The fine print, in plain English.

Booking deposit (R500). Holds your date and confirms availability. Paid by EFT (bank details emailed once we confirm). Nothing ships until this lands. Fully refundable if you cancel 30+ days before your event.

Camera deposit (R5,000 per camera). A separate refundable security deposit, charged before the kit leaves the studio. Returned to you in full within 7 days of the kit coming back to us in one piece. We refund by EFT to the same account that paid it. The deposit isn't a fee — it's our way of trusting you with R30,000+ of vintage hardware without insurance paperwork.

Balance. The remainder of your package price is due 14 days before the kit ships (typically 8 weeks before your event). We'll email an invoice when it's time. If add-ons were requested after booking, they're added to this final invoice.

Payment methods. EFT for South African couples. International couples: we'll send a Stripe link or Wise transfer details with the same timing.

• 30+ days before your event: full refund of the booking deposit. Camera deposit hasn't been taken yet.
• 14–30 days before your event: booking deposit is retained. Balance and camera deposit haven't been taken.
• Under 14 days before your event: if the balance has been paid, 50% is refunded. Booking deposit retained. Camera deposit refunded in full (kit hasn't shipped).
• If we cancel (camera fleet damaged, courier strike, force majeure): we refund everything paid in full and help you find an alternative wherever possible.

Date changes are free if requested 30+ days out and we have availability for the new date. Inside 30 days, we'll move your booking if we can — sometimes that's not possible during peak wedding season.

The kit ships about a week before your event date. You're responsible for being available to receive it (signed-for delivery via courier). If the courier can't reach you, the kit comes back to us and re-shipping costs may apply.

The rental window is 5 days centred on your event date. Anything beyond that window is a R500 per day extension fee, billable against the camera deposit.

Return shipping is included via the pre-paid waybill inside the kit. Two days before the kit's due back, we email you a 4-hour collection window — our courier picks the boxed-up kit up from your address. If no one's home for the slot, we reschedule once at no cost; further missed collections incur a R250 re-collection fee per attempt. Late returns (kit not collected within the rental window for any reason) are first warned, then charged the R500/day extension. After 14 days late we treat the kit as unreturned (see Damage, loss & insurance below).

Accidental damage — drink spilled on a camera, dropped from waist height, lens scratched in transit — is covered by our basic insurance. The camera deposit comes back to you in full. We trust our couples and their guests; this is normal wear-and-tear.

Deliberate damage, loss, or theft comes off the R5,000 camera deposit. Each vintage camcorder, fully replaced (used market in SA), runs around R3,000–R5,000 depending on model and condition. The deposit is set above replacement cost so we have margin for emergency replacement and admin.

Unreturned kit (14+ days late, or never sent back). The full camera deposit is forfeited. We'll continue to pursue the matter through the courier and, if necessary, legal channels.

What you don't pay for: kit that arrives damaged from us (we'll replace and pay return shipping), accessory items breaking under normal use (batteries dying, memory cards failing), or the camera failing for non-impact reasons (electrical fault, age — these things are 15+ years old).

Standard edit timeline: 4 weeks for Core, 2 weeks for Base, from when we receive the returned kit. Express edit add-on: 1 week. We'll email a status update at the halfway mark.

Films are delivered as a private, password-free Vimeo link — yours to download, share, embed, or copy. No expiry. No watermarks. We keep one master copy on our editing machines for two years in case you ever need a re-render, then we delete it (unless you've asked us to keep longer).

If a camera malfunctioned and there's no usable footage, we'll discuss your options directly. So far it hasn't happened. If somehow only some footage is recoverable, we'll do our best with what's there and discount accordingly.

One round of revisions is included if there's something specific you want changed (a song, a scene cut differently, a name correction). Beyond that, additional revisions are billable at R1,200 per round.

The raw footage your guests capture, and the final edit we produce, belong to you. Full copyright. We don't retain rights for portfolio use, social media, or marketing without your explicit written permission.

If we want to feature a clip from your wedding on our Instagram or website, we'll ask first. The default answer is no, and we won't push back. If you say yes, we agree on which clips, how they're credited, and whether faces and names are anonymised.

Music in the edited film is licensed by us through Artlist (or similar) for personal use. You can share the film privately or publicly without further licensing concerns. If you want to use a specific song you've licensed yourself, send us the licence details before we start editing.

We do our best to ship a working kit, edit it well, and deliver on time. We're not liable for: a guest forgetting to press record, the camera being left in a coat pocket all night, footage being illegible due to lens fog or low light, a courier delay outside our control, or events at your wedding we couldn't anticipate.

If any of the above leads to no usable film, we'll refund the package price (less the booking deposit) and discuss a make-good. Our maximum liability under any booking is the total amount paid to us for that booking. We're not liable for any consequential or indirect losses.

This isn't us being defensive — these are standard service-business terms. We've never had to invoke them. We mention this section because real terms exist and you should know what they say.