Today I want to share the audio recording setup I use for recording toasts at rehearsal dinners and at small wedding receptions that don’t have a sound system. This setup will make sure you get high quality audio, and it might even make you more money.
I hear you now saying, Matt, a rehearsal dinner is basically a wedding reception with fewer people, why would I need a different audio setup for that? Hear me out. There are specific scenarios you’re going to run into at rehearsal dinners and small receptions that have no DJ or band with audio equipment, and that’s what we’re covering.
Recording Toasts
Start with the easy scenario. You’re filming a rehearsal dinner at a large restaurant that has a sound system and a projector and all the rest of it. In that situation you can treat it exactly like a wedding reception and you don’t need any more gear than usual. I’ve covered my entire reception audio setup already, so go read that one instead.
Here’s the harder scenario. You’re filming a smaller rehearsal dinner that’s still going to have toasts, and there is no speaker or sound system anywhere for you to plug into. How are you going to record high quality audio?
Cheapest option first. Take a lav mic with a recorder, like a Tascam DR-10L (also at B&H), and put one on every single person giving a toast, rotating them between speakers with as many recorders as you have.
Second option, take a little handheld voice recorder (also at B&H) and hand it to the person speaking. Tell them to treat it like a microphone and they’ll hold it awkwardly out in front of them going, hey, what’s up, glad to be here, okay great. It usually works pretty well. You should already own at least one of these in your wedding audio kit anyway, so you can just repurpose it.
The Microphone
Let’s say you want to get fancier. This microphone is part of the newer audio recording system I use at rehearsal dinners. It’s the Electro-Voice RE50N/D-B (also at Amazon), which is a very difficult to remember name for a microphone.
I bought this one specifically because it’s built to still record well even whenever the person speaking into it isn’t holding it up to their mouth. And what’s one of the biggest problems with wedding toasts? Instead of holding the mic near their mouth, people hold it down here by their chest, so you can barely hear what they’re saying. Or they just wander away from the mic entirely and it ends up way over there and you’re standing in the back going, I really hope that’s picking something up. That does happen.
The good news is this mic is built to fight all of that, and it picks up audio great even whenever the person isn’t especially close to it. That’s the reason I prioritized spending money on it.
The Audio Recorder
I pair that mic with a recorder that may look familiar. This is the Tascam DR-10X (also at B&H), and it looks nearly identical to the DR-10L, except it has an XLR input on top.
You’re still getting everything the DR-10L gives you: high quality audio leveling, a limiter, a backup track recorded six decibels lower, and fantastic battery life. The only real difference is that the lav jack on top has been replaced by an XLR input. Connect the Electro-Voice to the DR-10X and suddenly you have this awesomely compact way of recording toasts. You could also use the same rig for handheld interviews if you want to feel like a fancy news reporter. I love that.
And just like whenever I record toasts at a full reception, I want a backup running in case the batteries on the DR-10X fail. What I reach for there is my trusty microphone sleeve, which kind of looks like a condom but isn’t, plus the handheld voice recorder from earlier. Slide the recorder down into the sleeve and you’ve got a clean, simple backup.
The Microphone Stand
Let’s take it a step further. I hate whenever people walk around while giving a toast, partly because then I have to pan and follow and pull focus, which is a pain, but mostly because I want to bring lights and set them up on whoever is speaking so they look as good as possible. If they’re wandering, lighting it is basically impossible.
So to keep people stationary, I invested in a mic stand (also at B&H). It’s cheap, it’s reliable, and I love that it folds up when I’m not using it so it doesn’t eat my camera bag.
I hear you now saying, Matt, what if they take the microphone off the stand? Some people are determined. They’re going to pop that sucker off and start walking around with it. What then?
Well, I have literally no problem telling you, because this is your mic and your stand, to get some gaff tape and tape the microphone to the stand. Get it on there good so they can’t fight it off. People are notoriously determined to really pull on it, so use a lot. No big deal. That way they’re guaranteed to stay put in the good light and everything looks good.
The Speaker System
There’s one last thing. This mic and recorder setup is awesome, but it has one flaw. Whenever a guest comes up to give a toast, they’re going to start speaking, immediately stop, and look around wondering why their voice isn’t being amplified. Even if you explain it beforehand, people aren’t paying attention and they will not know. They’ll go, it’s not on, hello, it’s not working, and you’ll be in the back going, it’s for the video, it’s for the video, just talk into it. It is guaranteed to happen. It happens to me every single time I use this system.
So here’s another option. If the couple tells you they’re having a small rehearsal dinner with no audio setup, offer to bring a speaker system they can use for the toasts. You could even charge extra for it.
The one I recommend is the Bose L1 (also at B&H). At around a thousand dollars there are definitely cheaper options out there, but none I’ve seen that are this small, this elegant and this simple to use. And the cost should pay itself off pretty quickly if you’re charging to bring it.
You get an XLR input to plug your mic into, a knob to control mic volume, and an RCA output on the back that you can run into an audio recorder to record the toasts.
And here’s the beautiful part: the Electro-Voice mic works flawlessly with it. If you want to use a different mic that’s fine, but keep in mind the Bose L1 does not supply phantom power. The Electro-Voice doesn’t need it, which is why the pairing works, but you’ll want to check whether your alternative mic does, because if it does you’ll need something to power it.
That’s my rehearsal dinner audio setup. I hope it helps, especially whenever you’re dealing with one of these scenarios that isn’t typical for a reception but is pretty common at a rehearsal dinner. If you want to invest in any of it, I’ve put together a gear page listing every single piece of audio gear I use at a rehearsal dinner.
And if you want to go deeper on the editing side, that’s what I teach inside Wedding Film Framework. If you’d rather work on the booking side first, I have a free guide to booking more wedding clients as well.