Quick Cheat Guide for Shooting Your First Wedding

I got an email from my friend back home. She's may be getting roped into doing a wedding for a friend this Saturday (yes Valentine's) and she asked for any pointers I can give. So, excuse this post...because it's not well-thought of but I only had an hour to work on it...but this is my barebones start-up guide to approaching a wedding. Low-level tips...it really is a quick cheat guide.

1. Charge up your battery fully the night before...be aware of how long your battery will probably last

Hopefully, if you have only one camera and one battery, you have an idea of how long the battery should last you. The LCD display, a flash, and the actual action of taking pictures will drain your battery faster than idle sitting. So, it's kind of hard to test it out if you're not already aware.

I have always made it through 1.5-2 hour ceremonies but the first time I did back to back weddings...well, it gave out as the bride was walking down the beach aisle in the second wedding. I was saved by the fact that I brought a back-up camera from work.

2. If you're outdoors, try to photograph during the early mornings or late afternoons.

Bright sunlight can create uneven lighting. Glaring spots on the forehead and cheeks and shadows that hide the eyes. Outdoor shoots are great before 10 am and the golden time for afternoons is the two hours before sunset.

3. If you need to photograph with an overhead sun, try to put your subjects in the shade.

The last beach wedding I did, was at noon at Kailua Beach. I couldn't really choose where the ceremony was...but for their portraits... I looked down the beach until I saw where there was shade under the trees. The wedding party really appreciated the coolness and behind them was nothing but beautiful ocean.

4. . If you're going to put them in the shade...try to make sure it's not a sp0radic shade like a barely leafed tree.

I have so many pictures from my early weddings where I put them under trees but ...oops, there's clear outlines of the shadows from every single leaf outlined over their faces. Avoid avoid avoid!!!

5. . Keep it on P-mode, A-mode, or S-mode but bump up the exposure to +1/3 EV to +1EV.

People think you have to operate on M-mode to appear professional. Blarmey!! If you want to play safe and try to have everything focused well, keep it in A mode and keep your aperture around 10-16. If it gets lower than that and you focus spot is just a little off of your target...you're getting blurry pictures. And they look great in your LCD screen since your bride is all of 1.1 inches high...but wait until you see it full-size on your computer screen.

The dreaded blur can also be caused by movement. In weddings, the times with movement luckily are limited to the walking up and down the aisle unless the ring bearer takes off with the rings in the middle of your ceremony. Oh, and blur can be photographer-related. Keep those elbows in and hands steady. You can up your ISO so your shutter speed can stay pretty fast...but you really want your ISO as low as possible so you can later crop in on teary faces and sweet moments. Always aim for ISO around 200 to 400...no higher than 800.

P-mode...P mode is awesome.

My biggest tip is to overexpose a little. The biggest difference I notice in regular snapshots versus professional photographs is that regular snapshots tend to be on the underexposed side. Use your camera manual to figure out how to adjust your exposure value to 1-3 stops over zero.
Trust me...so many of my post processing steps is always to lighten and bump up the light...and that's after already having a slightly over-exposed image. You might lose a little bit of the intensity of colors in the sky but it does wonders for people.



I have many examples of low-lit photographs but I usually don't have them up on the web. This one is a okay example of not bumping up the exposure enough. This was taken with a flash...normal exposure...I wish I had bumped it up even more.


This is an example of overexposing it a stop or two. Before the ceremony, I'll usually take a picture...look at it...bump up the exposure a stop...take another picture..look at it...and so on so forth until I find the look I like

6. . Ask the officiant if he minds how close you get...and if you can walk behind behind them during the ceremony for different angles.

You don't want to be intrusive...but you do want to get other angles beside the back of the bride and groom for the entire ceremony. Take a picture of them holding hands. A picture of the mother of the bride with the couple in the foreground.

7. Give the bride and groom the goal of holding their kiss for five seconds and ask the officiant if he can step to the side just for the kiss.

Scott tells all the couples he marries to hold it for five seconds. Not just for the photographer...for every family member who has inevitable brought their personal camera. I've heard many a dad bellow "Eh, do em again...I never catch em." And I have never asked the officiant to move...but I thought about it after the last one. I usually just kneel in the aisle and kneel down until I find the angle where the bride and groom hide the offiiciant and you only see them.

8. Get the detail shots:
The little things that make the weddings theirs...it may seem silly but most likely, everything has a story behind it.
The ring pillow on the sand
the bouquet
the sash on the back of the chairs



9: Portrait time:

9a. Have a checklist in your head

Bride
Bride and bridesmaids (group and one by one)
Bride and flowergirl
Bride and her family
Bride, Groom, her family
Bride, Groom, his family
Bride, Groom, both families
Groom
Groom and Groomsmen
Groom and ringbearer
Bride, Groom, all wedding party

Bride and Groom (looking at you, looking at each other, hugging, kissing)

9b. Ask bride and groom not to let anyone else take pictures with personal cameras at same time.

It will slow things down and the worse thing is that you'll have one group picture and sister of the bride is smiling like a fool looking somewhere off to the left (probably at proud grandpa holding his camera). Set up the group...make sure they know when you're about to click so you have all eye contact..and click three times quickly (hopefully one of them will have all eyes open)

You can have people with personal cameras stand behind you and let them take their shots only after you have yours.

10. You can use a simple photo-editing software like Google Picasso (free) to touch up pictures and do any simple conversions.

Give yourself ample time to go through them. Let the bride and groom know it's going to take days...maybe a week or two. I let them know on the wedding day as I'm saying good-bye. I've never had anyone email or call asking where the pictures are. I give them a deadline and they know they'll get it by then. And I try to tell them a few days extra so I can surprise them by giving it to them a little early.