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My First Wedding Shoot - Recap - Part 1

It’s in the books! I’ve completed my first wedding shoot. Overall, I think it went pretty well. I’ve begun editing and looking through all the photos and I’m pretty happy with how they turned out. There were a few shots I was disappointed in but most of them, including the key shots turned out pretty well for a first-time wedding photographer.

We started the day around 10:30am at the bride’s house where I photographed some of her preparations along with the rest of the bridal party. We shot a few posed portraits inside once everyone was ready, but most of the shots were candid “getting ready” shots. After about two hours at the bride’s house it was time to head to the chapel. We had about an hour at the chapel before the actual ceremony started… I took the chance to shoot a few test shots and review the program. I wanted to make sure I had the program almost perfectly memorized so that I knew what was coming next in order to be in the right position with the right camera and flash settings. What helped somewhat was the fact that the chapel was quite small inside so I really didn’t have a lot of options for where I was going to be. Because of that, I knew I wouldn’t accidentally be caught in the back of the church when it was time for the kiss, even if I hadn’t already memorized the program. Also, because of the space limitations, I didn’t have to change my camera settings and flash too often throughout the ceremony. Everything stayed fairly constant.

After the ceremony, there was a brief portrait session inside the church. I already had the lightstand ready laying behind a pew in the back of the church so all I had to do was grab it and bring it up front. It was my beautiful assistant (my girlfriend) that actually suggested this while we were killing some time before the ceremony. Thanks baby! It was a good thing, too, because we didn’t have much time for portraits before we had to be out of the chapel. The portraits went well. We did all the major groupings such as bride and groom with bridal party, with parents, with family, etc. Thanks again to my lovely assistant for manually holding the lightstand up above the pews for the larger group photos! I wish we would have had a little more time for the portraits to let us get a little creative but we got some good shots in the time we had. The outdoor portrait session that we had originally planned was canceled as well since the both the bride and groom were looking forward to getting back to the house for the reception. I offered to do an outdoor portrait session with them at some point in the near future if they decided they needed some outdoor shots.

After we got back to the reception, we took a few portraits right outside the house and inside before eating. The newly-married couple were nice enough to add my girlfriend and I to the guest list so we had a seat at one of the tables where we could take a break and grab something to eat.

After eating, I headed back into the main dining area where I was able to photograph the toast, the removal of the garter and the throwing of the bouquet. After that, I stuck around for about two hours of dancing before heading out.

All in all, I had a great time! It was definitely exhausting work and very challenging but I learned a lot! And, now, even though I may not be ready take on another full wedding by myself soon, the prospect doesn’t frighten me as much as it once did. I look forward to improving my skills and photographing my next wedding!

Coming soon: Part 2 of the wedding recap! I’ll include some tips, impressions, things I’m glad I did, and things I wish I had done… And maybe a couple shots from the wedding!

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