A Quick Guide To Wedding Photography

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Shooting a wedding for the first time can seem quite intimidating. The shots you take are going to be looked back at by your clients for years to come, so you need to make sure you get them right. Each wedding shoot will differ from the rest, so you need to be prepared for different types of light, people, and weather among many other things. This short guide will give you some insider knowledge into shooting your first wedding, ranging from what gear to use in what situation and how settings and other variables can change depending on location.

What gear should you take?

To name the obvious, you need a professional camera, which you probably already have if you’re reading this. If not check out my camera basics post for newbies. You should definitely try your best to have a backup camera, you don’t want to find you’re shooting someone’s big day, and your camera malfunctions and you don’t have time to get it working the way you want it to. It’s better to just pull that back up out of your bag and carry on shooting. A handy tip is to invest in a camera that takes two SD cards. This way you can duplicate your card, so if one of the cards breaks or the files corrupt, you have the backups that can still be recovered. 

As for the lens choice, this all depends on what gear you have invested in. An ideal set up would be to have two cameras, one with a 24-70mm f2.8 and the other with a 70-200mm f2.8. This would give you an excellent range and you can switch between them depending on what situation you’re in. If you haven’t got this caliber of lenses, you can make do with a 50mm f1.8 and maybe a zoom lens that’s a bit cheaper. You will need to invest in a lens that has a wider angle. This could be a 35mm but even that is not as wide as you might need for some group shots. In our wedding portfolio, we have a group shot with over 50 people and some lenses just wouldn’t cut it for this type of shot. 

You can take a tripod to a wedding but I wouldn’t really see you using it, you’re more likely to use a monopod for stability when using heavier lenses. This can come in handy when shooting the bride and groom down the aisle with a zoom lens. While you’re standing waiting to snap that perfect moment or expression, your arms can get tired, so having that extra stability will allow you to focus on the shot rather than feeling fatigued. Another valuable piece of gear to have in your kit is a diffuser. This will allow you to take shots of your subjects in direct sunlight without the photos having overblown highlights. Another essential bit of kit is a speed light. This will help lighten up your subjects in darker areas such as the reception when there is minimal light in the room. But we will discuss the lights more further in the guide. When carrying all of your gear I would suggest using a messenger bag, rather than a big chunky backpack you will have to lug around for what can be a 12 hour day in some cases. This bag will give you easy access to change lenses when it’s needed and it never has to leave your side.

Preparation shots

If you have not really shot weddings before then this part of the day might not seem significant to you at all. But during the time of the bride and groom changing into their wedding attire, along with the bridesmaids and groomsmen, you can capture some amazing moments your clients will adore for the rest of their lives. From funny moments of the bridesmaids aiding the bride put on her dress to the groom showing his son how to put a tie on, you realise all these moments are just waiting to be captured.

When you first arrive and before the clients begin to get ready, start to take detailed shots of objects such as the wedding rings. You also can shoot anything else they have customised such as glasses, shoes, and even hangers with their names on. All of these would be ideally taken on a macro lens. When we shoot weddings, we generally use a 105mm f2.8 Sigma lens, which is macro and can focus really close to the details of the objects you want to shoot. This will leave you with professional looking photos and with a great bit of editing, you can turn some ordinary rings into a magical image. The small details really do matter to build up your photos for the client.

Throughout the morning, try to capture each member of the family getting ready while trying not to intrude on their day as much as possible. Once you have taken as many candid shots as you think is necessary, start to take some posed shots. Get the bride together with all of her bridesmaids and the groom with all of the groomsmen. Take different groups shots with different people, such as family’s from separate households and get all of the kids together. Once you have grabbed all the posed shots, prepare to shoot both the bride and groom leaving in their cars. If they are in different locations this where it is handy to have a second photographer helping you.

Ceremony shots

Starting off making sure you arrive before your clients to make sure you get the valuable shots of them arriving and getting out of their cars. Then lead on ahead and get shots of them walking toward the church. This should be done for both the bride and groom to get the perspective of both sides. 

