Is it just me or...
 

Do you love hearing what your lav mics picked up during the ceremony? Hearing some seriously funny stuff being whispered gives me a great laugh while editing. Debating on a blooper reel for this B&G.

I guess I prefer there to be a little talking as possible so I can keep it as my main audio track. However, I don't tell them that and sometimes to laugh at what they are saying.

Yeah they forget quickly about the grooms mic. Some of the stuff probably isn't suitable if you know what I mean but some is really priceless. I did a wedding a couple of years ago and the groom had a running commentary like it was a sporting event and he was in the commentators booth. I had a hard time deciding what to do with it so I made a seperate chapter of all of his stuff during the ceremony. It went over quite well. Of course there was nothing sleazy, dirty or untold...it was just a "sportscasters" following of the ceremony. People sometimes wonder why I'm smiling or surpress a laugh when I'm under the headphones during the ceremony. If they only knew.

The groom more often than not, quickly forgets that he has a mic on so he starts chattering away to his friends or even himself.

I did a home wedding where the B&G were arriving to the garden setting from the house and monitoring with headphones was the easiest way to see where they were. I could here them making their way down the internal staircase when the groom suddenly said " I think I had better go the the little boy's room first"

The conversation with himself and all the splash SFX during his visit certainly did raise a smile but our course I was the only one that could hear it!!

Maybe it is worth recording the "pre-arrival" ...I normally start my A-Cam as the music starts and then use the B-Cam for the actual girls arriving. Starting it a few minutes early could be interesting!!

Chris

I use an olympus recorder and lav mike on the groom so I don't get to hear till afterwards...

I've had 2 classics - one where the groom made an appreciative comment on the attributes of one of the guests while waiting for the bride to arrive.

the other was between the bride & groom while signing the register, she proposed something they might do if they could get to the Hummer (bridal car) on their own, he agreed with a wry smile and reminded her he was miked - I wondered why she suddenly gave me this horrified look at the time.

These days we tend to be more circumspect about when we mic and de-mic the groom so both my experiences come from years ago.

The first was a bride who asked her new husband during their first dance You will take care of me won't you?" - a reassurance I felt she should have sought somewhat earlier.

The second was actually more poignant because the groom's father had abandoned his wife when their son was very young and gone off with her sister. The groom and his mother had left the reception suite and were standing in an adjacent corridor from where we recorded her reassuring him that if the marriage didn't work out she would always be there for him. It didn't, and I'm pleased to say, she was.

I was thus doubly pleased that we'd approached the groom very discreetly during the edit and asked if he wanted a private record of the exchange which he did.

You do hear some interesting things at times... More funny than not, hopefully!

Here's a current favorite, a mid-ceremony shout-out from the groom:

What do they say? I can't make it out? Sounds cute though.

bride: "Is that mic on?"

groom: "Huh?"

bride: "Is that mic on?"

groom: "Yeah"

bride: laughs

groom: "It really is. Hi Bryan!"

-both laugh

Hehe, thats good stuff.

hahaha that's really cute.

I have this kind of talk at almost every wedding... Couple is whispering something and I'm laughing behind my camera.. Then they realize that I can hear them and they start laughing as well... Very refreshing moment for everyone involved - takes some stress off the B&G.

Sometimes you get real gold. I shot a wedding quite a while ago where the groom cried when he saw the bride come up the aisle. When she got there and the priest was about to start, they started talking about how he had lost the bet he had made with her that he wouldn't cry.

It was great stuff, and worked beautifully in the video.