First Wedding...

So... I was asked to shoot a wedding for $400, and being that it was a week

before, I said sure. First wedding ever. I feel fairly comfortable in the

outside and with engagement shots so I figured how hard could a wedding be? HUGE

mistake. Please share your first wedding horror stories with me. Both the church

and the reception had extremely low light and so many of my shots turned out

blurry and with lots of noise. Did any of you just bomb your first wedding? I

probably will have around 200 in focus and not black pictures... but I think I'm

going to offer to refund their money. I just feel bad taking it and giving them

something that I wouldn't have paid for...

I didn't bomb my first wedding, per se, but had a bad enough experience that it made me not

want to do weddings ever again!

 

If you do want to get into serious wedding photography, grab your kit and hunt down

someone who will let you second shoot-that's the best way. Do it for a few different people,

learn some different approaches, and keep building on what you've learned.

 

Would love to see what you've got, we are our own worst critics and it may not be as bad as

you think!

I never shoot weddings but I have been a gust at many, The camera is always with me, Somtimes my photos are way better then the photographer they chose that they paid top doller to, I would give the bride and groom a CD free I dont do photography for money just a hobby as stated you need good experiance and good photo gear for weddings I hate to see a bride upset when her special day photos dont come out nice you cant go back and do a retake,If you make a boo boo takeing photos of anything else its not so bad.

I started out doing video, and after 16yrs moved to my passion, photography, and while my first wedding as a photo wasn't a bomb so-to-say, it was definitely nerve racking and tense. I knew where I had to be, how I had to be, and what to do... but now I was with photo and not video. Very different EYE between the 2 mediums and I still find that I frame sometimes for video

About 15 years ago, I shot four weddings while I was in college for a photography degree. I was young, cocky and I knew it all.

 

First one was for a friend's wedding. During the entire reception, I was using flash and my shutter was set higher than 1/250. Only half of the frame turned out. Not much of a wedding present for my friend.

 

Second wedding, the family rushed me so much during the formals, that I forgot to take pictures of bride and groom (yup, pretty stupid). I made it up to them by doing an hour-long photo session two weeks later with just the two of them.

 

The third and fourth weddings went well, although my posing was nothing to write home about.

 

Almost immediately after that, I started apprenticing with pro photographers and ten years passed before I shot another wedding on my own. Knowing what I know now, I can't believe I took on those four weddings with so little education, practice and skill.

I didn't bomb my first wedding because I apprenticed under a professional before doing one. Made my share of stupid mistakes over the next few years, but nothing major.

The one and only wedding that I ever done , Was my Nieces wedding 3 years ago ,She wanted me do her wedding photos they turned out ok, I must have visited the church and the hotel about 10 times before,To check out lighting....Never again, I used film and Digital to be on the safe side,

I use to have an old SLR camera that I use to take to church. No reason; why but to record anything. The Pastor one day came up to me and said, "Have you ever taken pictures of a wedding before?" I said "No! Why!"

He replied, "You will be in a couple of weeks."

And that was my entry to wedding Photography. The pictures were "OK" but far too many of them!

I also was hired to do her second marriage!

My first was a little over a year ago on film. I was hired by the bride and groom as a second shooter (the primary was also fairly new though much more experienced than me and was fine with the arrangement which was that I would shoot along with him for $100 paid by the B&G and give them all negtives.

 

I was hired just to come for the reception but "invited" to come for the ceremony. Being the enthusiastic beginner, I attended the ceremony and stayed till the very end of the reception (much longer than the primary guy). I remembered taking a lot of what would have been awesome shots!

 

Got the film back and AT LEAST 60% were black! Later learned more about my flash, battery life, battery ready light, etc.. etc... Good thing was had I been the only photographer, I had taken so many, I had enough to cover the event and key moments. Worst part was the couple got to see all my black negatives. They were still happy

I've been so lucky, after reading all these responces here. I did my first wedding for a friend about 6 years ago (2-1/4 & 35). She payed me with a realy nice coffee table and picked up the cost of film and processing. Shooting a wedding can be very stressful for sure. I have it under control by now, I try and make sure the client and I will come to understanding of how this work best, always give them more. But don't let them steam roll ya.

Where's that guy who used to say it was sooo easy and we were practically stealing peoples money?

