- Hey guys,
my name is Matt Johnson.
And today I'm going to be showing you,
with real world examples from a real wedding,
how I mic the bride,
and record crispy audio of her
saying her vows during the wedding ceremony.
And your audio
is gonna go from this,
if you have the groom mic'ed,
- I'm proud of who you are,
and I'm proud to stand with you today,
as I pledge my life and give my heart to you.
- To this,
with the bride mic'ed.
- I'm proud of who you are,
and I'm proud to stand with you today,
as I pledge my life and give my heart to you.
- Now you're probably thinking,
Matt, mic'ing the bride is intimidating.
And up until earlier this year,
I would've agreed with you.
Mic'ing a groom is easy.
I have yet to find a groom I couldn't mic.
They usually have a suit on with pants and a jacket,
and so you can easily clip a recorder under their belt,
or under their pants or jacket pocket.
They're all the same, it's easy.
Brides on the other hand,
are usually wearing a wedding dress.
And every wedding dress is different.
You have ball gown, you have a-line,
you have sheath, you have mermaid,
you have backless, strapless.
Okay, I'm just reading those off of a list
that my wife told me about.
I don't actually know a ton about wedding dresses.
The point is,
that hiding the mic on a bride's dress
can appear to be far more complicated
than clipping the mic onto a groom's jacket,
or so I used to believe.
This is the Tascam DR 10-L audio recorder in white.
And this is my go-to recorder
for recording the bride on the wedding day.
Two things that you need to know
before I go into detail about how to use this.
First, I have a full review of the DR 10-L
up on my YouTube channel,
and I will inch it up on the corner,
and down in the description
if you want to know why this thing is so awesome.
Second, I learned about this bride mic'ing technique
from Sarah and Rick Pendergraft of Pen Weddings.
And they are incredibly talented,
and they mic all their brides,
and they have a YouTube channel.
So, I will link to that down in the description as well.
Alright, let's dive into mic'ing the bride.
And you are going to need three things to do this.
First, you're going to need the Tascam DR 10-L in white.
Second, you're going to need a set of Rycote Stickies,
so you can attach the lav mic to the bride's dress.
And third, you're going to need
a Neopax wireless microphone thigh strap.
I will link to all three of these things
down in the description of this video.
Armed with these three items,
I recommend that whenever
you first show up on the wedding day,
that you ask the bride if you can see her dress,
so that way you can get an idea of what it looks like,
and you can tell where on the dress
you should put your lav mic.
You also get extra points
if you ask the bride to send you pictures of her dress
ahead of time so you can see
how easy it is to mic.
This wedding that I'm showing you
is the wedding of Kaylie and Doug.
Now, Kaylie's dress was beautiful,
but it was a bit more challenging than some.
The front of her dress above the waist
was made of a sheer material.
So, we were a bit concerned with
the microphone chord being visible.
You'll see how we worked around this in just a second.
We started by placing a Rycote Sticky on the lav mic,
and then dropping the entire
lav mic and recorder down her dress.
Please note, it is always easier to do this
before the bride has started to put the dress on,
and this is how we always do things.
It is also not necessary
to have the Tascam DR 10-L connected at this time,
like I'm showing here in the b-roll.
Just use the lav mic.
Rachel then stuck the lav mic with a sticky
into nearly the middle of where
Kaylie's cleavage was going to be.
Because the front was sheer,
she actually attached it
to the lining of the built-in bra,
which kept it hidden.
She then took another sticky
and used it to route the lav mic
to a portion of the front of the dress
that was less translucent.
So the mic chord wasn't visible.
Do keep in mind that every wedding dress is unique.
So, every wedding that you mic the bride,
it's going to look
a little different.
But, every time that you mic the bride,
I do recommend that you try to put the lav mic
up as close as possible to her face to record audio clearly.
I would also recommend
that you try to find a balance between hiding the microphone
and keeping it unobstructed from the dress,
so that way you do not deal with clothing rustle.
At this point, the lav mic is stuck to the dress,
and the disconnected chord should be hanging out the bottom.
The bride can put on her dress this way,
and there shouldn't be any problems.
But how do we mount the DR 10-L audio recorder
to the bride?
Well, this is where the Neopax thigh belt comes in.
This thing is made of really sturdy Velcro,
and it has a nice pouch here that is the perfect size
from a Tascam DR 10-L.
