The End of the Wedding Videography Era

The first time I was hired as the wedding videographer was in 2004 when I was in college.  It was shot on MiniDV camcorder and the end-product was in VHS. I wonder if the clients were able to convert it to digital files later… The second one came about 9 months after that.  I think from the time I shot the second one (May 2015), there were only 2 or 3 short periods where I had cleared all my wedding video backlogs and had nothing to edit until the next shoot.  And each of those periods were no longer than 1 month max.  The last time that happened was in 2014. (I so clearly remember…)

Yesterday, I cleared it again, and possibly forever.  This is a huge milestone for me, so I wanted to journal it.  

I shot and edited wedding videos when I was in college, and when I was working full-time, and my turnaround time was very slow because I could only edit during spare time after work, church, and etc.  I always had to apologize to my clients for finishing the videos late.  From July 2015 to January 2018, for 2 1/2 years, the videography/photography business was my main full time job, (doing more non-weddings than weddings) and obviously the turnaround time got significantly shorter.  11 months ago, I got a full-time office job, the job I wanted ever since I took my first accounting class in college.  I wanted to stop doing wedding videos altogether but I already had some existing edits for the weddings I shot and also 5 new weddings lined up.  

All I wanted was to finish editing all the weddings and start studying for the CPA exams.  I should’ve finished them many months ago, but it kept getting delayed, and finally yesterday was the day! (feel the excitement?)

I shot more than 100 weddings in the 14-year span, and I’m proud of how much I improved as a wedding videographer.  The skills I developed over the years as well as my own unique philosophy for the weddings are very special to me, so I won’t say that I will never shoot weddings again.  By the way, I’m still up for shooting as many weddings as possible.  I just can’t (don’t want to) edit them.  

For the last few months,  I was so stressed about dragging these wedding projects for so long that my whole life revolved around it.  My desk was a mess, and I wanted to clean it so bad, but I kept saying to myself, “I will clean up once I’m done with the edits.”  Now I can go to bed early not feeling awful.  It’s an amazing feeling.  For almost the entire 15 years, I was so used to feeling guilty whenever I spent my own time instead of working on videos.  According to Proverbs 22:7 (NIV), “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender” and I always was indebted with my time and I truly felt like a slave. (Even more so than when I actually had monetary debt of almost $90,000.)  I still have a small non-wedding video to edit, but it’s not gonna take more than a few hours.  

As soon as I got home from work yesterday, I removed my external monitor, cleared desk, and vacuumed the dust out of the desk.  Maybe I will enjoy this feeling for a few more days and seriously tackle on the CPA exam prep.