James Futch Video

Although I found most of my wedding vendors via Unilocal,I actually came across James Futch Video through Wedding Wire. I am still surprised that he has not been reviewed on Unilocal yet, but I am quickly changing that!
My fiancé (now hubs) thought I was crazy for wanting a videographer since we had already found a wonderful photographer, Bonnie J. Heath, to shoot our wedding. Sure, videographers are not cheap, but I knew that I wanted a wedding video to watch in the future — to reminisce on the big day and share with loved ones.
| Positives |
James is incredibly warm, genuine, and friendly. It was so easy to talk to him, and we «clicked» with him right away. We actually met one other videographer prior to meeting James, but watched some of James’ wedding trailers on Vimeo prior to meeting with him and thought they were amazing. After discussing the wedding packages, which were very reasonable, we immediately knew we wanted to hire James after speaking with him. Later, we found out he was actually a preferred videographer for our wedding venue, the Defoor Centre, as well!
After I had selected Centennial Olympic Park for our pre-​wedding photo session, I asked James for some information about his equipment and other details to include in the park’s Film and Video Permit Application. Instead of providing me the information, he volunteered to fill out and submit the form himself! This took a load off of my shoulders as I was busy with so many other things as I was planning the wedding, and I appreciated this gesture so much. The only thing he asked me was the contact information for our photographer so that he could gather some information from her.
Another way James went above and beyond our expectations (and the wedding package!) was that he came to our wedding rehearsal — and even shot some video — at no additional charge. Again, he simply volunteered his time because he happened to be free that night and he just wanted to be prepared for the events which would occur on our wedding day. Awesome!
On our big day, James arrived early to capture moments of me and my wedding party getting ready. It was stressful and hectic getting from our wedding venue to Centennial Olympic Park (for pre-​wedding photos) and then back again, but he was extremely professional and polite the entire time.
Just a little over a week after our wedding, James sent us a link to our 6-​minute wedding video «trailer»! It was beautiful, and we were super excited in anticipation of our full wedding video.
| Areas for Improvement |
The estimated turnaround time given to us was 6 to 12 weeks from the wedding date. So when we had not received our wedding video (DVD and Blu-​ray) by week 11, I sent James an email for an update as to when we could receive the video. Although I didn’t get a reply back, we did receive the video the following week.
We thought that James had captured all of the most important moments on our wedding day since he arrived early and stayed through the very end for our sparkler exit from the Defoor Centre and as we rode off in our getaway car. So imagine our complete shock when we did not see a very significant moment — when we first walked down the aisle as husband and wife — in the video.
To make a long story short, James informed us that at that very moment when we were exiting, he dropped the camera he had been holding to shoot the ceremony. There was nothing he could do about it. He did have a camera on a tripod up on the stage, but it only showed our wedding party’s backs as they walked out. We wished that James could have warned us ahead of time that this crucial moment was not captured in our wedding video.
Obviously, there is no way to prevent accidents from happening — especially with a hand-​held camera — but we did wish there had been a tripod set up as a back-​up to capture the ceremony exit scene. Additionally, James did express his sincere apologies and provided us a flash drive with a digital copy of our wedding video and extra copies of the DVD to help alleviate our disappointment.
Overall, James Futch Video gets 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 — primarily because we had such a great experience with James leading up to and on our wedding date. With the exception of the missing scene in our wedding video, we were pleased with James’ work and professionalism. I would recommend James to friends and family — and fellow Unilocalers, of course — to shoot for any special event!
P. S. «The Walking Dead» fans — there is a cute and funny TWD-​themed wedding save-​the-​date video currently up on James’ website! Check it out!