Erin McCarthy | The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS)
PHILADELPHIA — In the car on the way home from her wedding, Bayley Shanley’s phone pinged with a notification from one of her vendors.
As her new husband drove, Shanley flipped through more than 500 candid photos and videos.
She watched her bridesmaids walk down the aisle, a moment she had missed, and relived the speeches. She sent her flower girl’s mother photos of the child helping the bride put on her shoes.
The images had been captured by Taylor Moy, a South Philadelphia-based wedding content creator, who was hired to document behind-the-scenes moments of the couple’s June wedding at the Hotel Du Pont in Wilmington. Unlike professional wedding photography and videography, which is higher quality and requires weeks of editing, wedding content creators often can turn their work around in 24 hours or less.
“It felt so good to have it right away,” said Shanley, a 27-year-old accountant from Bethesda, Md. “I didn’t have to ask anyone for a photo. If anything, I was sending her Dropbox [virtual folder of photos and videos] to everybody,” including friends who couldn’t make the wedding.
And relative to other wedding costs, it was a bargain: The couple paid about $700 to have Moy document their wedding day and rehearsal dinner, compared with the $5,000 they paid for professional photography and the $2,500 to $8,000 they’d been quoted for professional videography.
“You just couldn’t beat the value,” Shanley said.
Wedding content creation is a relatively new facet of the wedding industry, having gained nationwide popularity over the past two years and expanded into the Philadelphia market more recently.
San Le, 30, of Old City, recalled that she couldn’t find a local wedding content creator when she was planning her March 2023 wedding; the closest ones were in New York. Since then, Le, a data analyst by day, and a handful of others have taken on the gig in the Philadelphia region, making a full- or part-time business out of snapping hundreds of photos and videos, usually on their iPhone, at weddings and other events. Most wedding content creators also offer short, edited videos that are ready for clients to post on Instagram or TikTok within days.
“The vibe that I always try to bring to the function is your uncle in the 90s with a camcorder, but modern,” said New Jersey-based wedding content creator Isabella Gagliardi. The 27-year-old explains her job to older generations as “not much different from their homemade wedding video.”
“I’m not necessarily capturing the ‘1, 2, 3 smile’ clips,” said Marjorie Raimo, a 29-year-old Wallingford resident and owner of Behind The Scenes Bridal. “The majority of it is unposed.”
The Inquirer spoke with five local content creators, who between them have shot more than 100 weddings in the past year. For their wedding-day services, they charge between $500 and $2,000, depending on how many hours of coverage, photos, and edited videos clients want. Demand is increasing, the creators say, with dozens of couples having already booked for 2025.
Content creators stress that they aren’t replacements for professional photographers and videographers. So far, all of their couples have also hired a photographer, they said, and about half of them also have had a videographer.
“I actually will not work a wedding where a professional photographer is not present,” Gagliardi said. “They are exponentially more expensive than me and probably more important in the grand scheme of things.”
Letting guests ‘live in the moment’ — and ‘post in the morning’
While wedding content creation was borne out of Gen Zers’ and millennials’ obsession with social media, creators said their clients don’t only care about how many likes and views their wedding content gets on Instagram or TikTok.
Some wedding content creators do cater to couples who want their big day to go viral — sometimes even posting from clients’ accounts in real time. But Philadelphia-area vendors said few of their couples opt for that.
“That’s just not something that I’ve done. I’d be open to doing that,” said Raimo, a full-time wedding content creator who has shot 23 weddings so far this year. But “I think there’s a specialness in the moment, of just keeping it to yourself for a little bit.”
She said she and most of her clients are of the mindset: “Can we just live this for now and post in the morning?”
Le, who owns Vivid Moments with San, said her clients aren’t usually interested in recreating trendy wedding TikToks and don’t care how many people beyond their close friends and family see the content.
“Most people just want those moments for themselves to relive the very next day,” she said.
The local wedding content creators said the biggest draw for clients seems to be the quick turnaround time — as well as the pressure they take off guests to capture every moment.
“Everyone wants to share everything, but we’re also putting a big emphasis on living in the moment,” said Claire Vance, owner of Scorpio Media.
A wedding content creator “allows everyone to enjoy the reception,” said Gagliardi, a full-time creator with the Wandering Stardust Collective. “You don’t have to worry about leaving your phone at the table. I got it.”
Related Articles
Jill On Money: Still coping with inflation
Dive into the life (and death) of Elkhorn Slough with “Mother-Daughter Murder Night”
Jill On Money: Half time for stocks
Magid: The Balkanization of messaging apps
Photos: Pekingese is the World’s Ugliest Dog
For the couple the next day, she added, “it does eliminate all of that ‘Who has this video? Does anybody have this?’”
And while a content creator’s iPhone images are lower quality than the professional photos, they’re often better than the crowdsourced shots that couples usually look through the day after.
“Do you really want your great aunt’s blurry photo with her thumb in it?” said Vance, 25, of Limerick. “Probably not.”
Wedding content creation is not just for the day-of events, either: Philadelphia creators say they have shot engagements, showers, rehearsal dinners, even bachelorette parties.
Vance spent the Fourth of July weekend in Avalon documenting her first bachelorette party, a celebration for 26-year-old Gabrielle Vagnozzi. It was Vance’s first time doing content creation for a bachelorette, and she charged around $900, a tab picked up by Vagnozzi’s maid of honor.
On other bachelorettes Vagnozzi has attended, “everybody takes photos, and then everybody wants to look at the photos, and we don’t have somebody to take the photos of all of us. It’s a pain,” said Vagnozzi, a Collegeville native now living in Virginia Beach. “It takes away from the moment.”
Vagnozzi knew she wanted a content creator at her own bachelorette so she and her friends could be more present, without the stress of making sure every moment was well-documented.
“This generation — and I’m so guilty of it — we just always care about photos,” said Vagnozzi, a sales rep. “I didn’t want to worry about that. I just wanted to be with my 13 girlfriends who I was lucky enough to all have in one room.”
©2024 The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC. Visit at inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
