How to Impress Beyond the Dress: Royalty Free Music for Your DIY Wedding Video

Let the other couples sign onto those cookie-cutter wedding packages. You and your betrothed are all about the Do-It-Yourself wedding.

You aren’t afraid to roll up your sleeves, get cozy with a hot glue gun, and tie so many ribbons around adorable guest goodie bags that your fingers bleed. It also means it’s time to learn all about why you need royalty free music for your DIY wedding video.

You are going to record a wedding video, right? What better way to cap off your amazing, stellar, and unique-as-you wedding than with a video you can share with the world.

Why a Wedding Video Is the Perfect Capstone of Your DIY Wedding

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You’re planning a DIY wedding, which means your brain is most certainly in nuptial overdrive. It can be difficult to really live in the moment as you frantically glue glitter to your wedding invites and try to teach yourself origami, so you can make those adorable centerpieces you saw on Pinterest.

It can also be a challenge to really appreciate the big day itself. Trust us, you’re going to be an emotional mess the whole time. That’s a good thing, but it doesn’t always allow you to focus on the finer points.

A wedding video is a way for you to capture the high points of your big day and tell the story of your relationship and marriage in a way that is compelling, fun, and efficient. (Sorry, but no one – not even you – want to watch the entire eight-hour event from start to finish). You’ll love watching your wedding video on all of your anniversaries.

A wedding video is also an excellent way to share your wedding with all the friends and family who couldn’t make the ceremony. Post this video on your social media pages and share your love and all your DIY hard work with your tribe. You know Debbie in accounting has been dying to see those origami centerpieces you’ve been talking about nonstop for the past month!

How to Create a DIY Wedding Video

Are you ready to say “Yes” to adding a wedding video to your wedding plan? Great! But you aren’t about to just hand off the project to a videographer. That would betray the entire DIY spirit of the occasion (and stress your budget if you’re trying to keep costs down).

If you can learn how to build a wedding arch out of tree branches, then you can certainly handle a wedding video on your own.

Here’s how to create a DIY Wedding Video:

1. Do Your Homework

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Charging hard into a DIY wedding will teach you the value of doing your research and creating a plan before you execute. This same mentality goes for your wedding video.

Before you even start jotting down ideas, take some time and check out other wedding videos. YouTube is your one-stop-shop for all the wedding videos you could ever want to view.

As you do your research, here are a few tips to keep in mind:

Watch top rated wedding videos first
Next, search for weddings with similar themes as yours (example: Southern wedding)
Save/bookmark your favorite videos
Note the things you like about each video and the things you don’t
Pay attention to the specific shots the videos use, what type of music they include, and the timeline of the videos (you’ll discover that many don’t show the events in a linear order)

Your research will help you develop ideas of what you want for your video, and your notes and links will be valuable when you recruit your video team and sit down to edit the video after the big day.

2. Recruit Your Team

There are limits to even the greatest DIY spirit. You are going to have to recruit someone or several someones to actually record your wedding since you’ll be busy playing a starring role in the production.

Consider if any of your friends or family members would be a good fit to serve as your videographer. Maybe your niece is studying communications in college, or one of your friends has a popular YouTube channel.

Reach out and see if they want to volunteer to help you on your big day. Most people with an artistic streak would love to have a chance to let their creative side out.

If you would rather not put a friend or wedding guest to work during your wedding, post a job ad at the local college. There’s bound to be an AV club member who would be willing to shoot your wedding in exchange for experience, a polished piece for their portfolio, and perhaps a little pizza money.

3. Plan Your Video

You don’t want to hit W Day without a plan for your video. Once your video team is in place, it’s time to brainstorm a basic outline. Share the links to your favorite videos with your team along with your notes on what you liked and didn’t like.

Create an outline of how you want the video to go. It can be super simple or even mimic your fav YouTube wedding video. (DIY doesn’t mean it has to be brand new!) You may not necessarily stick to the outline once the big day is over and you have all the video, but this will at least give your team a plan to work from.

Don’t expect your videographer to realize that you want to capture an opening shot of your glorious wedding arch. Break the outline into the shots you want to capture and assign them to your team. By assigning shots, you can ensure that the videographer doesn’t miss any precious pieces of your wedding. The outline will also help you assemble the video once the wedding is over and you have hours of footage to roam through.

