hey guys my name is Matt Johnson and if you haven't been asked to livestream a
wedding yet I'm sure will happen to you at some point in the future inevitably
you will have a couple tell you hey we have some friends and family members
that are unable to attend the wedding because of health reasons or they're out
of town or out of the country and they're unable to fly in would you
livestream the wedding to the Internet so our friends can tune in and watch our
wedding ceremony today I want to give you a broad overview of live streaming
equipment and apps that you can potentially add as a service whenever
you film a wedding now this overview is going to cover three ways you can
livestream a wedding ceremony varying from simple to complex so depending on
your level of experience and budget you should be able to find something that
fits your needs let's start off simple the quickest and easiest way to
livestream a wedding ceremony is to use a cell phone grab your smartphone a
tripod and a phone mount set it up near the front of your ceremony site open up
the Facebook or YouTube app and as long as you have a fast enough cellular data
connection or Wi-Fi you're good to go you can even choose to have Facebook
only go live to a set audience like the couple's family or you could make your
livestream unlisted on YouTube and have the couple share the link with their
friends and family that can attend now while the main pros of this setup are
that it's super quick and basically anyone can do it
there are two big cons the first is audio you are at the mercy of your
phone's microphone unless you want to rig up a wireless microphone system to
run into your phone's headphone jack if it has one this is a major pain and you
can work around it with adaptors I'll be sure to link to some down in the
description but there is another big con of this setup that we need to address
the second con of a smart phone live streaming setup is that you can't
monitor the video or audio unless you stand nearby and watch the back of the
phone you have no way to know if it's still recording everything properly if
your shot is still composed well if your audio is still transmitting without
issues etc and it's not like you could run over to check it all the time you
have a wedding to film with your main cameras you could hire someone to
monitor the smartphone livestream but then that kind of defeats the purpose of
this being a quick and cheap option now let's move on to the second option you
have while live-streaming a wedding and this option I consider to be the sweet
spot because it is all those smartphone live-streaming
issues while not breaking the bank your second option for live-streaming a
wedding ceremony is to purchase a camera with a built-in live streaming
capability my recommendation to you may not be the first in your mind when you
think of a camera for live-streaming it's a GoPro I would go for the hero 8
black because it's the first GoPro to livestream in full HD 1080p it currently
retails for around $350 now why am i recommending a GoPro because this camera
is going to let you wirelessly monitor your livestream across the room from the
comfort of your cell phone you can be filming the wedding with your main
camera while still checking to make sure everything looks and sounds good for the
live stream and as long as you have a cell phone plan that lets you use your
phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot the GoPro will also use your phone cellular or Wi-Fi
connection to stream directly to the Internet so the GoPro fixes the
wirelessly monitoring your screen issue whenever you use your cell phone but
what about the audio well I have good news for you there as well because you
can purchase the GoPro media mod for $79 that will give you a 3.5 millimeter
audio jack you can then plug in a wireless lav mic like the tiny Rode
Wireless go and boom for a little over six hundred dollars you have a dedicated
live-streaming setup as a plus you also have a nifty little action camera that
you can use to film some cool angles of wedding moments incidentally I know that
I'm throwing a lot of gear your way I will link to all of the stuff that I've
talked about down in the video description almost done with the GoPro I
do have two quick recommendations for it though first GoPros are not known for
their stellar battery life so to make sure this one lasts for the whole
ceremony I would bring along a USB battery pack and plug it into the USB C
port on the GoPro media mod to keep it running second GoPros are known for
their fisheye effect so I would use the narrow field of view option in the GoPro
settings which makes a view much tighter I would also set up the GoPro as close
to the officiant and couple as possible without blocking the guests view
alternatively you don't have to worry about any of this if you use my third
option for live-streaming now let's finish up with the last option that I
have for you for live streaming your wedding ceremonies and full disclosure
here this is by far the most complex setup but it also results in the best
quality you will first need a DSLR or Mirrorless camera like say these sony a
sixty-four hundred the only requirement for your camera is that it needs to have
an HDMI port second you will need an HDMI cable as well as an HDMI to USB
capture card there are a ton of options out there for capture cards but I would
recommend the elgato cam link 4k which I own and love that retails for about a
hundred and thirty bucks you're going to connect the cam link to your laptop yes
you're going to need a laptop I told you this was going to be more complex and
then the laptop is going to need to be connected to Wi-Fi or to a wireless
hotspot FYI I would not trust most wedding venues Wi-Fi especially once 300
guests arrive and I'll try to connect to it at once it's really in your best
interest to bring your own Wi-Fi hotspot or tether to your phone lastly you need
software to make all this stuff work I would recommend OBS studio it works with
both Mac and PC and will let you set up your live stream to Facebook YouTube or
anywhere else you want it to go what about audio mats you didn't talk
about audio well I have more good news for you
the elgato cam link will send your camera's video and audio to your
computer ideally your camera has a mic jack on it right heck if you're shooting
with a larger video camera you might even have XLR inputs so you can easily
set up a wireless lav system like that rode wireless go and have it run into
your camera then through the HDMI to the cam link your laptop and then the
internet while this setup is the most complex it is gonna result in the best
quality with your live streaming audience able to look at your bokeh
licious video that you have from your camera combined with the crisp clear
audio from the lav mic so there you have it three different ways to livestream
your wedding ceremonies have you used one of these before
do you have a different method please leave me a comment down below and let me
know also if you're a videographer I know that you probably want to book more
couples and film or weddings to help you out with this I've created a PDF guide
full of practical changes that you can make to your business to immediately
start getting more bookings it's a free gift to you you can download it at the
link down in the video description thanks so much for watching and have a
great day