It begins the way many great romantic comedies do: in New York City. Two newlyweds kiss in a yellow checker cab: she in the back, bouquet in hand, leaning out the window; he out the front. Both appear exuberant. “In Dreams” by Roy Orbison plays while an array of shots evoke a feeling of nostalgia … for an event that took place on Aug. 8.
This is the wedding trailer for Olivia and Doug Burdell, 29-year-old and 30-year-old Brooklyn residents who recently married at Chelsea Square, an event space in Manhattan.
“Doug and I, we’re the rom-com, and we’ve always kind of felt that way,” Olivia said. So they decided to invest in a wedding trailer — a bite-size, social-media-ready film, with title cards and music meant to evoke (often successfully) warm and fuzzy feelings. (And yes, it’s considered a trailer, even though much of the footage is shot during the wedding itself and the final product is released after.)
The couple found Tommy and Ellie Ketcham, the husband-and-wife team behind Cross Films, on Instagram. “It’s not a chronology of the day, but it’s my memory of the day,” Olivia said. “It’s that feeling, the way that my memory works in flashbulbs.”
The Ketchams, based in Phoenix, began creating these mini-movies in 2023 after realizing the internet’s appetite for them. Unlike traditional wedding videography, which tends to feel more documentary-style, and long-form, these wedding trailers splice together transient, whimsical moments that might otherwise not make the cut.
The Ketchams travel across the country, and sometimes abroad, asking couples questions like, “What was it like when you first met your person?” and “Who said, ‘I love you’ first?” They also try to capture what the wedding truly felt like: “I think what’s really attractive for these bite-sized videos is putting everything just completely out of order,” Tommy said. “It’s almost like a beautiful chaos.”
Their bookings also include a traditional full video, as most similar vendors do, with prices starting at $12,000 for domestic weddings.
Esther Lee, editorial director at The Knot, said the sudden popularity of the wedding trailer was unsurprising since “social media has evolved from a simple mood board into a digital extension of the celebration itself.” She added that they allow a couple to tell their story to a broader community: “It transforms the wedding from a single evening into shareable digital moments that extend the life of the event.”
That distinction is important. Old-school wedding videography typically preserves the day for generations, for grandchildren and possibly theirs, too. But these trailers can showcase a wedding to thousands, depending on one’s following.
And while eight hours of slow zooms used to capture it all — say, a full Mass, a packed dance floor, poofy veils, all of the taffeta — these mini edits are designed to make anyone watch, even those who’ve never met the couple.
Ishita Tiwary, associate professor of cinema at Concordia University in Montreal, said that wedding videos became increasingly accessible with consumer video technology in the 1980s and ’90s. “The wedding video transformed from a straightforward documentation of the ceremony to that resembling a feature film when sound and editing came into the picture,” she said.
She added that “with the advent of social media and the demands of the attention economy, it’s natural that the wedding video transforms into an Instagram reel.”
Grant Hart of Grant Hart Productions, a wedding videographer based in Virginia Beach, Va., specializes in short-form videos. Some lean more lighthearted, others more sentimental. He’s also received Wes Anderson-inspired requests: dollhouse framing, coordinated mechanics and saturated colors. These pieces run a couple around $7,000 and up.
He’ll spend his day fixing a boom mic on cocktail hours and pre-wedding festivities, asking guests questions about the couple to layer over the footage. One of his favorite techniques is to have different people tell the story of how the couple met. “These documentary-style interviews are not only through the couple’s eyes, but from the guests’ point of view as well,” Hart said.
But one piece of why these trailers are so intriguing is that they’re simply joyous and fun, said Shaun J. Brown, 39, and Catherine Powers, 29, a couple based in Los Angeles. Their wedding in Greece on Sept. 10 was captured by Click Art Studio, a wedding photography and filmmaking service that charge $5,000 to $12,000. “We really were like, ‘Hey, I’m here to have a good time,’” Brown said. “And then we trusted the professionals to craft this thing.”
And what they got was something special: a trailer that begins with a low-angle shot of the couple saying: “Is it our wedding day? I think it’s our wedding day.” It cuts to guests partying, fire twirling, an old friend presenting the ring box with a deadpan, “I think you’ll need this.”
If it feels theatrical, it’s because Brown and Powers also happen to work as actors — which is precisely the point, the couple said: The trailer should feel like an expression of who you actually are. And in their case, it was two people who love performing, and each other.
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