 

Any way, Amanda, I am so sorry you had a tough time. It's not rocket science, but it does require some skill and time served to get it right. However, as Nadine points out, even those of us who shoot 20-40 per year or more still make booboo's from time to time. On relief is that digital has largely allowed us to make changes on the fly that we never could before (chimpimg).

 

I think you course of action is proper and you might ever offer to set up a reshoot if there are 'missing shots' (i.e. kiss, formals, etc.)

 

Best, D.

Hi Amanda,

 

I've been shooting a little for the past 12 years, strictly for fun (no formal training). A year and a half ago I decided to start a part time business taking pictures. I wanted to do Events with on-site printing, but knew people would ask me to shoot weddings, being that I took pictures professionally. I decided to get aquainted with wedding photography, as I didn't want to turn down any business.

 

In May of 2005, my barber was getting married and as I wanted so desperately to do a wedding, I offered to do it for free. She approved and I happened to do a decent job.

 

With this wedding under my belt, I showed the photos to a guy at my full-time job, and he agreed to let me be the photographer at his wedding. I charged him $600.00, plus a minimal cost for prints. That Wedding came out great and I now had the confidence to do another.

 

I have since taken out an ad in the yellow pages, made up full-color brochures, done Wedding shows and have photographed 10 Weddings this past year, all have been successful.

 

But every time, I get "sick" in the morning of a Wedding shoot. I think who am I to take their Wedding pictures? (what if something goes wrong), you can get over the bad food, or the bad D.J., but photos last forever.

 

Please don't be discouraged. 200 pictures is an average proofing. Much more than than that is overkill. If you have 200 proofs to show them that capture the essence of their Wedding day, you did your job.

Never had any major problems. Think I was well trained and properly prepared as I had 2 years of wedding studies under a gifted photographer before taking on my first wedding. This doesn't mean I never had problems, but I was always prepared with back up gear and just about everything went bad at some time or another. Stolen gear, broken lenses, shutters, flashes, falling down stairs, being wicked sick, mother dying, the works. Today was actually my first Saturday off in several months! Felt great and took the wife to Knott's Berry Farm! The hard part for me at the age of 50 is staying creative. It is so important to go to lectures, conferences, get together with other photographers and compare styles, read magazines, do whatever it takes to stay on top. Needless to say, Photoshop skills must also be mastered.

My first few weddings were all shot for cost, they got what they paid for.

 

The next load were a mix of cost and gifts, they got a bargain.

 

After 30 plus weddings my prices are climbing to meet the competition head on, I'd say that's a fair business model. If I'd apprenticed under someone else I'd have had similar pay, similar experience and a similar business today. However all the people that got their wedding pic's at cost would only have had uncle Joe's P&S pic's to choose from.

My first wedding was a very easy going family (Thank goodness!!) I feel like I did a better job than I thought I would! I charged enough to cover the price of the SB-800 I bought for the wedding. So I am greatful to have done it to have the flash!!!

I am a bit of a timid person (changing fast!!) I went to the rehearsal the night before - it was a hole in the wall church - not very pretty at all. Anyway the next day I was standing outside with the groomsmen just getting a feel of people before starting to "shoot them". I am 32 - and this man in his 50s probably, about my dad's age, came up to me with his point and shoot and asked me "What are your intentions once you get inside, because I am shooting this wedding too" (he was a friend of the groom's fam....the brides fam hired me) - I about fell over!! I was like, uh, uh, uh... anyway this guys follwed me around ALL day long and shot everything I did - he even started posing my formals - I finally grew some "you know whats" and just started stand right in front of him and speaking up one where I thought they should stand. I got a few chuckles insider when he would shoot and them look at his screen and say "oh man -red eye" haha - with my SB800 I didn't get one single red eye.

Also at the reception - I was shooting away with the same battery I started with in my camera and his was done! LOL - so there were prenty from the reception HE didn't get !!! LOL

It was definitely a learning expeirence. I wish I knew then what I knwo now (I now shoot RAW) b/c I could have done them a better job.

 

~Val<div></div>

Here is another from my first

Here is yet another from my first<div></div>

I got excited when I looked through these again... so one more... sorry.....LOL<div></div>

I stunk my first wedding because I was unfamiliar with using a DSLR. Luckily I was a third shooter.

 

The past 15+ weddings have been smooth sailing under an established pro.

 

What others give as advice in this department is GOLD! Work a season for a pro and you will learn far more with less pressure than you ever could on your own.

 

I've taken in the neighborhood of 10,000 images at weddings in the past nine months before I took a freebie wedding for portfolio material.

