My first wedding shoot

Nervous and exciting. 

I was pretty sure I had the skills necessary to get good shots, but normally it's not just down to me as the sole photographer, and I'm not normally responsible for positioning people or getting them coordinated - I just do the best with what I can, based on the sports event and location. 

So there was a bit of pressure to get that right, and to see if I could actually pull it off. 

To fight that, I had researched some poses and advice that I could use as a fall back in case things weren't working out naturally. 

I also had a shot list that I kept looking at to make sure I got all of the shots the couple were looking for. 

I prefer to be too early than on time, and it paid off - the bus that I booked was delayed by over an hour.. now I would still get there on time, but just about, so I decided to book a last minute train instead, ensuring that I'd be there with enough time to do some location scouting and not be stressed. 

It was a good idea - the bus ended up being 2 hours behind schedule, and so it would have been very tight to make it on time to the wedding. 

It did eat into my small budget for the day though - I ended up spending half of what I made on travel. 

It was a very warm and sunny day, the first in quite a few days (the weather had been rainy, windy and grey for the week leading up to the wedding). 

I walked to the park where the couple wanted some pictures done, and started looking at different spots, and found a nice bench overlooking the water and mountains to have my picnic lunch (picnic lunches like these are some of my favourite). 

Let's talk about pressure / set up for a moment. 

So one of the things putting the pressure on was the fact that I was the lone photographer.. that also meant I would have the only photos of the day. I was pretty worried about having a memory card fail, or losing my equipment on the journey home - so I shot on 2 memory cards, having one as a backup. I also had my laptop with me so that after the shoot I could immediately create another backup by transfering the photos… now that still wouldn't have been good if I lost my bag - everything would have been gone, but I felt better. I might look at a cloud setup in the future, so that some can go directly into a cloud storage and be accessible from anywhere. 

Back to the shoot. 

I was at the venue about half an hour before the couple planned to be there, so I could get some shots of everyone arriving. 

I actually started shooting pictures of them before I met them in person, so we only exchanged hellos after the first photos were already taken.

The first part of the shoot was in the local commune, and this is where they officially married. 

It was a very small room, but I was able to move around a bit to get some different angles of the ceremony. 

After that we did a 'moving' shoot.. it was just a short walk to the park where we planned to do group and couple shots, so I was snapping the in-between moments when everyone had a chance to relax and be less serious. 

In the park we shot a few different locations, and all combinations of people, the couple, small groups with the couple, groups on their own, and one shot with everyone together. 

It was only a small ceremony (chosen on purpose for my first solo shoot), so it was also easy for people to organise themselves - which helped a lot. 

We finished with all the couple and group shots a bit earlier than expected, and since it was hot - the party were quite keen on already heading to the next venue to sit down and get a drink. That worked out well, since I originally wasn't booked in to shoot that part (only 2 hours), but they were some of my preferred photos, since now everyone could really relax and enjoy the day. 

In total I shot around 900 pictures, but selected only 150 or so to share. The discarded pictures included people blinking, or variations of the same shot that were just not as good (eg. for every couple or group shot I had a couple of portrait and landscape variations, with different levels of zoom). 

I delivered the photos around 5 days after the shoot - my initial selection and edit took around 3 days, but then I slept on it to look back with fresh eyes and saw some additional photos that I wanted to edit and add. 

The couple were very happy with the outcome - and I was very happy with how the day went and to come out with good results and no mishaps. 

I would gladly shoot weddings again - I wasn't sure how I'd like it compared to sport, but it brought an element of photography that I didn't get from the sport photos so far.. and that was story, or meaning. 

Even after just 2 hours, I got to know the couple and the people celebrating with them, and that gave the pictures I shot a new level of meaning - it wasn't just a shot of a wedding couple and their friends, but a shot of this couple and all the people they know best, who came from different countries to celebrate them. 

One of my favourite moments was the 'throwing of the bouquet', because they'd already determined and joked about who had to catch it - and whilst you can see the fun in the photos of that moment, it's really cool to know more of the story behind it - and how they'll always remember it when they look back at the photos from their day. 

So that was wedding no.1, thanks to the lovely couple for giving me this opportunity, I'm excited for the next one, and excited to maybe do it as a duo with ecca in the future. That could be a really cool part of our woowoo story / service ;). 

(The couple asked that the pictures be kept private - that’s why they’re not included here, just the cover photo where they are not recognisable.)