K-5 - wow!!

Yes, great camera the K5 - it certainly doesn't get the recognition it deserves in the general photography "community", it's definitely up there with the best of them now

Simon

Most people I've known who have got married want a photograph record of the whole wedding day, not just the 'official' ceremony. Right from the Bride's preparations, to the last dishevelled drunkard stumbling back to the hotel room.

Even a Caribbean beach wedding would have frolics into the evening

Wedding photography is just going to get better and better as Cameras attain higher and higher ISO performance and the need for mood killign flash is less necessary.

Flash is only mood killing in the hands of the inept

I'm rather inept when it comes to flash

Disagree. While flash has it's great uses, there are many situations where Flash is mood killing.

There are loads of places where flash is totally unacceptable or would indeed kill the mood.
You don't have time to mess about with off-camera flash and diffusers. If you want that gorgeous subtle light bouncing down the corridor onto the children you have to take a chance with the ISO or something, because flash just wouldn't come close, no matter how much you bounce it around or turn it down. Not to mention giving away your position.
Ken, I'm surprised...

Oh yes, the K5 rules

Why are you surprised?

This is what I take on a wedding shoot: one Pentax 350FGZ, two Pentax AF400t, two Bowens Gemini 500, one Bowens Gemini 200 plus assorted brollies and soft boxes etc.

Several thousand pounds invested and I'd like to think I know how to use it.

I want control and I want beatifully lit pictures, it is what people expect and deserve when they are paying, sometimes, thousands of pounds.

I finish the shoot with a posed picture of the cake being cut and I dont wait around for the meal and the dancing because it makes no commercial sense. No one ever wants those pictures in their album in my experience.

Why would you worry about 'giving away your position'? The photographer is supposed to be in control of the situation.

Personally, i try to avoid using the flash if possible, sometimes you have no choice but in my case i didnt want to be using the flash during the ceremony and causing a distraction, after all the ceremony isnt about me.

I guess i mustnt be that good with the flash either.

As for staying in control, thats the hard part! Fighting your way past all the guests with their SLR's and phone cameras.....

Ken, we clearly have completely different styles. I have yet to be asked to do only formal shots and only the ceremony.
I'm saying there's a time and place for both techniques. You appear to be saying, 'don't use high iso, use flash' which at best, surprises me.
You can't get spontaneous, natural shots, if people (especially children) clock the flash and feel awkward and you'll never achieve the subtle lighting of windows and doorways.
If I was the OP, I would have a choice, buy a K5, or buy 'several thousand pounds' worth of lighting and go on a crash course in lighting and self-importance (sorry that wasn't meant to sound like it does, I just couldn't work like that).

That's fair enough.

A pal gave me a DVD called 'Masters of Wedding Photography' and the styles are more diverse than you could shake a stick at and all brilliant and inspirational. Worth a look if you can find it.

I've always found that weddings are secretly controlled by the drivers, the photographer, the celebrant and the caterers without any of the bridal party knowing anything about it

There is so much going on at a wedding including a multitude of guests flashes, and anyway I'm performing a public service by augmenting their puny lights since they always trigger mine, so I really dont think flash is an issue but obviously you wouldn't use it during the ceremony.

I've only done one church wedding (Roman Catholic) in the past two years in an incredibly bright church lit by sodium vapor lights - try colour balancing the stained glass against that. eek! Everyone else gets married at the hotel or other venue now. Gloomy churches no more!

Reading between the lines in some of the other posts I get the impression that some perceive flash as merely 'illumination', it doesn't have to be that way.

Footnote: As you might imagine, the majority of church weddings here are Church of Scotland where marriage is not a sacrament, therefore there has never been any requirement for a minister to marry anyone in a church.