Behind the lens: The art of curating candid content

You’re always the star of your wedding story but content creators can help you reinforce that narrative. Like your own personal paparazzi, the newest squad member of the bridal entourage will follow you around, turning every candid moment into a #WeddingTok video.

One of the year’s big trends, wedding content creators have taken off abroad and are rapidly gaining traction in the Gulf. “Content creation does not replace videography,” says Noor Mehdi (@qismatmoments), a Dubai-based wedding content creator. “We complement their service. It’s something that the couple, their family, and friends benefit from, to relive their day exactly as they remember it.”

Using just her iPhone 15 Pro, creators will take photos and videos, editing them into short reels and posts ready to be shared on social media immediately – either from their own accounts, or by the bridal couple. Searches for “wedding content creators” have increased more than 500 per cent over the past year, according to the planning website Hitched.

“With weddings, the time goes by so fast,” Mehdi says. “Brides [and grooms] are often so involved in perfecting every single thing, they miss out on actually living through them. My role is to allow the couples to pause and just relive their memories on their phone whenever they want.”

Creators will also cover smaller events, such as engagements or proposals. Fees may begin at about Dh2,000, insiders told Friday Bride. Creators may work solo or with a small team, ensuring flexibility and unobtrusive presence – qualities likened to the documentary style of the TV series The Office, where camera crews capture unscripted moments.

“We’re just there with our phones, capturing cute moments [that] happen naturally,” Mehdi says. Think of them as a memory recorder capturing otherwise forgotten fly-on-the-wall moments as they happen.

She offers the example of a recent client where she found out that the bride had low iron levels, a subject that was trending at the time. “That was not a planned concept. I just went to the shoot, and I shot real moments of her being tired on a beach, and that with the right call to action went wild, like it’s at 17 million views at this point.” The right content creator understands social media trends and can send your video viral – of that’s what you want.

While your videographer is busy crafting the cinematic epic of the century, your content creator is quietly capturing spilled drinks, badly behaved relatives and sneaky dance moves.

It’s just this messy wedding gold that everyone you know will be talking about years from now.