How to upgrade your livestream

Live-streaming has exploded since Covid first hit. It made the world work when we were all stuck inside, but even now that we are past the lockdowns, isolations and quarantines, it is still an incredibly helpful tool for connecting with each other over long distances.

I love doing live-streaming for weddings and events, and seeing the joy of being able to connect with each other during those special times. There are a lot of options for live-streaming though, so I’m going to outline what live-streaming includes and what we can do to make it even more connective.

the basic package

For most live-streams I take a single camera feed (which I can zoom in with to follow the action), add high quality audio from some microphones and send it through to Youtube - this allows people watching to see and hear everything clearly.

Cameras

The best thing you can do to improve the live-stream is to add more cameras. This is particularly great for speeches, so you can have a second view of the audience or bridal table. If you have a couple areas being used at the same time then this can be necessary to see everything that happens.

For a next-level experience, we can have a roaming camera to get lots of different angles as well as nice and close.

Photo taken by Andie Noon

Viewing your guests

Even better than your guests seeing you, is for your guests to be in the room with you! If I stream via zoom, I can add a screen in the room so you can see your guests. The in-person guests love being able to see the live-stream guests and taking photos with them!

Interacting with your guests

Taking that to the next level, I can add speakers so that you can have conversations with your guests. They love being able to congratulate the couple and sending their best wishes.

This is great if you have a parent, bridal party member, or VIP who you want to make a speech but isn’t able to make it. I can put them up full screen so everyone can hear and see them for their big speech.

Snapped by Patina Photo

Two-in-One

Livestreaming both the ceremony and reception can get a bit complicated, as you either need two different live-streams, or a lot of cables. Additionally, some couples also prefer not to have a huge setup for their ceremony.

What I can do is film the ceremony, then live-stream the reception and play the ceremony video either before it starts, or during a meal break. This requires a bit of pre-planning to ensure there is enough time to edit it, but can be a great way to minimise the amount of time for live-streaming, especially since some of them may have to wake up in the middle of the night to watch!