 

Yesterday was my third freebie, and my wife that has held a camera in her hands for ... oh ... all of six hours combined saved my bacon with a limo shot.<div></div>

It's tough especially being alone - I just shot my first wedding and because there were 14 attendants, 4 ushers, 4 kids and the rest of the family it was total madness and no one was around when photos were ready to be taken and we were at a huge center so I couldn't easily round them up..I kept telling the bride and groom we needed to get a pic of them and their two little ones but they kept ignoring me and finally I got them together at about ohhh 7:30 and the kids were crabby!!! (1 and 3 yrs old) Needless to say I did not get a single family pic - Only the bride was smiling, the other three were either wriggling or scowling......Plus half of the large group shots are full of crabby faces.. I can't believe how mad these people were about having to get their pictures taken....??? Is that pretty normal? oh and the groom has squinty eyes so they are closed in half of the pics....

Since we are trading bad experiences, here are a few of mine:

 

Things were moving sooo fast in the recessional that I forgot to turn DOWN the ISO level from 1600, going from inside the dim church to outside in the bright sun. Luckily the white dress wasn't so blown out that it was obvious. But I could see the lost details.

 

Not having my flash, and making do with the pop-up flash. Worked OK for 90% of the shots, but I was personally not happy. Now I have spare strobes.

 

Not bringing a tripod and finding the church so dim that some of my shots were at 1/15 sec with a 200mm lens. I was just hopping 40% of the shots would be OK, I was lucky it was closer to 90%. My training on shooting at slow shutter speeds saved my butt. Next time do advance scouting at unfamiliar settings.

 

Not having enough batteries, so I had to turn off the camera/flash between shots to save power. And you can guess what was next. I forgot to turn on everything and missed some shots because one of the gear was still OFF. One of these was the bouquet toss. Luckily the available light shot was halfway OK. Even more lucky the prime photog got the shot. Another lesson learned, bring more batteries than you think you will need, so you don't have to go into drastic battery conservation mode. When you have more than 1 switch to turn on, you will forget to turn on one of them.

 

Not at a wedding but at several family parties. I just could not get the flash exposure high enough, too many of the shots were underexposed. I had to do a lot of PhotoShop salvage work. I was still trying to learn digital and iTTL and auto flash. Manual flash on film cameras was easy, the auto flash drove me nuts.

 

Autofocus issues:

 

AF-1) Several times when the commotion is high enough I've messed up the focus. I must have let up on the shutter just enough that the camera unlocked the prefocus, and then when I shot it refocused on the background between the subject.

 

AF-2) I also don't use "closest subject" anymore because I got many shots with in focus dinner tables and out of focus subjects on the other side of the table.

 

AF-3) I also don't use dynamic focus, because its too hard to see and keep track of which focus area the camera chooses. I now use the KISS principle and use single area (center focus area).

 

 

About the noise. If you have to shoot w/o flash in a DIM/DARK church, because of the need for high ISO noise is a given. Noise from underexposure is a different matter.

 

BTW, as was said, because of our training, we are more critical of our photos than the average person. Secondly, the family is more concerned with the subject than the technique. This is specifically my outside shots where I forgot to turn down the ISO level. The parents did not see the activity because they were still in the church. So my shots were all they had of that activity. But the shot has to be at least decent, bad shots are BAD shots.

 

So in short, hang in there. We all have had problems. That is why as many have said, the best way to learn is to apprentice under a pro for a couple seasons or more, until you gain enough experience to feel truly confident in your skills.

 

A trick that I use to keep my skills sharp. I shoot family parties whenever I can, and I treat them like shooting a wedding or other event. A party is like shooting at a reception, same commotion and similar shooting problems.

 

gud luk, Gary

I forgot one.

 

I have a battery pack with an unlabeled power switch. I turned it OFF when I wanted to turn it ON !!! I was wondering why it took sooo much longer than normal to recyle the flash. I was missing shots that I should not have. I was running down the internal batteries, rather than using the HV pack. grrrr

 

I now have an on/off label on it, so I know which way is ON.

 

When things get chaotic it is real hard to remember stuff that is easy to remember when things are calm...like which way is on and off.

 

Gary

I did great on my first wedding....of course i was playing with photography for years before i did my first.

 

Now my first portrait!

 

Dave

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Robbie and Valerie - You are probably not aware of the forum rules about uploading photos.

 

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