First Wedding Debrief

I recently shot my first wedding as “the photographer for the day” and this is a bit of a debriefing of what I learned for those of you who may soon be finding yourselves moving on from assisting to taking on your own jobs.

Your first wedding will probably be one of the biggest learning experiences in your photography career, it was for me. I had trained for this day, and I had made sure I was as prepared as I knew how to be. I had 6 different lenses ready and waiting should I need them, extra batteries for my camera and flashes, charged and waiting, a spare body, more cards then I knew what to do with, and hours of self talk in my back pocket. Little did I know that I could have had the whole Orms store in my bag and have spent a year with Oprah and it still wouldn’t have meant I was prepared.

You see I had no idea how much of the day the photographer is actually involved in the planning of a wedding. I had never really been to the pre-meetings, just the weddings, so I did not really know how they worked.

When I had the pre-meeting with the bride, I got the timeline for the day, a call shot list of the people she wanted formals with and we chatted about some picture and location ideas. Done and dusted surely? Not quite.

What I realised during the course of the day was that all those photo-sessions that seemed to happen so organically when I was shadowing ,didn’t happen quite so organically on this day, in fact they didn’t happen at all. We rushed from hair and make up to getting dressed and after getting dressed rushed to the ceremony, there was no time to show case the hair, make up and dress, or to go for strolls in the garden for a portrait session. We had a schedule to stick to ,and, were running late. As a result , I ended up shooting the entire wedding day photojourn (apart from the couple’s shoot which, thank the Lord, we had spoken about).

Chances are if you have not agreed upon the photojourn style of shooting, your bride is going to be expecting the wedding photography norms that she has been browsing through online for the last few months, and these take time, which takes planning. The awareness of these expectations, and what I could logically deliver, had my nerves on edge.

After the wedding I had a debriefing with a friend photographer and he told me that in his pre-meetings he usually ends up suggesting how the day’s schedule should run as opposed to having the bride provide him with a schedule to work around. He even gets the groomsmen to get dressed up before heading to the bride for her preparations, when the groomsmen usually get back into casual clothes until about 15 mins before they have to be at the ceremony . This way he can get both the brides and the grooms prep shots, which would usually be happening around the same time and would leave him needing to be in two places at once, and whilst he is very talented, he doesn’t posses this ability.

So at their first meeting, months before the wedding, when none of the finer details have been formalised, he has a meeting with the couple about the timeline and makes sure they understand that if they are going to get the shots they are expecting, they need to give him the time to get them for them.

He generally makes sure that he has an hour with the groomsmen and asks that they are already dressed apart from their shirts and shoes when he arrives, he spends about an hour with them, which he schedules so that by the time his hour is up, he can then head through in time to catch the last hour of bridal prep and gives himself an hour after this with the bride to get the portrait session shots. After the ceremony he asks for half an hour to get the formals and an hour to get the couple’s portraits. IN this meeting he has effectively ensured that three and a half hours of dedicated photography time are scheduled into the day, something a bride to be could never be expected to schedule on her own steam.

After the debriefing I immediately got hold of my up and coming brides and scheduled meetings.

I also was not prepared for the guiding role I would need to do on the day.For most weddings, the bride and groom have never done this before and are so overwhelmed by the day that they have no idea what to do when, which means that they often look at their photographer with slightly panicky eyes and a big “what do we do now?” expression on their face, not really an expression you want to be reflecting back to them.

It goes from simple things, like being asked “is the bride supposed to wear her garter on the left or right thigh?”, to giving more emotional support, to actually guiding them in their wedding day proceedings. The latter is something I found quite difficult, being a introverted 20-something, it took a bit more confidence than I had packed to be addressing an entire wedding party of 30+ year-olds and telling them what they were doing.

So whilst this doesn’t involve too much more planning than knowing when key moment are happening and where (cake, confetti etc). Make sure you are mentally prepared for it. Your first wedding will be quite an experience and the possibility of being thrown into a directing role you were not aware of can be quite daunting.

Lastly, make sure you have spare cards and batteries on you, not in your bag. I had all my spare cards in my pocket and a spare camera battery in my pocket but, rooky mistake, I did not think to put flash batteries in my pocket, they were charged and waiting in my bag. None of my card changing needed to happen frantically during key moments, none of my camera batteries did either, my flash however, decided to run out of batteries as the first dance started, which resulted in one of every wedding photographers lowest moments, the re-run. The bride and groom were so understanding and great about it though, they simply decided to have fun dancing together room enjoying an excuse to be in each others arms again that day.

Its a common knowledge that most people learn how to do their job on the job, and it seems that your “on paper” skill is only a small part of what you need to know. Having done my first wedding, I can see why this is the case. Luckily the couple and myself had an understanding that this was my first wedding and had worked prices out accordingly, but not many people are able to make arrangements like this, so for those of you may not have this luxury for your first wedding, my advice would have very little to do with equipment choices or technique, it would be simply this…plan time for your shoots, be prepared for your role in the day, and keep your spares on you at all times.

IF you woudl like to see some pictures of the day check them out on my new website  …. http://sarahhowse.co.za/?p=336