Wedding photography? easy!

I just got done with one of the most challenging weddings I've done in years. That got me thinking, about how people, both customers and photographers, who want to start shooting weddings, don't usually have a clue what is involved in doing a decent job at shooting weddings. For one, most people think it is about having a camera. It's not. Nowadays cameras are fancy, so people think they just point, shoot and voilá. Great pictures!


Um, no.
Just to give a better idea, I'll describe the process I followed for this specific wedding. Granted, each wedding requires a different approach, based on the place, the time of day, the weather, the couple's taste, the particular idea you have for their wedding, the venue, etc.

This was a summer wedding, indoors. It was at a venue I love: Town Pavilion in Kansas City.
It's a gorgeous place. Since I've been there, I knew it was huge, dark and has four story ceilings. Gray ceilings.

The bride wanted to take some images outside. The forecast was 98 degrees and sunny. The time for the outside pictures, around 2pm.

So, the day before the wedding, I spent the whole day recharging about 50 AA batteries, camera batteries, the quantum battery and the Vagabond for the monoblock flash I intended to use for the outside pictures to kill the sun and have decent images. Also, to light the rotunda at Town Pavilion.

While going back and forth checking batteries, I was modifying the set up I use to transport gear.
So I was building a mobile cart with a light stand, to easily and quickly move the whole battery package, stand, umbrella, and many pounds of gear without having to do and undo every time we moved to a different location. (we shot at a total of nine locations)
I also made sure I had maps from every location, driving directions, made sure my assistant was ready to go, formatted memory cards, cleaned lenses, camera sensors, tested all flashes, remotes and wires.
It took me about eight hours to do all this. This wasn't the first time I had to do with this wedding. Previously, I did three engagement sessions for the couple. One last winter at the skating rink where I was taking pictures inside the rink trying not to get killed by the people who actually had skates on them! Then two sessions at the Overland Park Arboretum, another gorgeous venue we love.

Then, when gear was done, I mounted and matted the couple's signature image, a favorite one of our brides, which they display on an easel at the reception for their guests to sign.

Anyway, that was my Friday. Went to bed around 1:30 am, just thinking I had everything ready, car was in good shape and trunk with the gear packed.

Saturday came way too soon. Shelby, my assistant, came up at 8:40am, we went over the day and the plan, got a quick snack and got there right on time.
Weddings are fast stressful events. You got to hit them running. Started taking pictures right away, while setting equipment up. So we got the"getting ready" pictures started, got a good spot to hang the wedding gown up and took some more, then while Shelby kept taking candid shots, I went back for the rest of the gear, and then took off to take pictures at the groom's house, while he was getting ready.

Guys pictures are usually fast. They don't care about posing a lot, nor having lots of pictures. It's mostly about the bride. So once done, went back to Town Pavilion, right in time to get the images of her slipping into her dress, and take some amazing and emotional pictures. After that, it was time for the groom to see his bride for the first time, barely had time to set up my lights, and took some images there. Then went to the roof top for some amazing images with the city buildings, bridges and the river as the background. It was already very hot, and setting up gear was difficult. It was really windy on floor 37, so we tried to move fast.

Then off to the trolley. Trolley was packed and we went to three different locations( Union Station, The Westin and Kauffman Gardens) where we had to go out first, set up lights, do all bridal party and couple pictures, pose people, make them smile under their tuxes at almost a hundred degrees, pack up and move to the next location.
After all that was done, go back, get the rest of the gear and head up to the church to set up lighting for the formals. This picture was taken at the Westin Crown Center Hotel, where they nicely allowed us to use their waterfall for pictures.

We've been at it for already seven hours, and the most important part hasn't even started. We haven't eaten, have not even sat down. We get to the church to find out that we're behind schedule, so everybody is stressed out and have to do formals in about 40 minutes with a huge bridal party and a huge family on both sides. Once we managed that, had to pack up gear, because the church didn't allow flash, so we had to shoot all natural light. It's a good thing we have fast lenses and good cameras at high ISO's. After mass, the bride wanted some portraits by the stained glass, so we set up again at the church and took some portraits. Went on fast to get to the reception before them, and yes, set up lights again.

Now, Town Pavilion is HUGE! So we had to set lights on the third floor, second floor, and dance floor level, make sure nobody tripped on them, and move between hundreds of guests in a very packed area. A note to myself: I need to grab a different kind of bag for this scenario, my backpack is just too bulky.

We did the reception pictures, toast, first dance, dollar dance, bouquet tossing, garter tossing, candids, rings close up, a bunch of special picture requests for people we didn't even know, got in the dance floor to get in the middle of the action. I got to eat something at 10pm, right before we left around 11pm.
For all these different scenarios, we needed a lot of gear, we needed to know how to use it, set it up FAST, have back ups, work as a team and very important, keep our cool when things got stressful. At the end everybody was happy.... and we were so exhausted!!!!

Now, I look forward to editing the images. With just 2599 images to go through, sort and edit, should take me another 10 hours. Then, time to design the wedding album.
But now, I'm taking an painkiller for my back and legs.

That's why I really believe most people don't get all the effort it takes to get those images. It's countless hours of preparation, planning, strategy and passion, just to get a final product: A beautiful wedding album that the couple will hopefully keep for many, many years and show proudly to their families for generations. It's history in the making and we're proud to help show it.

You can see more images of the wedding in my website. click here.