Most wedding films and e-invites in India are cut to popular film songs. They sound familiar, but the couple's names are never in them, every other wedding uses the same tracks, and uploading them to YouTube or Instagram often leads to a copyright claim or a muted video, because the labels that own those songs use automated matching.
An original song made for the couple solves all three problems at once. This guide covers what to write, which styles suit which part of the wedding, what it costs on Autunes, and what you can and cannot do with the result.
Decide what the music has to do
A wedding has several videos, and each needs a different length and mood. Settle this before you write anything, because a 30-second invite and a four-minute highlight film are written differently.
- E-invite or save-the-date: 15 to 60 seconds, names in the first lines, a clear hook.
- Haldi or mehendi reel: 30 to 45 seconds, bright and playful.
- Sangeet performance track: a full song with a strong beat that the family can dance to.
- Bride or groom entry: a slow build with a big chorus.
- Highlight film: up to 3 minutes on Free and Pro, up to 5 minutes on Creator, with verses that follow the story of the day.
Step 1: Write lyrics with the couple's story
Specific details make the song feel written for them: how they met, the city, a nickname, a shared joke the families will recognise. Use section tags such as [Verse], [Chorus] and [Bridge] so the song has a shape, and keep the chorus short enough to repeat. Here is a short Hindi example in Roman script for a couple named Riya and Kabir:
- [Verse] Dilli ki sardi mein pehli mulaqat, chai ke do cup aur lambi si baat
- [Verse] College ki seedhi se mandap tak, har mod pe tera mera saath
- [Chorus] Riya aur Kabir, aaj se ek kahani, haathon mein mehendi, aankhon mein rawani
- [Bridge] Maa ki dua, papa ki muskaan, do ghar mil ke ban gaye ek jahaan
Step 2: Pick a style that matches the footage
Describe the sound the way you would brief a musician: genre, language, singer, tempo, a few instruments and the mood. Set the language picker to match the lyrics. These descriptions are ready to copy:
- Highlight film: "Hindi romantic ballad, soft female and male duet, slow tempo, piano, strings and bansuri, warm and emotional"
- Sangeet: "Punjabi wedding song, male vocal, fast dhol beat, tumbi, celebratory, made for dancing"
- Baraat entry: "festive brass band and dhol, energetic, Hindi chorus, crowd chanting feel"
- Destination wedding: "English acoustic love song, gentle male vocal, fingerpicked guitar, sunset mood"
- Pheras or invite intro: "instrumental, shehnai and soft tabla, peaceful, traditional"
Step 3: Generate, compare and fix
Zori5 Turbo costs 10 credits a song and Zori5.5 XL costs 15 credits and sounds richer. A new account gets 15 credits once, enough for one song; free users get XL when they paste their own lyrics, which you will be doing here. A song is usually ready in 2 to 4 minutes.
Listen with headphones and check the names first. Every finished vocal is transcribed and compared with your lyrics, and lines that came out wrong are flagged. On Pro and Creator you can re-sing just that line for 3 credits with edit section, or run auto-fix pronunciation for 10 credits. A variation, a fresh take of the same song, costs 5 credits; the free plan gets one, Pro and Creator get as many as they like.
If a name keeps coming out wrong, spell it the way it sounds, or write it in Devanagari or Gurmukhi if the song is in Hindi or Punjabi.
Fitting the song to the edit
For invites and reels, Short Form makes 15, 30 or 60 second pieces for 2, 3 or 5 credits. For a longer film, cut the full song in your video editor at the end of a line or a chorus rather than in the middle of a word, and add a short fade.
If you want a vocal-free bed under the vows or speeches, Stems on Pro and Creator splits a song into six parts (vocals, drums, bass, guitar, piano, other) for 5 credits; drop the vocal stem and keep the rest. A lyric video with the Karaoke style works well as a digital invite: on the free plan you get a 30-second preview free and the full video for ₹19, and full length with no watermark is included on Pro and Creator.
Rights: family videos vs paid wedding work
Free-plan songs are for personal use. To download one you buy its licence for ₹9 in India, which covers download and commercial use of that song forever. Any single purchase of ₹99 or more also unlocks free downloads of every song you make after it.
Wedding photographers and videographers making films for clients should use Pro (₹599 for 30 days, 300 credits) or Creator (₹2,999 for 30 days, 1,600 credits). Songs made on a paid plan can be used in client work, YouTube, Reels and ads with no royalty and no credit to Autunes required, and paid plans add creation proof: a SHA-256 fingerprint and creation time for each song. Plans are 30-day passes that do not auto-renew.
One practical point: free-plan songs are published publicly by default. If the song is a surprise, unpublish it from the song's menu before sharing anything. Paid plans keep songs private by default.
Honest limits
- AI will not recreate a particular film song's tune, and you should not ask it to. Ask for the feel instead: "90s Bollywood romantic" rather than a song title.
- Unusual names may need two or three tries or a phonetic spelling.
- The song will not land exactly on your video cuts. Edit the video to the music, not the other way round.
- For a live sangeet with a dance group, rehearse with the final version early so the choreographer is not chasing changes.
Common mistakes
- Writing eight verses. Two verses, a chorus and a bridge are plenty for a highlight film.
- Leaving the language picker on Hindi for a Punjabi or English song.
- Making the song the night before the wedding. Leave a few days for fixes and family feedback.
- Using a free song in a paid client film without buying its licence.