Have you heard of a wedding content creator? This RIer brings the big day to social media

Here’s the scenario: It’s the morning after your wedding, you’re still lying in bed, and with just a couple of clicks on your phone, you’re able to replay the whole day as a highlight reel.

There are a few clips of your mom and maid of honor buttoning your dress, set to sweet music. Keep going, and there’s the moment of you looking absolutely radiant walking down the aisle, finally able to stop stressing about the 12-plus months of planning that went into this. And then you get to see all your best friends tearing it up on the dance floor. You’re seeing moments you didn’t even know happened.

And, you look like an influencer. Your wedding looks as good as all those Instagram reels that the algorithm has been pumping into your feed for months.

At least that's what Francesca Mello, founder of wedding content creation company The Social FRM, is hoping when she sends you a Dropbox link filled with hundreds of raw photos and videos from your wedding day with a few reels.

What is wedding content creation?

Wedding content creators are the newest vendor in the wedding business.

In March 2023, the wedding website “The Knot” declared content creators the “up-and-coming" wedding vendor that the industry was about to see more of. Distinct from a photographer or a videographer, they’re there to capture raw photos and vertical videos of the big wedding moments as well as behind-the-scenes ones.

Sometimes, wedding content creators also work for one of the vendors, such as a wedding planner, capturing their often unseen work for their social channels and marketing.

The service is so new that when Mello launched The Social FRM in 2023 by emailing wedding planners, many hadn’t heard of the concept yet. So far, she knows of only one other person doing what she’s doing in Rhode Island, Sierra Cooley, who works with businesses and weddings.

How does it work?

As with most creative work, there’s a spectrum of what wedding content creation looks like.

Some content creators are capturing videos that are designed to play into the trends, such as TikTok dances or using trending audio, that are bound to go viral. Others are there to capture the day more organically.

“I follow the flow of the day,” Mello said. “Every bride is different. Every wedding is different. Everything is so unique there’s no sense in trying to curate something that isn’t happening naturally.”

To get this effect, Mello sticks with the bride throughout the day. She has her phone at the ready – with several extra battery packs – to capture raw footage of any moment she thinks you would want to look back on later, from the sweet to the funny to the high-energy party to the “pockets of prettiness.”

Who wants a content creator?

Mello had the idea to start this kind of business after her own wedding season, specifically after her bridal shower. She said she'd wanted to make a reel for her own social media account of the party, but she realized she didn’t have the type of photos and videos she wanted because she'd been too busy being in the moment. When she asked her friends, they didn’t have the type of clips she was looking for either.

That "reel that wasn’t" got her thinking about what it would look like to start a business like The Social FRM. Back in 2022, she found one influencer, Sierra Tanner, who called herself a “wedding content creator,” and she thought, "I could do that."

Her brides have mostly been people like her, not influencers but people who want to have more ways to relive the big day.

“Almost every time they just say something along the lines of, ‘I'm really interested in getting handed footage or documentary-style footage of my day,'” she said. “That’s the most requested part of it.”

Wedding planner Katie Ryans, founder of Katie Ryan Events, was the first to request a meeting with Mello when she was cold-emailing people. She hired Mello to shadow her at several of the weddings she was planning in Newport, but she saw the appeal for brides, too.

“It’s that satisfaction and gratification after planning it for so long, you just want to see it the next day,” Ryan said. “When you’re laying in bed, seeing the reels and maybe some of the moments you missed or something that you know you worked really hard on, provided to you within 24 to 36 hours of the big day instead of waiting.”

From her first meeting with Mello, she predicted The Social FRM would grow fast.

“It’s something that’s really lacking in the industry,” Ryan said. And she couldn’t say enough good things about Mello, calling her punctual, professional, smart, attentive and a “wonderful human being.”

True to Ryan’s prediction, Mello is booked to do 25 weddings this year in Boston and Rhode Island, and she's in the process of bringing on a second person.

“It’s just the happiest job,” Mello said. “I’m never annoyed, frustrated, sad. It’s only joy.”

For more information, go to thesocialfrm.com.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Wedding content creators latest trend to capture the big day