Advice - about to shoot a wedding!

[Richard Lane]

I'm mostly happy with the technical results, but I certainly didn't succeed at telling much of a story. But maybe thats in part due to the bland nature of a rehearsal dinner.

I hope I'm not too late.

Excellent advice given so far. The good news is that you aren't actually writing the story yourself, you're just documenting the story that has already been written by the B&G. All you have to do is capture the story that is being told. This will hopefully take some pressure off of you.

Your goal should be to help "document the events" that are already planned. It would be nice if someone that wasn't at the wedding could look at your photos and feel like they were there.

So, of course you want to capture the B&G, and family and guests that were there. But, also try to capture the venue as well as all of those precious moments.

As I mentioned in another thread, I was a wedding videographer for a few years and the concept of capturing the wedding is very similar but with different equipment. Don't be bashful, you have to get in there and get the shots, walk right up where you need to be while still trying to be inconspicuous, don't worry about blocking other peoples view!

Talk to the other photographer and make a plan and work together. Speak with the hostess, band leader, or DJ to get a schedule of the events planned, and check back with them frequently to see how things are going and to find out what's coming up next.

Get some shots of the:

Bride getting ready
Arriving or leaving in the Limo
Ceremony, wedding party, walking down the aisle, first kiss, rings
Outside and inside of the church and/or hall.
Table set up and flowers of the venue.
Guests arriving and greeting each other.
Cocktail party
Family photos
B&G walking into reception together.
First dances B&G, parents with B&G etc.
Toasts & Speeches
Throwing the bouquet and/or garter ceremony if they do that.
Cutting and feeding each other the cake
Dancing shots/Band

Good Luck, I'm sure you'll do great

Rich

[thekingb]

Thanks Richard for the helpful thoughts. I'm trying to pre-visualize some critical shots.

I like that I'm having my boundaries pushed with this experience.

[Richard Lane]

Keep it light.., it's just a wedding with your family, so enjoy it.

Whenever you get nervous, just think about how nervous the Bride is and that should relax you a bit!

Good Luck!

[thekingb]

Well, the wedding weekend is over. The hired pro ended up being very competent, and that certainly took the edge off. I tried to capture what he wasn't/couldn't get. I was in the front row for the ceremony. Here's a couple with the 24-105.

Here's one from the cocktail hour and reception. My six year-old pretty much owned the dance floor. He danced in the center, surrounded by others, for a good 45 minutes!



Thanks again for all your help and words of encouragement! I actually learned a lot, particularly about using the speedlite. I also learned that I don't really love the 7D's noise at ISO 1600 and above....I guess I should invest in standalone NR software.

Here's the link to the full gallery: http://riverview.smugmug.com/Other/R...4326192_Gzw3kD

Brian

[Richard Lane]

Hey Brian,

You've captured some very nice shots in your gallery. I'm sure your sister-in-law will be very happy with these. That hall looks very dark to me, it looks like the flash struggled a bit. Can't help you too much there, as I'm terrible with flash.

Your boy/s look like they had a blast and are quite photogenic too, they may actually have a future in front of the lens!

Thanks for sharing the pics,
Rich

[bouwy]

Great work Brian...Well done

[thekingb]

Thanks Richard, Wally and jrw!

The hall was dark. I had the flash on high speed sync to stop action on the dance floor, which probably contributed to the dark background. Never even thought that I should have switched that off for the non dancing shots! Live and learn!

[Jayson]

Good work on the photos Brian. Weddings are tough and I think you have captured some great moments. Don't be discouraged with the 7D and it's ISO. A little noise reduction and it cleans up pretty well. I used Noise Ninja when I had a Windows PC and it worked great on my 7D files. I don't know if anyone else does this, but with my 7D I always try to over expose a little (most say expose to the right) and bring it down to proper in post. The noise usually cleans up really nice then. For dancing shots, what I have experienced is most of the time just having a shutter speed of 1/125th will stop the dancing with flash and not really leave much of a blur due to it being so dark already. That is unless they are going crazy doing the twist or something like that.

[Jayson]

I think you can only read so much on the issue and need to experiment for yourself. With that being said, I have only done 5 wedding and receptions and still suck horribly. Your right, pesky learning curves!

[Jayson]

JRW, that is funny. I just did a partial remodel on our house and ran into that issue more times that I would care to share while doing the trim. Good stuff.