Today I’m spilling the tea on my personal tips and tricks on how to mic couples for wedding films on the big day! When it comes to filming elopements and weddings, audio plays a HUGE role with storytelling. Having crispy clear audio vs. static-y, poor quality audio will make or break the wedding film!
Discuss how you Mic the Bride and Groom beforehand!
Schedule a call with your couple before the big day and discuss how you plan on mic-ing them the day of. Some brides insist on being mic’ed, and other brides would prefer to not be mic’ed, so you’ll want to have a brief discussion about this.
How to Mic Couples for Wedding Films: The Groom
For the groom’s main audio, I’ll place the recorder inside of his jacket (there’s almost always pockets inside!!) and clip the mic on the front of his jacket. For the backup audio, I usually place a small and skinny recorder in the groom’s front jacket pocket or under his sleeve!
How to Mic Couples: The Bride
I personally don’t mic my brides unless they insist (to reiterate, you’ll want to know this beforehand by scheduling a call to talk about audio!). And honestly, you can BARELY tell the difference when you just mic the groom!
But, just in case you need to mic your bride, here’s how to do it:
I take the main audio recorder and place it between a flesh-colored thigh strap and the bride’s garter. Then, I’ll run the mic (connected to the recorder) up the inside of the bride’s dress. Finally, I’ll place a rycote sticky on the neckline of the dress and place the mic there!
To get a visual explanation of this, you can check out my reel below!
How to Mic Couples for Wedding Films: Backups
I HIGHLY recommend you always have two recorders in case something goes wrong with the first audio recording. Nothing is more frustrating and disappointing than listening to the audio’s playback, and realizing the audio wasn’t recorded correctly!
My Audio Kit for Elopement and Wedding Films
Tascam DR-10L as the main lav mic
I use this as the groom’s main mic and place it on the inside of the groom’s jacket!
Sony Recorder as the Backup Mic
I use this as the backup audio and will either place it in the groom’s front pocket or other inside jacket pocket.
Rode VideoMicPro as an On-Camera Mic
I place this on my camera’s hotshoe and use it to get great scratch audio with all the footage.
Interested in ALL the camera and audio gear I use for filming wedding and elopement films? You can check out my video kit here. And if you’re interested in starting up your own videography business, I offer mentorship calls, which you can book here!
[…] In addition to my Rode mic, I typically will record some audio individually — whether that’s the ceremony, speeches at the reception, or when the couple exchanges their vows in private. You can check out how exactly I record my couples’ audio here. […]