A wedding is a great time to reflect on all of the important people in your life, your upbringing, and those nearest and dearest to you as you embark on the most seminal of chapters. With that in mind, honoring our pasts and sharing it with our guests was something my fiance and I were keen to do as part of our wedding weekend.
We decided early on that we wanted a wedding video with our respective upbringings to show to our guests at our rehearsal dinner. We thought it would be a fun way for us to relive our past while also helping guests get to know the other spouse who they might not have known as intimately.
We both loved the idea and were eager to get started, except for one main issue… how to get all of our decades-old analog videos and photos into a format that we could edit and assemble into a memorable video?
All of our collective memories had been created through the years and was stored on different formats: photo albums, video tapes, betamax tapes, VHS tapes, social media, etc. It was a total mess. We quickly realized that if we were going to digitize this stuff 1) it was going to take forever 2) we would have had to buy all sorts of esoteric equipment 3) there was a great chance that we would ruin the treasured items in the process since we are inexperienced at converting analog to digital.
We simply didn’t have time or technical proficiency to be able to do this on top of all of the other planning and coordination that goes into planning a wedding, but it was something that was super important to us.
Much to our delight we came across Dijifi, a digitization company based out of NYC that specializes in converting old analog pictures and videos into digital formats. (But, they work with clients around the country!) This was exactly the solution that we needed and upon research, it seemed that their experience was truly unparalleled. They’ve done work for historical instituons such as the Intrepid Museum, Sotheby’s Auction House and the United Nations, among other historic institutions.
Dijifi is ranked by Yelp and Google as one of the best places in the country to digitize and edit photos, film, video and audio. This meant a lot to us given that we were handing over literally the only copies of our childhoods, which included precious baby photos, family photos of relatives that are no longer with us, and Christmas Eve mornings spent with family.
After talking with the Dijifi team, we learned that they were able to work with any format that you will give them. Slides, photos, film, negatives, hard drives, USB drives, video, audio, CD, DVD… you name it. Based on the professionalism in this interaction and their years of experience handling this work we were thrilled to work with them.
Not only did the Dijifi team help us manage the digitization logistics, but they also made the entire process a seamless one with their white-glove service from start to finish. We quickly got a sense for how professional as they offered to pick up the materials from our apartment and then drop them off to us at the end. They were on top of things from start to finish.
They sent us a packing and intake form and then when they picked up the items they documented everything and kept meticulous notes throughout the process on all of the photo and video albums we provided. They also kept in regular contact so that we knew our keepsakes were being looked after correctly. This gave us peace of mind that these precious memories weren’t lost or damaged.
Dijifi also checked in to make sure we understood how the project was progressing overall. This was a real lifesaver because we knew that this sort of work just takes time to do, especially with digitizing old VHS cassettes, so it helped us to plan, knowing when we could expect the content back.
As promised, within a few week’s time, we had the content back and it was nothing short of amazing! Dijifi team delivered our albums in videos back in even better condition that we had passed them off. Each item was labeled with a barcode for easy cataloging. All of the content was conveniently placed into a high-quality external hard drive. Inside the drive, each of the files was conveniently named in a way that corresponded to a numbering system used to label each of our pieces of content.
My fiance immediately opened the files of decades-old videos of her childhood and began crying with emotion as she watched family Christmas gatherings, her childhood soccer games and birthday parties and family trips to Disney World unfold before her eyes. She poured over the family videos, laughing at interactions between her and her little brother and tender moments between her and her grandfather, who has since passed. The problem with the content in its original form is that it was unwatchable and unsharable, so the family memories were essentially buried. We had such a great time going through all of the content, laughing at our younger selves, sharing old stories and pulling together the pieces to make the videos.
I honestly can’t endorse Dijifi more enthusiastically. They delivered the content on schedule and in pristine condition. Their customer care was also first rate.
Having all of the content in one place is now such a fun feeling, since we can include it other projects, share it with family and friends and generally enjoy it in a more meaningful way than we could when it was collecting dust inside of a closet.
We love the idea of working with Dijifi for a wedding video, like we did below. But, it’s also a pretty perfect gift for your parents or siblings. Giving back these amazing memories that are collecting dust in your parent’s attic and preserving your family’s history is pretty priceless in our view.
And, guests LOVED watching the videos and seeing the old photos. Many of our friends and family cried at the rehearsal because they were so moved by emotion watching the clips and sharing in the memories. It was one of the most-talked about features of our entire wedding weekend.
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