Tip for new Wedding videographers...
 

Here is a little tip that will help you get better audio during the toasts. Instead of trying to tie into the board or mic the person who is speaking, next time before the toasts loop your wireless transmitter it over a speaker. That way anything going through that speaker will go straight into your camera. This method especially well when you have an older PA system with only an on off and volume knob. Bring GAFF tape. You might have to get creative with your mounting of the pack but the technique has saved me many times. Make sure you dial your output down

Sorry, but I have to disagree mate..
by doing this, u have the chance to overdrive the microphone capsule, even damaging it.... all it takes is 2ms of feedback to blow your capsule, and you wont know this until your working on the audio...
not to mention the amp and signal noise, as well as lower frequency vibration you will get from the mic physically on the box..

Ideally, with the gaffer tape, if ur mic is an omnidirectional unit, you can mount it to the Lectern using a shockmount of foam or a stand with a foam or rubber buffer (i use an old Desk Top Mic stand which came with my PC sound card, i took the original mic off, shockmounted the head, and just use the stand.. cost me 5 bux), another option for those not using a lectern, is to tape the Lav mic head to the House Mic directly... obviously youll have a transmitter wired up, but most people dont mind that as they see there are 2 microphones mounted together.. one so small, its insignificant.
And finally, and one of the more riskier options, is to run a direct feed from the Console or PA. Problem with this is that whoever is controlling the audio is also at the command of YOUR audio... what might sound good over a PA, may be over or underdriving YOUR signal (ir ur hooked up to the line/rec out)

Again, sorry to publicly disagree with you, but i dont agree with advising people to put a microphne less than a metre away from a unit which is more than likely pumping out over 500watts of variable frequencies.. the sound pressure levels alone (not actual volume, but PRESSURE) is enough to kill the capsule..

Good point. You are right. The further away the safer you are.

I had this bright idea too at my first event. I put one of my wireless mics on the PA speaker and it overdrove my audio throughout the whole event. It took hours and hours to edit it enough to slightly understand any of the audio.

Just a warning from first hand experience... NEVER mic a PA speaker!!!

Now, I have all kinds of audio sources and plan to never have an audio problem again... I bought a Marantz PDM670 and plug into the buildings sound system or dj's mixer if possible, if not, I have a mic I plug into the Marantz to pickup the audio. Plus I capture the audio with 2 cameras now, 2 wireless mics, and a MD recorder... I won't have an audio problem again :)

Voice Recorder-
 

As far as the ceremony goes, I mic the groom with a (digital) voice recorder - no static, no pops, or dropouts. Yes, the actual sound quality is not HQ from a voice recorder (due to the sample rate) but the goal is only to capture voice frequencies with it. For that it does well. And amazingly enough the particular lapel mic and recorder I use records to 50hz - which is better than many wireless systems. Obviously I don't rely solely on the voice recorder for sound, so for the primary sound I have 2 cameras rolling. Since there is no wireless mic jacked into either camera there's plenty of good quality sound to choose from and plenty of backup audio.

In post, just download and convert to .AIFF in one step, dump it into the timeline and sync.

Interesting, I've never had that problem. 90+ weddings. I'm sure it depends on the Mic, placement and decibels in which the speaker outputting. It does have its risks though I guess. Didn't you monitor you audio coming into the camera?

Yeah, but my headphones really sucked... I've since bought the sennheiser pro150 (i think that's the model).

even with monitoring, overdriving a capsule is not a good idea.. especially at that size.. yes, if u had a Rode studio mic, then u could prolly do this..
but if people want to try this trick at home, at least put the camera in AGC and pray that ur mic head lasts as long..

i could go on, but i guess we have to agree to disagree on this one

I don't see any problem with using a mic for the PA sysetm. I do it all the time but with caution. We use a boom and attach an Senn ME64 with wireless transmitter somewhere near the audio source. I don't want the sterile sound from a soundboard and this gives us a balanced ambient sound that compliments the other audio channel.
Bob

I would like to make an amendment to my first post. The microphone that I am using has a maximum input of 131db SPL. Which is pretty high. Anyone who tries this needs to know what the maximum input is for their mic so they do not overdrive it. Also, you do need to be careful as always. For toasts, I don't see that it would be an issue.

Yeah, I was wondering what the big problem with mic'ing a PA is? As long as you've got a decent mic with high SPL sensitivity, you're aces. If you've ever watched a live convert DVD with most instruments out there (generally not bass guitar - DI'd) the audio was mic'd at the cabinet. If you run something off the board into your recorder, it was still mic'd this way at the speaker level.