The Wedding Doc Edit: What It Is, What Goes In, and How to Deliver It

A doc edit, short for documentary edit, is the long version of a wedding film: the day's events in real time and in order, cut between your angles, with the sound playing in full. The vows run as long as the vows ran. It sits beside the highlight film, which is short, set to music and reordered for feeling. The catch is that videographers use the name for two different films, so define yours in the contract by what it contains and how long it runs, and deliver anything longer than a few minutes with chapters, so the couple can find the vows.

Below: the two meanings, what goes in each kind of doc edit, the two technical problems a long real-time edit exposes, and the chapter rules from YouTube's, Vimeo's and Apple's own help pages.

Two different films called a doc edit

Read enough package pages and the term splits. Some videographers mean the events in full: the whole ceremony, every toast, the first dances, cut between cameras with nothing trimmed. Others mean a longer story film, often twenty minutes or more, built from the whole day with montage and music, closer to a long highlight than to a record. Both are good products. They are not the same product, and a couple who booked one and expected the other will say so in the review.

So name it, then define it. In the deliverables section of your wedding videography contract, list each doc edit by what it covers (from the processional to the recessional; each toast given at the reception; the first dance and the parent dances), say that it runs in real time with the audio in full, and give an approximate length or say that it runs as long as the events do. That sentence settles most arguments before they start.

What goes in each one

• Ceremony: from the first person down the aisle to the recessional, including the readings and everything the officiant says. Nothing skipped, because the family will notice which reading is missing.
• Speeches: every toast in the order given, each one complete, with the reaction shots that make a long toast watchable.
• Dances: the first dance and the parent dances, in full. These carry the DJ's recordings from start to finish, which raises the music question below.
• Reception: the entrances, the toasts, the cake and the dances in order, for couples who want the evening as it happened.
• Ceremony and reception, or the full day: the parts above joined in order, with a chapter title opening each one.

Every one of these is built the same way: real time, the best angle at each moment, and the audio never cut mid-sentence. The craft is in the angle choices and the sound. A doc edit is mostly people talking, so the dialogue has to sit at an even level, from a quiet officiant to a best man who leans into the microphone.

The two problems a long edit exposes

Sync drift. A doc edit plays a 45-minute ceremony in real time, with nothing cut away to hide a slipping sync. Two clocks 20 parts per million apart put the end of that ceremony more than a frame out. The arithmetic, the threshold viewers notice and how to stay inside it are in why multicam wedding audio drifts.

Music. The dances carry the DJ's tracks in full. The DJ's or venue's license covers playing a song at the event, not putting it in a film, and YouTube's Content ID claims a matched recording automatically, both of which the wedding video music licensing post sets out. Decide before delivery how you will handle those songs, and say so in the contract.

Deliver it with chapters

A full-day doc edit can run well over an hour, and the couple will mostly want to find one moment in it. Chapters are how they find it, and each place you might deliver it has its own rules:

• YouTube: add timestamps and titles to the description. The first must be 00:00, there must be at least three in ascending order, and each chapter must be at least 10 seconds long. Chapters are unavailable on a channel with an active strike, and an account without access to YouTube's advanced features has to apply for it first (YouTube Help).
• Vimeo: chapters go in the video's Interactive settings on every plan, the free one included, up to 80 a video, with titles of up to 50 characters. They work in Vimeo's player, embeds included, and not on any other site (Vimeo Help).
• A file the couple downloads: Final Cut Pro can include the project's chapter markers in the exported file, and Apple says viewers can then move between them with the next and previous chapter buttons in QuickTime Player and other apps (Final Cut Pro guide). If you deliver from Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve, check that your export carries chapter markers before you promise them.

A chapter title on screen at the start of each part of the day works everywhere, including in a player that ignores chapter data. Do both. Keep the titles short enough for Vimeo's 50 characters and the same in every version, so "Ceremony" on screen matches "Ceremony" in the chapter list.

Raw footage, pricing and the doc edit

Some couples who ask for the raw footage want what a doc edit gives them: everything that was said, in full. Offering the doc edit is usually the better answer, for the ownership reasons in who owns wedding footage and raw files. It is also where the hours go, because a real-time edit means watching every angle of every part before the first cut. The middle package tier in the videography pricing guide includes a documentary-style edit of the ceremony for that reason.

Where Pixally Prep fits

This is the part of the job Pixally Prep takes on. Choose the doc edits you deliver (full day, ceremony and reception, ceremony, reception, speeches, dances) and Prep builds the first cut of each one in your Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve or, on a Mac, Final Cut Pro project: cut between the angles, with the dialogue balanced, the markers on, and a chapter title opening each part of the day. It is a first cut to polish, not a finished film. The first wedding is free, one per person and one per computer, and each one after that is $8.99.