My First Wedding (as a Photographer)

I must say, my first wedding was when i learned the most in one single day. I was pretty much ignorant to what i had to do. But luckily this was Marcie's cousin Amber's wedding and i had Marcie's husband Mike to lean on. The day before the wedding, Mike and I played with our camera stuff for a while and to share our ideas.

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Later that night, was the rehearsal dinner. The camera crew got there about 90 minutes before the actual rehearsal. Mike and I starting drafting up our game plan for the next day. We figured out where each of would be throughout the ceremony and what shot each of us would get with our different camera gear. The angles were very difficult due to the line of bright windows along all the walls, the high ceiling and the mediocre lighting. After about 75 minutes of hard work, the church coordinator arrived. We checked with her about our plans. About eight words into it, she had the most disgruntled look of anger. She shot down every idea we had. We couldn't use flash, couldn't stand here, couldn't stand there, we weren't able to be seen after the bride walked down. We were confined to the corners of the Church and the back. Begin massive panic. Mike and I instantly scattered to begin our new game plan.

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With much frustration and anxiety, Mike and I were able to get a rough set up for the next day. We knew what pictures we wanted and where we were able to go in the church. We played in those spots and figured what shots we could get. After the dinner, we put our head together again to get the final plan of the pictures. We used many sketches and by the time we were done they looked like football play diagrams.

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The big day. Our preparation was definitely needed and worth it. Mike and I snuck around the church with military precision snapping pictures along the way. The only tense part was taking a photo of the 1/3 second kiss, but luckily i was ready and snapped the money shot. As far as I know, no one else got a photo of the actual kiss. The wedding photos turned out great. Then The post ceremony photos were taken. Mike took care of the camera and i posed the people with surgical accuracy. I was putting hands here, feet there and angling people in an orderly way to get the good side of everybody and Mike just snapped away. All the pictures were awesome.

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Off to the location shots. Amber wanted the sites around the KU campus to be the theme of the shots. We first went up a huge hill in super humid air to take pictures of the bell tower. Then we went to the pond at the other side of the hill. There was a bridge at the far end. Mike took the group to the bridge while i took pictures across the pond with my super-zoom lens. Also we took pics under a weeping willow with the pond in the back ground. Finally, we went to the Jayhawk statue for group shots around that. All pictures were spectacular.

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Lastly was the reception. The angles were hard to get due to the dark room and the harsh bright light from the door when they entered - or anyone else entered. The toast and cake cutting was next. I tried my 50mm f1.4 with no flash to use the warm ambient light to light my pictures and they turned out great. Mike took some great pictures of the first dance and the games they played afterward while i went around and took pictures of everyone attending. Much fun.

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We have many great photos. All in all Mike and I took 1200 pictures that night. So we have great shots of every aspect of the wedding. Thanks Mike for all your patience and hard work.

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Click here for some of our photos.

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