“Can’t we just point a phone at it?” You can — and remote family will watch 40 minutes of a pillar, hear nothing during the vows, and lose the feed when someone gets a text. Here’s what a real ceremony stream is made of and why each part is there.
Cameras: at least two
One locked-off wide shot as a safety net, and one operated camera for the aisle, the faces and the ring exchange. A third on the readers or the musicians is common. Multiple angles let the stream cut like television instead of staring at one fixed frame.
Audio: from the source, not the room
This is the part phones can’t fake. We take a feed from a lav mic on the officiant, a mic at the lectern, and the venue’s system where there is one — the same approach as wedding film audio. Remote guests forgive a soft picture; they switch off instantly if they can’t hear the vows.
Switching and graphics
A hardware switcher lets an operator mix the cameras live, hold on the right shot at the right moment, and add simple lower-thirds — names, ‘Ceremony begins at 4:00’, an order of service. It turns a feed into a broadcast.
Internet and redundancy
- Bonded connection: several cell carriers plus venue Wi-Fi combined, so one dropping doesn’t drop the stream.
- Local recording on every camera regardless of the stream, so you have a clean copy even if the internet fails entirely.
- Backup power for the core kit.
- A holding slide and audio ready, so a blip shows ‘please stand by’ rather than an error page.
The people
Two crew minimum — one on the operated camera, one on the switch and stream — who arrive two to three hours early to run cable, test audio, confirm bandwidth and do a full rehearsal to the private link before guests arrive.
Frequently asked questions
Where do remote guests watch?
What if the venue has terrible internet?
Do we get a recording too?
Have family who can’t travel? Tell us your venue and we’ll design a stream that holds up — audio, angles and a backup path.