Then after the ceremony, I cleaned up the photo’s in iPhoto, brought them into iDVD, and then burned it to disc all before they left for their honey moon.

Whenever I go to a wedding (usually 1-2 a month from March-September) I shoot video of the various stages, dances, etc (these are mostly traditional Jewish weddings so there’s a lot of stages and a lot of dancing). With my old Pentax the video wasn’t great but people still loved the DVDs I made - but with the Canon the video quality is really quite good - close to that of a budget miniDV camera.

I’m currently using a 1GB memory card, which the Canon fills with video in 9 minutes on its highest setting. So I keep my 12″ PB in the hall and offload the memory card using a compact SD/USB adapter - sometimes 3 or 4 times. I’m upgrading to a 2GB card to cut that in half.

(The new Casio EX-S500 looks like it might be a nice upgrade from the SD300, it uses Mpeg-4 for video so it can probably fit more video on a card, but I’ll have to see how the quality compares.)

When I get home I import the videos and stills into iPhoto to catalog them, then launch iMovie and import the clips (from the “Photos” tab, duh). Then I’ll take 1-4 hours to put together a nice highlights movie, usually 15-30 minutes long, including titles, etc. While I’m in there I’ll export some music from the actual wedding for use in the DVD menus. After I’ve added chapter markers I hit the iDVD button and move to the last stage (besides burning)

In iDVD I usually use the White Wedding theme, it’s simple and nice. I drop some of the video clips into the menu drop zones (again from the “photos” tab) and then some of those audio files into the menu screen’s audio wells. Finally I hit the slideshow button and add in any stills that I shot at the wedding - also with music from the wedding.

After that all I gotta do is burn it and throw it into a case, and then I’ve got a really nice gift for the bride and groom. If I have the time/inclination sometimes I even print an insert for the case with one of the stills I shot, using NeoOffice/J’s page layout module (although I’m thinking about picking up iWork and trying Pages - the iPhoto integration would be nice!)

People have been thrilled to receive these DVDs a day or two after their wedding, when it can take months or years to receive a video or album from the pros. It’s a really fun and rewarding project.

(I have been pretty frustrated with some bugs in iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD - it’s really time for Apple to do a feature freeze on these products and seriously focus on fixing the bugs.)

(It’s also time for Apple to combine iTunes and iPhoto into a single app that handles all stills, videos, and songs. An “iMedia” if you will. The current setup, with iTunes handling photos for the iPod Photo, and iPhoto handling videos, is just silly. Then again, maybe it’s just time for me to put out the $50 for iView Media)

And well done on impressing the guests!