If wedding videography once meant cinematic drone shots, slow-motion vows, and swelling soundtracks, a growing number of couples are opting for something far more intimate: camcorders passed hand-to-hand among guests. Lo-fi, nostalgic, and intentionally imperfect, the format is fast becoming one of the most emotional—and unexpected—wedding trends right now.
When Anne-Marie Carroll, founder of The Wedding Weekender, launched her mail-based camcorder rental service this spring, demand arrived almost overnight. “Within our first week, a TikTok went viral, and we received over 50 orders—before we even had a single wedding example on our site,” she says. “It immediately showed us that couples were craving this.”
That craving isn’t just aesthetic—it’s emotional. Camcorder footage captures weddings from inside the celebration: shaky dance-floor moments, whispered toasts, off-mic laughter, and spontaneous interviews filmed by friends and family rather than professionals. The result is something that looks less like content and more like a memory.
Video: Courtesy of Handheld Studio
“There are so many aspects of your wedding day that get lost because you can’t possibly see everything while it’s happening,” says Tayla Santos, an influencer and content creator based in Boston. When Santos began planning her wedding, traditional videographers were “way” out of budget—but skipping video altogether didn’t feel right. Then she discovered The Wedding Weekender.
At her wedding, two camcorders were passed around among guests, documenting the day entirely from their perspective. “It ended up being one of my favorite touches because guests were engaged, excited, and it added a nostalgic feeling,” Santos says. When she received the footage afterward, she cried. “It was such a raw and authentic video. It brought me right back to the day.”
Carroll’s path to founding The Wedding Weekender grew out of her own experience inside the wedding industry. After working with wedding planners pre-pandemic, she became a wedding content creator—a newer role focused on capturing behind-the-scenes moments quickly and casually, often on an iPhone. But early on, she began bringing camcorders to weddings out of instinct.
“I’ve always loved camcorders,” Carroll says. “My dad was the dad who always had one at holidays and parties, so it’s deeply nostalgic for me.” About two years ago, she handed a camcorder to a group of groomsmen during the getting-ready portion of a wedding and immediately noticed a shift. “When I came in with a camera, people got stiff. But when they were filming each other, they were silly, relaxed—totally themselves.”