These shots are what the clients will look to when you produce their photos. The big moment when they exchange vows and rings and have their first kiss. These moments need to be captured and during this time you need to stay vigilant, never putting your camera down and definitely not checking your phone or twiddling your fingers. Waiting patiently for these moments is key, they will come so you need to have your settings right and ready to focus in and grab that perfect photo. Ideally having two photographers means you can have one situated at the front of the church and one at the back. This will give your client a variety of views of the special moments that will just add that extra bit of professionalism to your work.

After the first kiss, straight away make sure you’re ready to leave and take the shots down the aisle. For this, a zoom lens would be the best to use, making sure you fill the frame with the couple while using the guests' either side as natural frames. Once outside you can start shooting some more posed shots. Typically in churches, they have garden areas. In these areas, you can set up lovely shots with the bride and groom, whether it be with flowers in the background or using the old architecture to add some nice foreground elements. Your main focus should be the shots of the bride and groom but after that make sure to get the clients with various members of their families. Then you can switch to your wide-angle lens to capture those big group shoots filled with countless people. These shots can look great to add as the front or back cover to the photo album you provide.

Reception shots

The start of the reception part of a wedding shoot can be very similar to preparation shots. You want to patrol the whole room taking more detailed shots before everyone arrives. Shots such as the cake, table decorations, and any other details that would add to the story of the client's days.

Personally, while people are arriving and getting settled, I would scout around the room, picking and choosing different tables to wait around to capture great moments. You will find there will be certain guests that don’t really like getting their photo taken, so my advice would be to have your zoom lens handy and sit at a distance and capture the photos without intruding on their personal space. In most reception halls, you will find they are too dark to just use natural light alone. Depending on the location you could just use natural light but most places will be too dark and will become too ISO intensive on your camera. Adding a speed light to the top on your camera, with a bounce card attached to it, will allow that extra bit of light to hit your subjects giving your images a sharp but dreamy look. 

The most important shots you need to capture at this stage are the shots of the cake cutting, the bride and groom's first dance, and also the bride and dad's dance. You should make a checklist for each wedding and discuss with the clients what they want at a consultation prior to the wedding day. Throughout the day you should have a notebook with the list inside so you can tick each photo off you need to capture. This will help you deliver the clients needs the most efficient way possible.

Editing tips

Editing your images starts with choosing the best photos, this meaning the shots that have good composition and the ones that are in focus, among other things. Check out my editing guide that goes through the basics and how the star system works. 

Once you have your selected images, I would edit them like any other image, expose it correctly and adjust the white balance so the photo looks as realistic as possible to how it looked on the day. What’s great about Lightroom is that you can copy the settings of the edit you have just done by right-clicking on the image, hovering over develop settings, and hitting copy settings. You can then paste these settings onto your other images so they all have a consistent style throughout the wedding. One thing to keep in mind when doing this is to adjust the copy settings when your images change from different lights. So if you copy settings from an inside image and paste them on an outside one, the image would love overblown so just keep that in mind.

In terms of Photoshop, I wouldn’t really use that for weddings as much. I only rarely use it to remove specific objects from the photos that are distracting. You will find in a lot of reflection halls there will be a lot of fire exit signs and fire extinguishers, this is something that needs to be removed from the images. You want your images to look polished and professional, so in-camera you could actively try to not shoot with distractions in the background to save yourself time in post-processing. This is easier said than done but it will all come with experience. With my personal style, I like to edit around 70% colour and 30% black and white to give a balance of different types of images for the client, with the colour I tend to stick my white balance moreover to the pink side, while when it comes to my black and whites I stick to high exposure, low highlights, and high contrast but this can differ from image to image. You can try this out yourself and branch off into your own style of work.

Conclusion

To conclude this guide, the main tips you need to take away from this is, you need two cameras both with two SD card slots set to duplicate your cards to prevent image losses due to card failure. Always have your camera ready and be patient and wait for the perfect moments to present themselves. You need a wide-angle lens, a zoomed lens, and a lens that has a middle grand such as the 50mm. Most importantly, just communicate with your clients on what they want and deliver it to the best of your ability. Always make sure to have that checklist handy to see what you still have left to shoot. 

Feel free to message me on Instagram with any questions you might have or any advice you may need @chrisblairphoto

Please comment and give feedback to whether you would like more content like this, I would really appreciate it, thank you and happy shooting!