With a few good ideas in place, you should create a focus group. Reach out to a handful of brides, and get them involved with your market-research study. This sounds complicated, but it is really simple.

Most anyone knows someone who is getting married, so ask around your circle of friends and family for newly-engaged couples. Get their contact information, and make a plan to introduce yourself to them. Tell them you're thinking about starting a wedding video business and want to spend a few minutes trying to figure out what brides are looking for.

I highly recommend you get closely involved with the bride's world by attending a wedding expo in your area. Bring a camera, a bag and a journal. Even better, bring some brides with you and agree to meet after the show to discuss what they liked. Take photos of the booths, not just the videographers' booths, but any booth that seems to be making a splash on the showroom floor. Collect brochures from all the vendors. Make notes about booths that seem to be showing well and those that seem to be under-performing. After the show, meet with your group of brides to gather more insights. Using the brochures, ask them if there was anything they liked or seemed interested in. Ask them how they go about making their decisions on what vendors they will use. Do they use the phone book, the internet, wedding expos, suggestions from friends? Most likely, you'll discover that word-of-mouth marketing goes a long way in this industry. This is a good time to float some of your ideas with the group and get some feedback. The insights you gather from them will be useful in helping you understand what influences their decisions.

A focus group is also a great way to build trust among a small group of potential customers. You might find your first customer will be a focus group member. Be prepared to follow up with these brides a few weeks later to pitch your new service to them. At the very least, you could get a few leads from this group.

More and more brides are doing most of their shopping and bookings online. Tips from choosing the best cake to dressing the best man can be found at one-stop wedding websites like weddingsnorthvalley.com. Sites like these offer the nuptials insight into the many vendors and services offered locally. When you're ready to move forward, getting your business featured on these sites can really give you a boost.

Another great resource is WEVA (Wedding and Event Videographers Association). This group focuses business issues, techniques and the latest trends with tips from how to best shoot multiple camera weddings to how to write solid contracts.Check them out at www.weva.com.

Launching a wedding video business will take some money. It's time to start thinking about a business loan. All the market research you've done will be useful in this arena as well. Investors want to know that you understand the customer, the marketplace and how you fit into the scene. You'll need a full-blown business proposal, with a budget for all aspects of your business. This includes money for new equipment, operating costs (e.g., rent, wages, etc.), advertising and marketing, and other expenses. There are many books and other professional resources that can help you develop a complete business plan, so we won't go into much detail here. Be aware, it will to take a lot of work just to make your first dollar.

If you're not sure that wedding video should be your full-time gig, test the water before diving in. Try shooting a friend's or family member's wedding. This is also a good way to start building your demo reel for future work. Attend wedding expos and hand out business cards to wedding video producers, introducing yourself as a second camera operator. Many local wedding video producers need a second shooter and pay decent money for weekend work. Wedding video doesn't necessarily need to be a full-time job. Over time, these relationships can flourish after you build some trust with local videographers. In some cases, they might hand off an entire wedding to you if they've double-booked a wedding or have an emergency.

No matter what level of commitment you choose in the beginning, there are no shortcuts to building trust in the marketplace. It can take several wedding seasons before your business takes off. If you're in it for the long haul, make sure you spend plenty of time researching the market, not only at the beginning of your business launch, but each year from that point. Be prepared to adapt to the market. The trends are constantly changing, and you will need to know how you fit into an ever-changing market to stay competitive and to keep finding new customers.

Contributing Editor Mark Montgomery is an independent video producer and editor.