
She thinks hiring wedding ceremony content material creators is smart in addition to hiring conventional wedding ceremony photographers and videographers. For one, she says, “No matter what media you employ to take the images, they are going to finish up on social media.” Might as effectively rent an skilled in what seems to be good on social platforms.
Plus, “There’s one thing particular about having the ability to present candid lovely alternatives to see your company in their component, with out the stress of a giant DSLR digital camera in their face.”
Lanise Harris was at all times good at capturing social media content material at weddings. Her sister really useful she flip it right into a enterprise alternative
Di’Liesha Kyra
Harris, who works in nonprofit mission administration for her day job, already has two weddings booked for July and expects to pocket $5,000 from her aspect hustle throughout the month. Buzz is constructing as the marriage season picks up and stretches into fall, too: “Come September, issues will probably be selecting up.”
A full-time enterprise in the making
Working as a marriage content material creator is not nearly crashing a very good celebration. Hernandez says she attracts from a 15-year profession working in occasion planning, in addition to data of how to movie life-style content material for TikTookay. In the final 12 months, she constructed an viewers on #Marriage ceremonyTookay, a bit of TikTookay that has 7.2 billion views, by way of movies giving recommendation to different brides.
A Twitter consumer not too long ago reposted one among Hernandez’s movies, writing, “Literally simply made this job up to wedding ceremony crash, celebration, and movie tiktoks. I’ve to stan!”
“I believed I used to be going to get hosed in the feedback,” Hernandez says when she discovered the tweet had gone viral, “so I used to be stunned at how supportive everybody was.”
There appears to be a rising understanding that {couples} are entitled to tailor their weddings as they see match, she says: “If a pair desires to spend $100,000 or $10,00 on their wedding ceremony, that is their prerogative. The identical goes for the distributors. If they need a marriage content material creator, that is their alternative. So folks simply want to begin accepting that the trade is altering.”
All informed, Hernandez works on her enterprise for about 25 hours in per week when she has a marriage, which incorporates going by way of an in depth questionnaire concerning the pictures and types the couple desires captured, gathering footage, modifying clips collectively, then sending the entire package deal inside 24 hours after the marriage, and posting to her personal social media handles to promote her enterprise.
She additionally likes to preserve good relationships with photographers and videographers on the wedding ceremony, oftentimes capturing them at work to allow them to promote themselves on-line.
If a pair desires to spend $100,000 or $10,00 on their wedding ceremony, that is their prerogative. The identical goes for the distributors.
Alejandra Hernandez
wedding ceremony content material creator, Always a Bride Events
So far, Hernandez has labored weddings with per week’s discover, and on the opposite finish, she has bookings all the best way in 2025. She not too long ago employed an affiliate to assist movie weddings in Texas, and he or she plans to scale in totally different areas of the U.S. Her objective is to flip her content material creating aspect hustle right into a full-time job.
As extra folks discuss on social media about what actually goes into gathering wedding-day content material, Hernandez factors out, brides are realizing they can not simply give their telephones to their buddies and count on the perfect. With wedding ceremony content material creator companies, she says, “it is simply good to have a manner to relive the day.”
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