How much did you pay for video and DJ?

Where do you live? That seems very high for my area.

Definitely get professional vendors and let your friends and family be guests. I am not going to type the whole story out again, but my best friend and his wife used a "friendor" who is actually a professional photographer by trade and it completely ruined the multi-decade relationship.

Our DJ was about $1300 for just the reception. Video would have cost about 4-6 thousand, so we decided to skip it.

GB is on Long Island - where my wedding was held as well.

My video was $3440, DJ was $2000 (was $2300 but gave us a discount).

Where do you live?

Also, I'm against hiring friendors as well. H has a friend who is a DJ and we were going to go with them, then I convinced him not too.

I live in Rochester NY (western NY) and yeah I already had a "friend" do engagement photos that blew up in our face. I think I will try to use the videographer friend because I definitely would just not have it done if I'm paying that much! So even if it comes out shit- it'd be better than none?

Nah, sorry. I'd rather have none.

If you had an incident that blew up in your face, I would not want to go through that again. Fool me once, shame on you...fool me twice, shame on me.

I'm in NYC, we paid $1600 for videography and $2000 for DJ.

The DJ's we've looked at are around $1,000ish. Video is around are $2,500-$3,000 (or more).

She's really good at what she does- just graduated from college as a cinema arts major, and recently did a commercial for our old ballet company. I know she does good work- she's just never done a wedding so idk how much I should pay her...

I actually disagree that a shit video shot by a friend is better than none.

Imagine you have paid your buddy what you consider a fair and reasonable sum for a wedding video. You sign a contract. You have meetings about how how you want things done and what sort of final product you are going for. You fly her to your location. On the day of the wedding she shoots the footage. You adjust your day slightly to accommodate that. Then you wait for her to edit it, excited to see your wedding day on film. It takes forever for her to edit it. Finally you get it back...and it's awful. That is almost guaranteed to affect the friendship.

On the flip side, imagine being the friend. You don't do wedding videos, but you agree because you care about the person getting married. The money is way under your normal rates, but you feel awkward asking for more. You put a bunch of work into planning ahead of time and trying to understand the your friend's "vision." You lug your heavy and expensive camera gear across the country, paying hefty baggage fees and hoping it doesn't get damaged in transit. Then on the day of the wedding you don't get to have fun and celebrate with your friend because you are working. You stay up late for weeks on end to get the editing done, squeezing in an hour here and there between your other obligations. Finally you send the final product...and your friend hates it. That is almost guaranteed to affect the friendship.

As I mentioned, we decided to skip video because the cost wasn't worth it. No regrets.

The thing is she's a "friend" but not close enough that she would have been invited to the wedding... an old coworker may be a better descriptor? So I'm not concerned about her not being able to enjoy her time at our wedding... and not really concerned about ruining our friendship... since it's pretty distant anyways. I basically just want ideas on how much I should pay a videographer who has not done weddings... what's the low end of wedding videography? I'd be paying for her flight but not for stay since she is from here (she said "it'd be a reason for me to get to go home too!")