Doing Wedding Photography for a brother Soldier and a friend. What I learned.
I was at a reunion of Soldiers I deployed with. One of them came to me and said, “Sir I want you to be the photographer for my Wedding”. I said I have never shot a wedding and don’t want to shoot a wedding. His comment was “Well you are going to shoot this one”. I remind you I was his commander and he one of my SGTs, no respect for Rank, LOL.
He is a Brother and really wants me to do it. He also has several kids and so does the woman he is marrying, I know what I see being charged for weddings and that is a lot of money, so as a gift to them I tell them I will shoot it, no sitting fee. If they want prints done by me I will charge for those but I am gifting them the digitals.
So like the Senior Photos I did for his daughter about a year ago I started my research. I contacted the bride and asked for photos of weddings she liked. I sent a shot list for her to fill out to mark the please don’t miss these photos. The read articles, watched some YouTube and practiced a bit.
So the day before I loaded up EVERYTHING. 2 Cameras in case one had and issue. I charged and took every battery I had and bought a large pack of double AAs for the speed lights, and loaded my indoor outdoor studio light and light modifiers. I took every stand I had (and broke one). I even too back drops just in case I needed them for good background if Venue didn’t have one.
After work on Friday I head up to where the wedding it is at, check into Hotel and head off to the Venue #venue720. check out the lights and location, take a shot or two to she what I can get. It was pretty dark there so I know that in a majority of the cases I will need flash and I don’t use flash that often so I practice some more.
Now day of the Wedding, I get up and roll out to the Venue at 10:30 (wedding is at 3:00) Everything is looking good there. I track down where the bride is and catch up to her getting her makeup done, to get some shots of her getting ready. I run back to Hotel to get some Groom shots, then back to the Venue since the bride is there now and get the rest of the preparation shots before the wedding. Those went very well but now we are heading into the main event!
The wedding is ready to start and my real work begins. From then on it is just a rush of shots and adjustments for the uneven lighting depending on the angle. I don’t remember much, in fact as I went through the shots I would see one and wonder when did I get that. The rest of the evening went fast and soon I was packing up the gear to move back to the hotel.
At the hotel I fire up the computer and find I forgot to charge it before I left and guess what I don’t have? You guessed it the cord. I did manage to download the files, and copy them to a second external hard-drive. So Little chance of loosing the photos since they were on 2 hard drives and the memory card. Time to breath!!
Next day I head home and start processing, 4 days later I had 119 edited shots. It took longer since all the shots had different lighting I had to do each one on its own, I couldn’t just drop a preset on all of them. I don’t think I did to bad! Bride is happy and tells me so. Which make groom happy and he tells me so. All the photos they and I posted get good comments and lots of likes.
So what did I learn, preparation is very important. Prepare the equipment double check it. Do your research on what your doing. Scout the location if you can. Have spare everything if you can, camera, batteries, flashes, everything.
It was a great experience but still not my cup of tea. I think I could make a living from it but don’t want to tie up every weekend chasing weddings. I learned a great deal and it will improve my photography. Which is always a value add.
If you want to talk about what I learned or any of the things I did to prep I would be happy to share. If your looking to hire me for a wedding I don’t wish to hurt your feelings but NO! Either that or you have to offer me so much money you could afford to hire a better wedding photographer LOL.
Until next time
The Redleg Photographer.
