a wedding story....

[BuddhaPi]

So I traveled north for my best friends wedding and naturally I bring my new toy with me. as most you know I'm pretty much a hack, but i figured what the hell, maybe i'll get lucky and get a few shots.. So my friend hired a "photographer", no second shooter, no back-up gear, just him and his canon with on board speedlight..everything seemed to be going good until we arrived at the beach at 2:00ish for some nice seashore images and poses..whilst I was in the wedding party I handed over the camera to my wife, who proceded to stand off to the side of the photogrpaher while he "posed" us as we looked west and squinted into the sun...so heres my wife instructing me to take the glasses of my bald head, and telling the brides father to remove his sunglasses ( no sense in him not having to squint).. She's barking out orders left and right, I told her to shut it, before she ticked off mr photo, I was then scolded by the bride, who insisted she keep barking orders because mr shutterbug was not...did i mention the flasg he was using at the beach in full sun, and white sand?? anyway by the time we hit the reception, he was totally dissheveled and sweating, several times he approached me to show me his shots and to ask if they were ok!! I was polite naturally and said sure great, your shooting in raw you can easily tweak in post.. ( this got a real strange look ) So anyway my favorite part of the night is fast approaching the throwing of the bouquet...the shutter, approaches and asks if my sb600 will work on his flash cause he's losing power, he thinks he has enough for the bouquet but not the garter..after the bouuet gets throwns hi runs over to me and asks if I
"got it" cause someone walked infront of him..it was at this poiunt I just had to ask if he ever did anything like this before..why don't you have back-up gear, wheres your helper?...all met by blank stares...i tell him I think I got a few from where I was , he actually asked me if he could have them!!! NOT, Then he had the balls to ask he could use my camera while his flash was charging...again NOT!!! He missed the garter thing completely and was not to happy to say the least.. I ended up shooting over 500 images, so hopefully there will be a good number of keepers to offset the missed opportunities..

I think wedding photographers are a brave bunch, and caution anybody who thinks they can just jump right in..I've seen numerous posts here warning people, and now have seen the results first hand!

[NgaiHill]

Wow. I too think wedding photographers are a brave bunch - you'd need to be so much more organised to pull it off that most other types of photography - can't go back and do a reshoot. I guess its guys like this that show you that some people don't put a lot of thought into how its all going to work. Hope your friend got what they paid for from this guy and they got some decent images from the day.

[Saralonde]

At the two weddings I've attended as a guest this year, I witnessed one pro that charged approximately $3500 had some outstanding shots, and one shot by someone just starting out (cost less than $500). Let's just say they both got what they paid for.

I did not bring my camera to either wedding - I prefer to remain a guest - but I truly felt sorry for both the photographer and the bride at the second wedding. The photographer was completely flustered and the bride definitely did not get what she hoped would be great shots of an important day.

Of course, price doesn't guarantee anything, but experience and preparation usually do .