My first wedding

Hi chaps, thought I'd show you some of the shots I've done at a wedding recently (my first!).

It was a learning curve for me it has to be said. And there's PLENTY I'll do differently next time, but you've just got to get stuck in and try. Bride and Groom are chuffed to mint balls with the pics - their reaction to the finished shots was fantastic. With it being my first I also didn't charge them a significant amount, just enough for it to be worthwhile for me. I didn't feel comfortable any other way really - didn't want to add pressure on myself.

I should also mention that it all went perfectly. I went to the venue twice beforehand (just 10 min drive from my work) and did a pre-shoot with them to create a PowerPoint slide deck to serve as a 'mood board' for the day - give them a better understanding of what shots we'll be doing.

I also made sure the ushers has the formal group shot list a week beforehand. They were fantastic is getting the right people in front of me when I wanted them. We were half an hour ahead of schedule!

So here are a few shots from the day:

Gareth, you have no idea how much I had already cloned from the background!

It's down to personal tastes of course; I didn't see the table & chairs being too much of a distraction. But by that time I'd had enough of cloning (lesson learned there).

I did indeed do a shot with them all waving. We had three shots from above; wedding party, family and everyone. With each of them there was a standard pose and a waving shot. They didn't quite turn out as I would have liked - too many hands/arms blocking key people in spite of several shots taken and also looking at the possibility of pinching heads from other shots.

Good advice Gareth - it is all about the bride and groom at the end of the day.

The table and chairs in the upper right of the pic is a nice touch in the composition IMO. If Anything is distracting it's the red carpet on the left. Would have been better flowing from the centre

I agree with Gareth about getting them to wave though. Also gettign the girls to through teh flowers in the air ( like graduates throw their mortar boards up ) or get the all to jump in the air )

My favourite shot is the penultimate one of the bride facing away from the bokeh girls miming a netball match.Bride needs some extra contrast to separate her from the background though IMO.

Thanks Smeggy; good advice there.

No problems with them Bob, except maybe the doorway shots... not your fault that the doorways too narrow. The couple could have been brought outside although you've don that with the close-up.

The table and chairs on the group shot actually make it into something special, so leave them in.

Thanks Algi.

It's becoming an interesting debate regarding the table & chairs!

I personally think that the other items in the background (especially the bush) mean that the table & chairs isn't really an eye sore. If it was alone in the background it would be a different story I think.

I had to go back and look for the table and chairs so not a great problem.

Did notice that bloody great umbrella in the bride and groom shot though.

God knows why they were left there for the ceremony. Was a tad annoyed

It would probably look worse without the umbrella, just a
big white rectangle.

The bokeh is nice on the 3rd shot of the flowers... is that
the 30mm Sigma?

It certainly is the 30mm Siggy!

To a wedding photographer it would be worth buying for the
bokeh alone

Amen to that.

Plus I'll be the proud owner of the DA* 50-135 tomorrow once again (had to sell the original one I had for emergency funds, and I've missed it ever since, sniff). Add to that the Siggy 17-70 I've just claimed too and the 10-20 I have which has it's uses, and I think I'm there with everything I really need.