How Long Is a Wedding Highlight Video? We Timed 32 Films
We timed every film in our gallery. Our median highlight runs 4:26 and holds about 107 shots; our feature films run 15 to 18½ minutes.
Ask how long a wedding highlight video should be and you will usually be told something like “three to eight minutes”, or even “five to fifteen”. Ranges that wide are not much help when you are comparing collections. So we timed every film in our gallery, all 32 of them, and counted the shots in each one.
The short answer: four to five minutes. Our twenty-one highlight films run from 3:41 to 5:42, and the median is 4:26. Eighteen of the twenty-one land between three and a half and five minutes. Our three feature films run 15:00, 15:10 and 18:30.
The highlight above is Dana and James’s, filmed at Glen Manor House, and at 4:26 it sits exactly in the middle of our highlights. Next to it is Inaara and Jonathon’s feature film, at 15:10.
Every highlight film, timed
| Couple | Length | Shots | Per shot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anna & Chris | 3:41 | 95 | 2.3 s |
| Rachel & Bryan | 3:50 | 107 | 2.1 s |
| Katie & Hugh | 3:51 | 102 | 2.3 s |
| Caitlyn & Jacob | 3:54 | 107 | 2.2 s |
| Katelyn & Adam | 4:00 | 101 | 2.4 s |
| Mairead & Billy | 4:04 | 96 | 2.5 s |
| Alyssa & Brandon | 4:12 | 92 | 2.7 s |
| Amanda & Sam | 4:15 | 137 | 1.9 s |
| Nick & Cara | 4:24 | 100 | 2.6 s |
| Hunter & Anna | 4:24 | 150 | 1.8 s |
| Dana & James | 4:26 | 104 | 2.6 s |
| Sam & Khahnty | 4:30 | 140 | 1.9 s |
| Jamie & Tom | 4:32 | 100 | 2.7 s |
| Olivia & Julian | 4:32 | 91 | 3.0 s |
| Caroline & Eric | 4:40 | 116 | 2.4 s |
| Maeve & Jackie | 4:41 | 98 | 2.9 s |
| Meagan & Michael | 4:43 | 154 | 1.8 s |
| Hannah & Carson | 4:50 | 110 | 2.6 s |
| Amy & Jesse | 5:19 | 187 | 1.7 s |
| Gia & Robert | 5:31 | 188 | 1.8 s |
| Phoebe & William | 5:42 | 215 | 1.6 s |
Why most land between four and five minutes
A highlight film is the one you will watch most often and send to the most people. It has to carry the whole day — getting ready, the first look, the ceremony, the speeches, the dancing — and still feel like a film rather than a montage. In our experience, four to five minutes is about as long as that holds attention, and about as short as it can be without leaving the day out.
It is also what our collections are built around. Memoir includes a three-to-four-minute highlight set to music; Heirloom a four-to-five-minute highlight with music and the day’s own dialogue; Legacy a fifteen-to-twenty-minute feature film plus a three-to-four-minute highlight. You can see them side by side on our investment page, and the reasoning behind the prices in our guide to Boston wedding videography prices.
Only three of our highlights run past five minutes: Phoebe and William’s at 5:42, Gia and Robert’s at 5:31 and Amy and Jesse’s at 5:19. All three are cut faster than our median, at a new shot every 1.6 to 1.8 seconds against 2.3, so the extra length is extra material rather than a slower pace.
What fits into four and a half minutes
Length is only half of it. The median highlight in our gallery is made of about 107 separate shots, a new one every 2.3 seconds or so. Olivia and Julian’s has the fewest, about 91; Phoebe and William’s has the most, about 215, a new shot every 1.6 seconds.
That is why a highlight cannot hold your vows in full, or a whole speech. It is a distillation: a line from the vows, a laugh from the best man, the moment your father turns around. If you want the ceremony and the speeches as they happened, from start to finish, that is a separate edit, and it is included in our Heirloom and Legacy collections.
Feature films: fifteen minutes and up
Our three feature films run 15:00, 15:10 and 18:30, between three and four times the length of the median highlight. They are also cut more slowly: about 2.9 seconds a shot, against 2.3 for the highlights, because a feature has room to let a moment run. The vows play out. A reading is heard in full. A speech gets its setup as well as its punchline.
A feature is the film you sit down with, maybe once a year, maybe with people who could not be there. The highlight is the one you show everyone else.
Our films have got shorter
The three longest films in our gallery that are not feature films were all published in 2021 or January 2022, at 7:17, 7:34 and 8:24. Every one we have published since then has come in under six minutes.
So how long should yours be?
- If you want one film to watch and share, a four-to-five-minute highlight is the right length. Any shorter and the day starts to feel rushed; much longer and it loses the people you send it to.
- If you want the whole story, choose a feature film, or add the start-to-finish edit of your ceremony and speeches. Those are the parts that grow in value with time.
- If you want something for social media, a sixty-second cut is a separate add-on: either a section lifted from your highlight, or an edit made from scratch for a phone screen. Details are in our pricing guide.
You can watch every one of these films in our gallery, see what each collection includes, or tell us about your day.