How long should a videographer keep wedding footage?

What is common practice for keeping wedding footage?

Studios differ widely, and that is fine as long as the policy is clear. A common pattern separates two kinds of material. Raw footage is enormous and expensive to keep, so many studios hold it only until the edit is approved plus a stated buffer, in case of re-edits or a lost file. Finished films are small by comparison and are often kept much longer, sometimes indefinitely, because re-supplying a film years later is a kindness that costs little.

What should your contract say about footage retention?

This is general guidance, not legal advice; have a professional review your contract for your country. The goal is that nobody is surprised years later.

• How long you keep raw footage after final delivery, and that it is deleted afterwards.
• How long finished films are kept, and in what form.
• How long the online gallery stays available for streaming, and how long original downloads are offered.
• The couple's responsibility to download and store their own copies within that window.
• What happens on request after the period ends, for example a re-supply fee or that it may not be possible.
• What happens if your business closes or changes platform, and how couples will be notified.

What is the 3-2-1 backup rule for wedding footage?

The 3-2-1 rule is the long-standing standard for protecting important data: keep three copies of your files, on two different types of storage, with one copy off-site. For a wedding studio, that might mean a working drive, a second drive or network storage in the studio, and a copy in the cloud or in a different building.

• Copy cards twice before formatting. Never format a card until the footage exists in two places.
• Verify copies with checksums, not just by eye. A file that copied incompletely can look fine in a folder.
• Keep one copy away from the studio. Fire, theft and flooding take every drive in the room.
• Test restores. A backup you have never restored from is a hope, not a plan.

Where should a wedding studio store its archive?

Most studios combine these. Raw footage lives on local drives or network storage with an off-site copy, while finished films live both in the studio archive and on the delivery platform. Moving large archives to the cloud is mainly an upload problem; our guide on sending large video files covers the maths and how resumable uploads help.

Should you charge for long-term archiving?

Some studios include a fixed period of archiving in every package and offer extended raw-footage storage as an optional extra, because keeping terabytes for years has a real cost. Others keep everything and treat it as part of the service. Either approach is fair if it is stated up front. What causes trouble is an unspoken assumption on either side.

Why do hard drives fail, and how should you plan for it?

Every storage device fails eventually. Spinning drives have moving parts that wear, can be damaged by knocks and heat, and often fail without warning. Solid-state drives have no moving parts but wear with use and can lose data if left unpowered for long periods. Drives on a shelf for years are a particular risk, because nobody notices a problem until the day the file is needed. The answer is not a better drive but more copies, checked regularly, in more than one place.

How does Dellro protect delivered files?

Dellro is built around the same idea as the 3-2-1 rule. It is not a replacement for your own archive of raw footage, but it protects what you deliver.

• Fingerprinted before upload. Each file is fingerprinted (SHA-256) in your browser before it leaves your computer.
• Three copies. A live copy for streaming and downloads, a locked copy under Object Lock that cannot be deleted or changed during its lock period (not even by Dellro), and a long-term vault copy of the original.
• Protected means proven. A file shows as Protected only when all three copies match its fingerprint.
• Checked weekly. Copies are re-checked on a schedule, and a missing or damaged copy is rebuilt automatically from a good one.
• Galleries keep playing. After 12 months the live copy of an original is retired; it stays in the locked and vault copies.
• Nightly encrypted database backups.

What happens to galleries if a studio leaves Dellro?

While you are a member of a film plan (Solo, Studio or Signature), galleries are kept for life; on the Photo plans, galleries stay online for 3 years from creation, then are archived and can be restored on request. If membership ends, galleries stay online at least 12 months afterwards, and never less than 3 years from creation. Dellro sends emails 60 and 14 days before removal, and renewing keeps everything. For couples, original downloads are available for 12 months from gallery creation, after which films download in 1080p and photos in web size, and streaming continues for at least three years.

Read more about three-copy protection and downloads, or see pricing.