Right before the bride is ready to put on her dress,
have her put on the thigh belt.
It's basically the same thing as a garter,
and most brides know how to use those.
So, you shouldn't have any issues.
Next, the bride will put on her dress,
just like she normally would.
And then the bride can hike up her skirt,
or in this case, Rachel went up under the dress,
turned the recorder on,
and reattached the DR 10-L to the lav mic chord.
With that we knew we were gonna be getting
great sounding audio from Kaylie's first look
and her wedding ceremony.
Here's some audio from Kaylie's microphone
as well as from some other weddings
where we have mic'ed the bride.
- I will spend the rest of my life
living up to the challenge of being the wife you deserve,
and it's a challenge I'm so honored to take.
I will spend the rest of my life
living up to the challenge of being the wife you deserve,
and it's a challenge I'm so honored to take.
- I also promise to never let you forget
that I scored 10 points higher on the SAT.
(laughter)
I also promise to never let you forget
that I scored 10 points higher on the SAT.
(laughter)
- Our adventure is the one
that I want to pour my heart and soul into,
because I can't imagine anything or anyone
more worthy of committing the rest of my life to.
Our adventure is the one
that I want to pour my heart and soul into,
because I can't imagine anything or anyone
more worthy of committing the rest of my life to.
- Once the wedding ceremony is done,
we really don't need to record
any more audio from the bride.
Usually, there's a point
between the ceremony and the reception,
where the bride's dress is bustled,
so she can dance more easily with the groom,
and that is the point
when we usually take off her microphone.
The bride can do this herself very easily.
Just have her undo the sticky
attaching the lav mic to her dress,
then pull up her dress to the thigh strap,
under the Velcro of the thigh strap,
pull down,
and the entire microphone should be removed from the dress.
Lastly, here are a couple more recommendations to you
to make sure that mic'ing the bride goes smoothly.
First, I recommend that you tell the bride ahead of time
that you want to mic her.
It is not gonna go well if you just show up
on the wedding day and say,
"Hey, I'm gonna put this microphone on you.
"I've got this thigh strap!"
That can be intimidating and awkward.
Always make sure that you tell her
how the thigh belt works,
and how you're gonna attach the microphone to her,
and tell her how much better her audio is going to sound
because of this microphone.
My second recommendation is that I know that
there are a lot of male-only videographer teams out there,
and up until Rachel started shooting with me,
I shot a lot more often with a male second shooter,
than a female.
Because of this,
it can sometimes be awkward for both parties,
because whenever you put the microphone on the bride,
you have to go up underneath her dress.
So, if you do not have a female videographer on your team,
this is what I would recommend that you do.
First, I would attach the lav mic to the dress with a sticky
but unlike how me and Rachel do it,
I would leave the recorder connected to the lav mic
and have it already recording.
Then I would show the bride the thigh belt,
how to put it on,
and how easy it is to DR 10-L into it.
Whenever the bride is putting on her dress,
she should be able to easily do this herself,
or have one of her bridesmaids help her do it.
And that way, you are guaranteed to get good audio,
but you did not actually have to make things awkward
and have to go up under the dress
to set up the recorder yourself.
With that,
thank you so much for watching.
I really hope this video was able to help you out.
I do feel like there are some of you that are asking,
"Matt, do I need to mic the bride though?"
Well, to be clear,
I shot weddings for nearly eight years
and never mic'ed the bride,
and things were usually fine.
But there still are some situations that you'll run into,
where the bride and groom are not standing
super close to each other during the wedding ceremony,
or it's a really windy ceremony,
and just mic'ing the groom and the officiant
will sometimes not result
in the best quality audio
of the bride.
So, I find that by mic'ing the bride,
that is just another step in quality that I can take.
And with this set up, it is not difficult to do.
I hope this video has made mic'ing the bride
less intimidating to you.
As always, if you have any questions or comments,
please feel free to leave one below,
or get in touch with me through my website.
It is also a massive help to me if you would consider
liking this video, giving it a thumbs up,
and subscribing if you wanna see more videos
like this in the future.
There are also a ton of links down in the description
to all of the gear that I talked about today.
As well as to my Instagram,
and my Facebook,
and to Matt's Music List,
my new subscription service to help
wedding film makers find music.
Thank you so much for watching,
and have a great day.
- There's so many layers!
- I know!
(laughter) - I can't see anything!
- Mic'ing the bride, complete!