Me, a wedding photographer?

The reason I went to Folegandros was to shoot at a friend's wedding….. Me, a wedding photographer? …. I have hardly had any experience in this area…. I must say I did my research before I went, rented some extra equipment and thought I had it all planned out…. little did I know…. everything happened fast…. I came back with some good photos but not what I had in mind before going. And a lot of "I should have done this or that… or I should have insisted in doing the next day shooting on the beach etc" but that comes with experience!
 
So, here are things I learned from this experience and some tips to keep in mind
 
The No1 thing for me (besides shooting the couple, family and friends) is to take lots of photos of the surroundings and details! Like in my case, the wedding was on a beautiful Greek island, Folegandros, so I tried to take pictures of the plants, churches, the sea, fishing boats, etc This will help to bring out the wedding atmosphere. I will be making the wedding photobook -Love telling a story by laying out the photos! – so I will use all these little treasures in the layout!
 
No2…. What I learned is that things cannot always go as planned…. - In Greece weddings don’t have a rehearsal…. And as I said I haven’t had experience in wedding photography…. – So, making an actual list of what you want to do is essential!!! And keep it with you. Don’t let all the distractions side track you… and there will be lots – Everybody is happy and wants to hug the couple, take selfies etc…. the couple is living in a dream too…. So I learned that you should be there waiting for things to calm down a bit (and not trying to attract their attention at that point) and then do some photos without distractions…. (I must say, I didn’t do that, so I have lots of photos of happy moments but not many of the couple as such… I was planning on doing a next day shoot…. Which never happened... they had a lot of stuff planned – visits to the island hora etc and we only did some fun photos with their friends jumping in the pool…)
So make the best of the moment… just in case you don’t get the chance to do those extra shots later!!
 
And No3… The other thing was…
I had two cameras with me, with different lenses and different settings – one with no flash and high ISO and one on automatic with the flash popped on top -, for me to alternate and get the best possible results…. But as I said before, with not much experience in wedding photography plus no previous rehearsal I was trying to be everywhere and cover as much as possible… So I ended up using just the one camera…
Next time I will make sure I use both!!!
 
To be continued… Until then check this out  for a 50% off coupon and a gift