On Saturday, I had my first experience as a “paid” photographer – I was hired by a friend to photograph her wedding.

I’m not going to lie – shooting a wedding is a very high-pressure situation, and I was nervous as heck going into this. The thing with wedding photography? No reshoots. You get one chance at everything – and if you miss it, at the very minimum you have an angry bride. Nobody wants that.

The wedding was outdoor, which made the photography (on paper) so much easier. Natural light is a good thing. Of course, the ceremony was in the shade – but not a nice, even shade…it was that lovely (and annoying) dappled shade. This was a challenge to deal with. I could have evened it out with flash, but I did not want to be obtrusive. So what did I do? I metered for the shade and ripped bits*…hoping that at least one shot for each section of the ceremony would turn out.

The reception was indoor/outdoor – there was an enclosed pavilion where the food and beverages were served. Luckily, the exterior walls of this were almost all window, creating some lovely light for photos. And it was that beautiful “window light”. I got more than a few gorgeous shots inside there.

I now have over 1,200 exposures to go through in Lightroom and process. I’ve taken one very preliminary pass, and have flagged about 75 shots that I know are keepers. That’s a good start. I haven’t processed anything yet, of course, except for one photo of the flower girl that I already emailed to the bride…and received a very positive response to:

I had coffee today with my friend Lou, who kindly had lent me his old 20D as a second body to shoot with. The first thing he asked me was “So? What did you learn?” In a nutshell, here’s what I replied with:

• You HAVE to have a plan. Like, a checklist. I had a checklist of shots to get – and the only shots I got were the ones I wrote down. I had ideas for some other shots the day before, but since I didn’t write them down, I didn’t remember to shoot them.
• You may think you have a lot of memory cards, but you probably want even more. I had 18GB of CF (1 x 2GB, 2 x 2GB, and 1 x 8GB) and I filled them all. Granted, I was shooting in RAW (since the lighting was tricky and I need all the help I can get), but I was getting nervous about space towards the end.
• You must bring two cameras. Shoot like a sports photographer. In my case, I put my Speedlite and my 24-70mm f/2.8L on my 40D and my Sigma 10-20mm on the 20D. The 20D with the wide-angle was locked down on a tripod during the ceremony, with my wife/assistant on the trigger, while I remained mobile with the 40D. After the ceremony, I took the 40D and went off to shoot portraits with the bridge and groom, while my wife took the 20D with the 50mm f/1.8 to get shots during the cocktail hour. Even if you don’t have an assistant, that second body with a different lens/flash set-up let’s you be a lot more flexible quickly.
• Don’t assume that people will co-operate with you. Nobody at a wedding is interested in co-operating with the photographer except the bride – and maybe the groom. Family and guests will ignore your requests, and it sometimes requires effort just short of physically picking people up and moving them to get them where you need them for the shots the bride wants. Don’t take it personally – just be professional. This is easier said that done.

Have you shot a wedding before? What tips and tricks did you pick up? Contrariwise, what advice might you have for budding wedding photographers as a previous bridge/groom/wedding guest? Share your insight in the comments!

* – in the pre-digital days, folks would talk about “ripping film”, i.e., just shooting tons of frames. With digital, it’s not quite right to say you are “ripping film”, so I refer to it as “ripping bits”.