Richard Vernon , Feb 26, 2010; 01:42 p.m.
So, im planning on getting married soonish, i wonder if people have any thoughts on shooting their own weddings! For starters, my brother and dad have a pair of D80's between them with a few lenses and i can lend them some more useful lenses, and they both do plenty of casual and macro photography, and my father-in-law-to-be also used to do some semi-pro portrait photography, and i have a spare D80 i can lend him.. i can let one of them use my D700 and SB600. Furthermore, i will get them all to shoot in RAW, give me the results and i can happily do whatever postprocessing i feel like. So thats the plan. I think spelling out when i want specific shots taken should be easy enough ("see that beam of light! the camera, NOW!!!"), and i can even orchestrate a couple of shots.. i will set up all the cameras in advance to an auto ISO level which isnt too noisy with fastish glass, and my 3 chaps should be able to get some nice shots.
Has anyone tried this? our wedding will be small scale and to a fairly low budget, so i dont intend to hire a pro, the only other thing would be that i have never shot a wedding myself, im a studio guy mostly, so i imagine we would have to be well organised with the group shots etc so as not to miss anything. The good thing is that the venue and church know us well and should be very obliging with letting shots be taken pretty much any time :) Personally, i would love to be able to shoot it, but being the groom and all, i think that might not get my first day of married life off to the best of starts!
RT Jones , Feb 26, 2010; 01:53 p.m.
Poor brother and Dad. Big highlight of your life and they are now wedding vendors. :(
Will you have other family members parking the cars?
Juergen Sattleru 
, Feb 26, 2010; 01:56 p.m.
What would you tell a potential client who proposed the exact same approach? I think you (and I) know the answer.
William Porter , Feb 26, 2010; 02:15 p.m.
Richard,
I'm not sure what the question is here. Is it, should you ask your father and brother to photograph your wedding? Is it, should you yourself be paying attention to photography on your wedding day? Is it something else?
My first thought is, whatever the question may be, perhaps you should start by asking your bride-to-be about this. She might have an opinion.
My second thought is, I would never ask anybody to photograph a wedding who had any other part whatsoever to play in it. That is, not if I cared much about the photos. My wife and I got married on a shoestring and she asked her brother to take photos. It made sense at the time. He was an avid amateur photographer, then as now. Unfortunately, he was also a terrific guy who was involved in helping with other aspects of the wedding of his only sister—he and his wife catered the reception, etc. Anyway, bottom line is, we didn't end up with too many photos from our wedding. I would assume that your brother and father will have other pressures on them that day.
Now, it's your wedding and of course you can do what you like. Perhaps you can make it work. But this is one of those situations where the only advice any of us who are NOT in your shoes can give you is, don't do it!
Will
Richard Vernon , Feb 26, 2010; 02:26 p.m.
ah, my brother and dad will be delighted to have something practical to do, especially my dad, if anything the problem would be keeping him away from the camera, and trying to get him into a single picture. I wont be standing behind them with a whip, as long as we get a few shots i am quite relaxed. And we probably will have family members helping with cars and stuff, it is going to be that type of small scale wedding where people help out, which is very much what our families are into anyway.
If i had a potential client tell me that they had a friend who would do it for free - which i know is common enough, then i politely wish them all the best and dont lose any sleep over it. In this case im not saying it to negociate a lower price, the 'potential client' is a pro photographer, and the three guys have excellent eyes for it, and know how to use the equipment. Sure, if i had a substantial budget, i would get the best pro whos work i know that i could afford. In this case i have confidence in the quality of the shooting, and i will be doing my own PP work, so i am not worried about getting mediocre results, i am just interested in strategy and possible tactics with the resources i have mentioned.
Richard Vernon , Feb 26, 2010; 02:40 p.m.
Will, your story confirmed my thoughts that i wont get a great many shots from people too close to proceedings, the only redeeming thing is that i have 3 people at it, and that should help a bit. Im not picking this option because i think its a brilliant idea that beats hiring a pro, its just that my budget for this is exactly £0! :)
David W. Griffin 
, Feb 26, 2010; 02:43 p.m.
Well the risk is that you won't end up with much in the way of decent pictures of the wedding right? If that is what happens, will you accept that? If so, it seems doable. I know that when I've tried to take pictures at a company event (I'm an amateur LANDSCAPE photographer) the results have been red-eye, poor flash performance, a reluctance to approach people, and of course not taking pictures while I myself was eating, talking, or was otherwise participating in the party. The result was a bunch of pictures that kinda sorta document the party with a couple that look reasonably good. But by no means would I call it competent.
You might do better with a whole bunch of single use cameras. I don't know maybe it will all work out.
Douglas Lee 
, Feb 26, 2010; 02:47 p.m.
Bad idea, if you are really interested in photographs of your wedding. Also, why would want to do that to your bride?
Jeff Spirer 
, Feb 26, 2010; 03:16 p.m.
There seem to be two things people are saying to think about. One is whether the person/people will be involved in other activities when they are shooting. Second is what you value out of it.
My father shot my wedding. We had a small wedding, I think 45 guests. We aren't the types to hang up 100 photos or pass around an album. I wanted one nice photo of us together in the wedding location (a very interesting historic house) and that's what we have out in our home. I have a pile of other photos, perfectly fine, that we haven't looked at since the day we got them. We wouldn't put any more than that out.
Hal B , Feb 26, 2010; 03:39 p.m.
Well, the price is right. I say, know the risks and know what to expect. Then do the best you can. If you are going to lend out your D700, make sure the photographer knows how to set ISO and exposure compensation. Post processing can't do everything, you know. Be careful handing the flash to someone unfamiliar, too. Best way to use flash is on TTL with ceiling-bounce. This is an easy-cheesy no-nonsense setup that I think most people can use successfully without much training.
