Wedding photography can start indoors, move outdoors, into bright sunshine, into shade, into mottled light and then back indoors under a mixture of different lights with potentially different light temperatures – all in the same day.

ALWAYS have backup equipment – remember the motto: two is one…one is none. Always have at least 2 of everything.

The best way to cut your teeth on Wedding Photography is to second shoot / assist an established pro for at least a season before accepting weddings of your own.

I have been reading the articles on wedding photography. My husband has been doing photography since his teenage years and he is now 45 and he made the switch to digital in 2001-2002. The digital processing is a constant learning experience. We have been doing that together. AND, I thought that weddings would be such a pleasant day to capture memories. Flowers, awesome lighting with candle light, champagne, all smiles, etc., Which my husband reminded me constantly of lighting as he was MANUALLY doing the math to double check his work. Math and photography? I just carry the second camera! But the purple popped!

Our pictures are turning out beautiful, but the bride is unhappy. Some say she is just complaining so I won’t charge her for the wedding. To make matters worse this was a favor, and we work together during the day. I brought her 70 prints (which we have 373 more coming) and she did not show a single soul. Eyes were poppin and everything! My husband likes the rebel’s by canon and we have all the lenses, as Pat has said we reinvest everything into equipment. We have the EOS and then the XTi, both do really well, the difference between the EOS and the XTi is amazing in itself. And then of course as soon as we bought that camera not but a couple years later comes the 50D and Windows VIsta BLAH, we were just catching up! The wedding party was uncooperative and I was yelled at 3 times, wanted to cry. One lady said to me, “Gee, I guess I am just an endcap for the day.” I just tried to keep them in order. Wedding are VERY HARD and I now understand why they aren’t for the faint of heart. The grooms sister took over the photo shoot with her point and shoot, and we are pretty laxed with people wanting to shoot our poses, but they could not get a clear shot as I was beginning the posing for the next shots and they told me about it under no circumstances that I was in their way, which was said to me by the Groom through his clinched teeth. This caused a dramatic loss in photos of the Bride & Groom by themselves because the Church only gave us 30 minutes to get our shots and I am sick over it. It seemed that they were all more interested in taking pictures than having their pictures taken?

So, my question is: When your equipment is on the mark, settings are good, pictures are good, your batteries are charged and you have managed to capture a few heartfelt moments (Mother of the Bride wiping a tear from her eye, as she had pinned the coursage on her mom), and the bride is unhappy what do you do? We were with them from 2:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. We left at 10:30 and they decided to do the bouquet toss and garter throw at 11:00 p.m. when the reception was over at 11:30! The jury is still out as to whether we will be taking on anymore weddings in 2010. We will finish our 5 this year as we are under contract with the couples we have signed up now, but I just don’t know.

Oh, one last comment, I know my post was long, but I have not slept since May 9, 2009! The Bride did bring in all the point and shoot pics in to our work and showed them around with pride. I about fell through the floor, they were grainy, and because we were not allowed to use a flash in the ceremony, they were noisey and dark, but some parts of the picture had light, does that make sense? The pictures looked “thin” with no depth, lack of color, like smeared ink maybe, I guess. My husband can explain all that better than me, but I am telling you, I hope people do not think that was our work.

Wedding photography is very demanding as well as being very expensive to get set up – I’m only getting there after two years of re-investing every penny earned and then some.

Also lots of good additional points in the follow up comments, such as having two of everything.

One of the greatest changes I made this year was to use a tripod, which proved to be the best thing I ever did. Quality is greatly improved being able to make many shots that just would not be possible before. And the biggest revelation is that a tripod does not slow you down – it makes live easier and you can go through sequences of posed shots quicker!

I just did my first wedding two weeks back. Despite having prepared a lot, it was harder than I thought.

I came prepared with two Sonys. One with a zoom and one with a portrait lens. No antishake will ever be able to balance out my trembling when the people started to walk into the church. Thankfully I was able to concentrate once I started.

I was using my Sony A100 with a 50mm 1.4 lens. These are the photos that turned out the best. The other camera used was a Sony A700 with an 18-200 zoom and flash (not in the church).

I had spoken with the couple before. We visited the chuch together before, as well as the festive location. The contract was in combination with a filmer, and the deal we did was they pay a smaller amount than a profi, if they are satisfied with the photos and want to purchase them.

The tips here to work as assistant to a real profi are great. That is what I would have liked to do.

If I ever do a second one – I will be less discrete and put more effort into doing the types of shots I know I do well (portraits and close-ups) and be more assertive…