When Alejandra Hernandez got married in April 2022, she sat down her 14 bridesmaids the night before the wedding with one request: “Please capture as much of my wedding as possible. I want to look back on it and remember it.” want to put behind- the visual stuff.”
She knows it was a tall order, Hernandez told CNBC Make It: “It’s hard to ask someone who’s supposed to be enjoying your day with you, ‘Hey, can you work for me too? ‘ Then you can hire them.”
That’s when a business idea hit. In April 2023, a year after her own wedding, Hernandez, 37, of Redwood City, California, launched Always a Bride Events, a wedding content creation business where couples hire her to get all the video content from their big Can take Posting day on Tiktok and Instagram.
For anywhere between $800 to $1,800, Hernandez spends six to 12 hours with couples to capture all of their wedding moments. Standard packages include a set number of edited videos, with a special focus on clips that make use of the stage’s trending sounds and transitions, behind-the-scenes moments from outside the ceremony, or a total recap of the day.
There’s lots of room for customization. In May, Hernandez spent a week in Las Vegas to capture moments including the bride’s spa day, the rehearsal dinner, the wedding itself, and a post-ceremony trip down the Fremont Street Zipline. For roughly 21 hours of work, he charged $2,200 (which includes a discount for early customers).
Hernandez is one of many social media experts tipping off an emerging wedding trend. As a new wedding season gets underway, you’re bound to see tons of photos and videos from events on your feed — and there’s a chance the newlyweds paid someone thousands of dollars to get that perfect TikTok or Instagram clip. would have been paid.
Couples looking to unplug and relive their marriages instantly
It was no question that a Las Vegas bride, Kelsey Wilkins, would spring for a wedding content creator on top of hiring a wedding photographer and videographer.
Fayetteville, Ark. Wilkins, 29, says social media plays a big role in her life as a small business owner. She decided to add a “content producer” to her $50,000 wedding budget, thinking it would be a nice touch.
What she didn’t expect was that, by hiring Hernandez, the couple was buying peace of mind. They didn’t have to worry about capturing behind-the-scenes shots while the guests were celebrating. “I couldn’t keep my best friend from enjoying the moment with me, or my mom from doing the same,” says Wilkins.
The newlyweds held an unplugged ceremony, so they’ll have to rewatch the wedding right away until footage from Hernandez’s phone turns up edited photos and videos.
It can be a blur for newlyweds to remember everything that happened on their wedding day. If not for their professionally captured social content, Wilkins says, “I wouldn’t have seen me in my dress and flowers,” or her husband’s getting ready process, or the entire ceremony from a guest’s perspective. .
Being able to re-live those moments with her husband on their honeymoon was worth the money: “It’s so beautiful to look back at the footage coming from the high point of the wedding,” she says.
‘You need to charge people for this’
Lannis Harris was already good at creating social-media clips when she officiated weddings for friends and family. Then, during the pandemic, Harris says, “My sister messaged me and said, ‘You need to charge people for this.’
Harris, 33, of Houston, plans to launch her business, Bebe Events, by the summer of 2022, just as the wedding industry is rebounding after pandemic-related delays. She was a bridesmaid for a friend’s wedding in September and was also hired to pull together social content throughout the day, from the time the bridal party was getting ready all the way to the couple’s kiss , when he left the reception.
Harris now offers three packages for her services ranging from $350 to $1,200, plus popular a la carte items like creating a wedding hashtag and Instagram takeover strategy, which can be $300 a pop.
She thinks that hiring wedding content creators makes sense in addition to hiring traditional wedding photographers and videographers. For one, she says, “It doesn’t matter what media you use to take the pictures, they’re going to end up on social media.” You can also hire an expert in what looks good on social platforms.
Plus, “there’s something special about being able to provide your guests with a candidly beautiful opportunity to see themselves in their element, without the pressure of a big DSLR camera in their face.”
Lannis Harris was always good at capturing social media content at weddings. His sister recommended that he turn it into a business opportunity.
d’lisha kayra
Harris, who works in nonprofit project management for her day job, has already booked two weddings for July and expects to pocket $5,000 on her own within the month. As wedding season winds down and heads into autumn, the buzz is building: “Come September, things will pick up.”
a full time business in the making
Working as a wedding material producer isn’t just about crashing a good party. Hernandez says she draws on her 15-year career working in event planning as well as how to film lifestyle content for TikTok. In the past year, she built an audience on #WeddingTok, a section of TikTok that has 7.2 billion views, through videos giving advice to other brides.
A Twitter user recently reposted a video of Hernandez, writing, “Literally made this work the wedding crash, the party, and the movie TikTok. I want to stan!”
“I thought I was going to be bombarded with comments,” says Hernandez when she learned the tweet had gone viral, “so I was surprised how supportive everyone was.”
There seems to be a growing understanding that couples are entitled to design their weddings the way they want, she says: “If a couple wants to spend $100,000 or $10,00 on their wedding, that’s their prerogative.” Same goes for vendors. If they want to be a wedding paraphernalia maker, that’s their choice. So people just have to start accepting that the industry is changing.”
All told, Hernandez works on her business for about 25 hours a week when she gets married, which includes going through a detailed questionnaire about the shots and styles the couple wants to capture, gathering footage editing the clips together, then sending out the complete package. Within 24 hours of the wedding, and posting on your own social media handles to promote your business.
She also likes to keep good relations with photographers and videographers at weddings, often capturing them at work so that they can promote themselves online.
If a couple wants to spend $100,000 or $10,00 on their wedding, that is their prerogative. Same goes for sellers.
alejandra hernandez
Wedding Content Creator, Always A Bride Events
So far, Hernandez has worked weddings with a week’s notice, and on the other hand, she has bookings all the way into 2025. She recently hired an associate to help film weddings in Texas, and she plans to work extensively in different regions of the US. She aims to turn her side hustle creating content into a full-time job.
As more people talk on social media about what really goes into gathering wedding-day material, Hernandez explains, brides are realizing they can’t just give their phones to their friends and best friends. can hope. With wedding content creator services, she says, “it’s nice to have a way to re-live the day.”
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