Who should get the lav? Bride? Groom? Officiant?

T

toddburch

Active member
Hi all,

I have a question that I thought would've been asked several times but couldn't find it with the ol' search button.

Got a few quick wedding-related audio questions for you all:

1) I'm limited by budget to just one lav to film the ceremony. Is it best to put the lav on the groom, officiant, or try to hide it on the bride?

I can see advantages/disadvantages to each:

Groom
Advantage: It's easier to hide the mic and wireless transmitter
Disadvantage: You're farther away from the bride

Bride
Advantage: Usually has a softer voice so it's better to have it close to her
Disadvantage: Can be tricky (or impossible?) to hide the transmitter and lav--plus who wants to fuss with hooking a mic up to the bride while she's prepping for her wedding?

Officiant:
Advantage: Usually has a central position between bride/groom and does the most talking.
Disadvantage: Further from the bride/groom.

2) Will I be able to pick up usable audio from bride, groom, and officiant with one lav?

3) The wedding is outdoors, so how does wind noise play into things? Are lavalier windscreens sufficient? Would love to hear your experiences.

4) Obviously an omnidirectional pickup pattern is preferable for the lav...but does anyone have experiences that show that one mic brand is preferable over another in this situation?

Thanks for the opinions/suggestions!
 
Don't even ask the bride to wear a lav - I don't think I've ever seen someone put the mic on her, and I wouldn't want to be the one to suggest to the bride that we pin a black mic to her white dress.
:)

Best bet - put it on the officiant.
He's probably going to do the bulk of the talking, and he should be close enough for the vows. Though the fact that you're outside definitely makes it rougher....

Hopefully someone will chime in with an answer for you on the wind.
 
Thanks Luis--I doubted that going with the bride was going to be the answer but thought I'd throw it out there anyway.
 
Luis Caffesse said:
Don't even ask the bride to wear a lav - I don't think I've ever seen someone put the mic on her, and I wouldn't want to be the one to suggest to the bride that we pin a black mic to her white dress.
:)
...
Click to expand...

Just FYI - several manufacturers, Countryman comes first to mind, make white and beige coloured lavs for precisely this application.
 
I would suggest to put it on the groom. When the officiant is talking he is going to make sure that the other people in the wedding will be able to hear him because that's what he does for a living. Very rarely will the groom and bride speak very loud for everyone to hear them because they are talking to each other where the officiant is talking to the guests and the couple. Of course this depends on the type of wedding that you have because if it's a shorter ceremony then you should be good. If it's a much longer one then the couple will probably be seated until the end.
 
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Since you said the ceremony will be outside. Depending upon the setup you could run xlr cables to a mic placed near the officiant and mic the groom. The best suggestions I can give you is if you aren't sure prepare for everything.
 
Why not just hid a few mics in places where you want to pick up conversation? They don't necessarily have to be lav mics either. Also if you could hook up your one hidden mic on the alter and maybe link that to an amplifier. If you know someone that plays guitar ;] this would be great. or if you already have one. This may however make your footage's audio sound like it has a distortion to it so you have to be careful.

Then for your wind issue. You can easily prevent this by maybe draping white sheets around the area where the mics are, like maybe over an open archway in the area where no in is. This should act as a "wedding wind screen" because you are obviously probly not going to want to want to have a giant black screen in the middle of the wedding.

I also agree with silver wolf. Just be ready for anything. Weddings are alway hard because you cant have another take or re shoot. This is it. So you want to be completely prepared for anything. And i would highly suggest just buying another lav mic. This will save you time an effort and if you are planning on doing this again it will definitely come on handy.

Hope this helped!
 
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