How to Live Stream Balinese Wedding the Basic Way

Most of the time Balinese wedding happened at home. Be it the ritual or the reception. As one of the big moment in life, not only your family and friends are invited but the whole village as well. But wait, it is still the pandemic situation, how can I still share this big moment with everyone?

Live streaming your wedding is the answer. Since March 2020, I watched some of my friends’ wedding streamed on YouTube and to be honest, they did not feel the same with going there and experienced it. It is the dressing up, catching up with other guests, and food that I am missing, sigh. However, live streaming is a nice way to inform your network that,“Hey, I’m changing my legal status!” — which is the main function of a wedding invitation.

A screenshot from my wedding live stream video.

In my case, my spouse’s mother and sister could not attend as they are living abroad, so the more reason to do live stream. Based on my experience from my wedding last December, you can direct and plan the live stream, but have someone else do the direction and streaming. That is a must. Before committing to read my tips for doing your own wedding live stream, make sure this approach is for you because:

• There are no live stream vendor covering your wedding venue, or
• The cost of doing your own live stream, according to the way you want, is more economical than using a vendor;
• You enjoy tinkering videography and its equipment;
• You have relatives or friends that would help in directing and streaming on the day.

(Scroll to the bottom of this post to see the equipment used)

Alright, you are onboard with this and you wonder, how can live streaming a Balinese wedding is different than other wedding tradition?

Immersed yourself on the first sentence in this post: Most of the time Balinese wedding happened at home.

It means there is no designed stage (lightings are tricky), people are still doing their activities there (mindful cable layout), and series of rituals means moving around the house. During the wedding day there are two ceremonies to be done:

1. Mekala-kalaan (mɝ-ka-la-ka-la-aɴ): Takes place at the house yard with some activities of walking around and sitting.
2. Natab beduur (na-tab bɝ-du-wur): Or mewidhi widana, it takes place at sanggah, or the house-shrine, but mine was at bale gede — the biggest pavilion commonly used for ceremonies. The main actors: the newly wed and the priest.

After mekala-kalaan and before natab beduur, we sat on bale daja which provides a chance to chat with the VIP guests. This was the house lay out with the camera placements:

By actors, I mean the star of the show which was my spouse and I

There was a moment in natab beduur, where we went praying at pamerajan but we decided not to stream this part. Natab beduur ended with us at bale gede, which marks that the ceremonies are finished, after that we went around to greet the guests — so we ended the streaming as well.

Apparently the streaming still continue after natab beduur so it went on until five hours. Say hello to my dad, the man in the front of the frame wearing duckbill mask.

Direction during the event preferably comes from someone who knows the rundown or experienced a Balinese wedding before. They better have easy access to the live stream video so they can monitor what goes wrong. In my case, it was my spouse who did the direction. He stole glances to the television at bale daja or his phone to check whether the live stream went well or not. Some other lessons learned:

• Three cameraperson is ideal. Especially if one or two of them are family members which will have another duty during the event as well.
• Do rehearsal before the event and after decoration are set. Aside for camera placement, it will be good if the whole cameraperson know the couple mobility to set the cable in a less obtrusive way.
• Have one mobile camera. Since the couple will be moving around a lot in Balinese wedding, having a mobile one increase your live stream to another level.
• Consider if you will need lighting or not. My ceremonies took place from morning to noon, so we did not need addtional lighting. Plus, the light was nice and natural.
• Asked the couple to look at the camera and interact. I guess this is what missing when I watched my friends’ wedding. I did not do this during mine as well, though.
• YouTube live feature is good if your wedding ceremony has a lot of offline attendees because it requires less interaction with the online audience. But if your Balinese wedding is intimate, which I doubt that could happened, then having a Zoom video conference will be nice, I guess. However, the overlay comment box added the interactive point when I watched it after the event, I hope the online audience also feel the same.
• Use DC battery adapter. Never solely rely on battery power when doing live stream.

More about the equipment and accessories that we used:

• Fujifilm camera XS10
• Lumix mirrorless camera
• Shotgun microphone
• Macbook
• 10 meter cable roll
• HDMI cable
• HDMI switcher
• OBS software (for the streaming, it is free!)

On the next post, I will share how to give your wedding live stream that extra edge. Also, the link to my live stream video. If you have questions about how I did the live stream or would like to share your experience on doing/having wedding live stream, do post them on the comments section.