We've been wanting to invest in a video camera for a while now and our approaching wedding will be a good excuse for it. We would like to not spend money to get a videographer as some people do it, but have someone tape the most essential parts. After that I would like to use it for general purpose and dance recording (I am a lindy hopper).

What are some of the things I should be considering?

So far what I've thought about is

- for the wedding, sound will be important. I heard regular cameras don't do a good job at this with their built in mics. is there a better way to go about this? Have and external sound recorder and merging it afterwards or having an external mic... Would any of these be satisfactory?

- resolution. what are the norms these days?

- i am assuming for the wedding, i would have to put in on a stand for picture quality. do they come with stands or should research stands separately? are they contraptions that attach the camera high up in a corner of the room?

- is file output an issue? do they output different kind of files and is one superior to others? I am a Mac user, but my fiance is a PC guy.

- simple is better

- storage. what is acceptable, what is very good. how long can I record without having to back up.

- anything I didn't think about?

So, let me know, if you know anything about this or have an opinion. What are the better names I should be looking at for best value for the price?

Thanks so much!

Pinar