I am a commercial videographer that decided to try my hand out at wedding videography. I have seen the beautiful stuff that you guys have been doing and wanted to give it a shot.

I am used to having a boom mic being run and being able to do several takes to make sure we get what we need. Obviously not an option here. Audio has got me mildly concerned.

I will wire the groom, the pastor and the bride (if possible) but I was hoping that the Crown Sound Grabber II

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SoundGrabber/ )

might work as a backup in case I get any bad drop outs or anything like that. Anyone have any experience with it?

I'd give up any hope of putting a mic on the bride. 99 times out of 100 -- probably more like 9999 out of 1000 really -- there's no way you're going near that dress. And even if you could, not many places to put it...

Most of us use some kind of wireless mic, but you'll notice on another thread much discussion on iRivers as an alternative that solves the problem of interference inherent with the wireless route.

I have four-way redundancy...

I use as Azden wireless on the groom which is almost always good enough to pick up vows from both the B and G, and almost always the officiant as well.

I also have a iRiver-like device (actually an Olympus ws100) that I use as back up either on the officiant or at the podium.

If I can, I connect directly to the Church mix board. If that's not available, I mike one of the speakers.

Finally, I also run a shotgun on my forward cam. Its never going to capture crisp vows, but it's better than nothing if all else fails, and good for capturing ambient sound as well as run and gun before and after the ceremony.

Hope this helps,

Jon

If I can, I connect directly to the Church mix board. If that's not available, I mike one of the speakers.How do you mic a church speaker? I've never seen one that wasn't 20 feet in the air.

Where would you put the soundgrabber mic? Sound quality is dependent on getting the mic as close to the source as possible

Well, I thought I would just throw it on the floor close to the proceedings. I am guessing that is not going to work as a usable backup?