4. Gather Your Equipment

You really don’t need fancy smancy video cameras to create an excellent wedding video. Seriously, the latest crop of smartphones are capable of grabbing crisp, clear video. Just make sure your videographers have plenty of space available on their phones. There’s nothing worse than running out of memory while the best man gives his toast!

You may also want to consider using a drone to capture those cool aerial shots of the wedding venue or to get close in on the action. Before you hand over money to buy your own drone, survey friends, and family. You will almost certainly find someone who already owns a drone and would either be willing to record for you or let you borrow their baby for your special day. (Not sure which of your friends owns a drone? Just check your Facebook feed. Drone users aren’t shy about proudly posting their footage.)

If you are borrowing a drone for your big day, make extra sure the assigned operator has plenty of practice with the drone. The last thing you want is for a drone to ricochet off a wall right into the wedding cake!

5. Record the Bliss

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The origami centerpieces are proudly displayed. The wedding bells are ringing. It’s time. You’ve worked so hard to create an amazing DIY wedding. Enjoy your special day. Your video team should already be prepped and equipped. As long as they follow their assignments, you shouldn’t need to worry about a thing except remembering your vows and not twisting your ankle during the Funky Chicken Dance.

Love is a beautiful thing!

6. Edit the Video

The honeymoon is over, and you’ve finally gotten your life back from DIY wedding-planning mayhem. Now is the perfect time to wrap up your last big wedding project – the video! Reach out to your videographers and retrieve the video files.

If you have a creative streak and some technical savvy, try your hand at editing the video yourself. Software like Nero Video, Corel VideoStudio, Adobe Premiere Elements, or Apple Final Cut Pro can help.

Otherwise, see if the same creative family member or the card-carrying AV college student who videoed your nuptials is willing to edit your video. One final option is to use a site like Upwork, Fiverr, or Guru to find an experienced freelancer to finish up the project for you. If you work with an outside editor, make sure you provide your outline and the links to your favorite wedding videos, so they know what you want.

7. Choose Royalty Free Music

It’s tempting to use Christina Perri’s “A Thousand Years” as a heart-melting soundtrack to your video, especially because it was also your first dance song. However, a little thing called copyright law could lead to lots of trouble. Unless you have express permission from Perri’s record label to use the song or plunked down a big chunk of change to purchase the rights to use it, you’ll be breaking the law by putting the song in your video.

You may not think this is a big deal. Who’s going to see the video anyway? Well, if you plan on hosting the video on YouTube so that all your friends and family and relive your big day, then lots of people could potentially see it. Also, YouTube has gotten pretty good at scanning videos and identifying illegal use of copyrighted music.

In a best-case scenario, YouTube will simply pull down your video, and Debbie from accounting will never know how those origami centerpieces came out. In a worst-case scenario, Perri’s record label could sue you for up to $150,000! So much for all that money you saved on your DIY wedding.

Play it safe (and legal), and use royalty free music. You can find free stock music by searching for public domain songs. Certain Creative Commons licenses also allow you to use songs in your video. Another great option is to use a stock music company, like Soundstripe, which offers a large catalog of royalty free music.

Soundstripe lets you search music based on a variety of different categories, like mood and genre, which makes it easy to find just the right type of music for your wedding video! Most wedding videos incorporate multiple songs, so save time and effort and find all your stock music in one place with Soundstripe.

8. Add the Final Details

You’re almost done! Once you’ve edited your video and added in some excellent copyright-free music, the last step is to put on the final polish.

This is where you can add opening credits, subtitles, and voice-overs. Voice-overs are excellent if you want to read an old love letter or re-state your vows if they aren’t easy to hear in the video footage. You may also want to add subtitles to signify different parts of the day, such as the ceremony, reception, toasts, first dance, and afterparty.

Have fun with it. Let that DIY diva come out to play one more time.

When your video is ready, show it to the world. Debbie has been waiting so long to see those origami centerpieces!

At Soundstripe, our music library is at your disposal for a low-cost monthly or yearly subscription. We have plenty of high-quality songs that would make the perfect accompaniment to your video. Check out our music library today!

Summarizing royalty free wedding music licensing

At the end of the day, whatever wedding music you might be looking for is ultimately going to be background music for a very special wedding for some client. Whether it be a soft acoustic guitar solo, or some small sound effects to fill out a reception hall, any extra ambiance will always be greatly appreciated by your clients — especially when you have the proper license and know your how to license music the right way for this project and the next project.