Eilish Egan from Ballina Blossoms

I was delighted to get a chance to catch up with Jason from Jason Nolan Wedding Films and Wild Caste Studios.

On this live stream episode of The Wedding Band Show, I had a great chat with Jason Nolan from Jason Nolan Wedding Films and Wild Castle Studios. Jason Nolan is based in Castlebar Co. Mayo and has been shooting wedding films for several years.

Jason explained that normally he would do about 35 weddings a year but this year because of COVID he has only done about five. He has shot two weddings under the current restrictions one of which was for just 50 guests. Jason thinks that this was one of the nicest weddings he has ever shot. It was a really relaxed wedding and the ceremony was in the couple's living room. The couple's aunt was actually the celebrant and they had a marquee outside for the reception. Jason jokes that because it was the first wedding he has had in months he dropped his camera and got his drone stuck in a tree.

Brian agreed that weddings for 50 people can be a really nice experience but that maybe for only 25 guests it's difficult for couples to have the wedding they want. Jason was actually supposed to get married himself this year and said even though they were going to have a small wedding they got to 50 people on the guestlist really quickly.

As Jason explains, a wedding at its core is a celebration so it's very difficult for couples to go ahead under the current restrictions when they can't even have the first dance.

Because of the temporary drop in weddings, Jason has moved more into live streaming events. He does have previous experience of this because as he has streamed several weddings in the past for couples whose grandparents or friends couldn't make the ceremony. He has always been interested in live streaming and has now invested a lot of money in a professional streaming setup. He has also worked on some live streaming of football matches with another well-known wedding videographer John Murphy.

As Jason explains, weddings can be one of the most difficult live streams because of the short preparation time. He has also had to invest in a system that can bond together four different cellular signals to create one reliable connection for the live stream. He also uses multiple cameras for a wedding which produces a very professional-looking live stream for the viewers. The live streams are also recorded and can be edited after similar to a regular wedding video.

A very popular live streaming service that Jason offers is funerals. This is a great solution for friends or family who cannot attend a funeral mass in Ireland.

According to Jason most of the new wedding enquiries for video are now for 2022 but he is also hopeful that this pandemic may end soon. He thinks that there's no rush for couples who have dates for early 2021 to move their wedding. As long as they're flexible with the dates they'll always find a future date keeping the same wedding suppliers. The most important thing is to get in touch with your wedding suppliers before confirming a new date. If Jason is not available for a new date he can hire another videographer to shoot the wedding and he will still edit the wedding film.

Jason actually started out as a wedding photographer but began working with a videographer which helped him learn how to shoot weddings. In May 2014 he set up his own wedding videography website and almost immediately started getting bookings. Within one year he already had 54 wedding films in his diary.

On a positive note;

One of the positive things to come out of 2020 for Jason is the end of the editing backlog. In a regular year, he would have about 10 weddings to edit coming up to Christmas which can be a bit stressful.

It has also given him time to work on other&