My First Wedding Shoot
- Monty_Creates
- Jun 9, 2018
- 3 min read
How I covered a whole day of wedding photography with no prep.
If you google how to photograph a wedding, the first piece of advice that you'll come across, on any site, is to plan well in advance.
It's naive to think that you'll be able to turn up on the day, having never visited the venues, having almost no understanding the timetable for the day or without having a solid shot list. There simply isn't enough time to be able to think things through and set up shots on the day, most of all you only get one chance to take the perfect shot at the key moments. As the photographer it's you're job to capture these moments for the couple, immortalise the memory of that day for the rest of their lives though the view of your lens and that's why you have to get things right. Basically it's a really really bad idea to not be prepared.
But that's exactly what I did.
Obviously I didn't choose to go to the wedding without a good plan but that was the position I was put in. The night before I received a phone call from an old friend saying that she was going to a wedding the next day but that the couple were looking a a photographer since, for reasons I don't quite understand, their original photographers bailed at the last minute. The rest of my relaxed evening at home was spent frantically searching for tips on how to photograph weddings, trying to gain as much detail as I could about the wedding and finding a flash to use at the reception.
The morning of the wedding was a mad rush. I had to wake up early so I could collect the flashes a 40 minute drive away before I headed to the church early. The rest of the ceremony turned into a blur of meeting the groom, finding out the plan for the day and taking shots of everyone coming in.
Thankfully the ceremony went without a hitch, the silent shooting mode and a long telephoto lens helped me take all the shots I needed without causing any interruptions.
Afterwards it was outside for group shots and confetti before heading to the reception.
The reception was probably the hardest part for me. At the ceremony there was the obvious focus on the couple and not much else, in a way it was similar to me to the sports photography I do, just letting the scene play out and try to get the right framing at the right moment. However, at the reception I was completely overwhelmed. People everywhere, awkward light, having to pose people, I was definitely out of my depth.
This is was also the best part for me looking back. Yes I may have been overwhelmed and unsure of what to do but I was able to fall back on my experience as a photographer, focus and take a lot of photos that I'm really happy with, the only real problem that I had was the fatigue of being on my feet all day on a hot day.
The ironic thing about the day was that I've always said that I don't want to do wedding photography, I was worried about the stakes being too high, bridezillas and the general stress of it and there I was, at my first paid shoot, a wedding. So whilst wedding photography still isn't an area that I want to base my career around, I'm happy that I took the last minute call because now I know I can do it and it's not as bad as I thought.
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