[Presto]

It sounds like I am in basically the same boat as the OP in this situation. My baby sister is getting married this summer, and I am shooting the ceremony and reception. I have no experience in shooting weddings as of yet, but I did get many months of prior notice of the event, so I have had lots of time for research and preparing my gear. I have spent untold hours on this forum, gleaning information about wedding photography. For what its worth, here are a few of the tips I have found.

Beg/Borrow/Steal an extra body.
Take extra memory cards. Don't delete anything from the cards.
Have someone dump your cards onto a laptop when you fill them.
Get the flash bracket.
Don't skimp on the flash.
Charge all the batteries you have, and take them with you. Don't forget lots of batteries for the flash.
A tripod is mostly useless unless you have the spare body.
Never chimp your shots. Worry about your bad ones at home. Don't delete them, they may save your bacon.
Use fast primes if you are indoors.
Have a plan and get into position early to minimize distracting movements. It isn't your show.
Find out if it is acceptable to the preacher/bride/etc. to use a flash during the ceremony.
Remember you are only hassling electrons, not wasting film, so take a ton of pictures.
Take some cold water, and a fresh shirt.

There are a lot of other tips. Since I have had the time, and you may not, I thought I might save you a few hours. I have made a checklist of them, but I don't have it with me right now. These are just the ones that I remember off the top of my head. I think the best piece of advice that I received was that they don't expect too much from me, so I should not get too wound up about the whole thing. I'll take better pictures if I don't. It was also suggested that I only take pictures at the beginning of the reception. After the first part, everyone just wants to have fun without a camera in their faces. Since we are family, we should join the celebration at some point, too. Right? Have fun!

[houstonmacgregor]

Didn't see it mentioned, maybe missed it. But have at least some kind of decent second camera. Borrow it if needed, but hello murphey's law.

[nicholaspaul]

rparmar, Mattdm - thanks for the comparisons. Metz48 vs Sigma 530 it is. I just have to see what's available locally. I know a great store that will help me with the final coin-toss!

Thanks for the checklist, Presto. I like the one about hassling electrons!

[mattdm]

Cool Matt! Sorry for my lack of reference-keeping.

Oh, no complaints. Mainly I wanted to point out that I've expanded the calculations and now have several different ways of viewing the data. (I think the flash burst profiles are particularly nice for visual thinkers.)