A very common question around here: "my friend at work/family member/friend recommended me to shoot a wedding for them. I'm excited! What do I do?"
The answer:
DECLINE
Why?
The biggest reason is that this day will only occur in this couples lives once (hopefully) and it will go by so incredibly fast that the couple will probably only remember fragments of the day by the time they wake up the next morning, if they remember it at all. The number once advice I give to my friends before they get married is "slow yourself down and enjoy the day. it will go by faster than you think." What I found after shooting my first wedding as a hired photographer? "you don't have time to slow down". So with a day so fast paced, and you being so inexperienced with wedding photography...unfortunately its recipe for disaster.
Then there is the bridezilla index... this is scary stuff. The bride is relying on you to capture this day for her as perfect as you can so she can show all her friends and look back at how beautiful she was. This is her day, her one day to be a princess, and if you screw that up, you will be her most hated individual on the planet. There have been life breaking lawsuits over this...
Which leads me to my next point... the expectations of every bride, I don't care how long you have known her, is that her images will turn out just like those in the hundred bridal magazines she has been studying. She will assume you know what she wants (because she won't have time to tell you), and that you have done your homework. If you fail to deliver, well...see point about the bridezilla index. It is no different than you walking into a McDonalds. You have an expectation that if you order a Big Mac combo with a coke you will get a Big Mac combo with a coke. If you don't get your fries, your going to complain. Easily enough, the person behind the counter will give you your fries... you can't reshoot a wedding.
Setting expectations, no matter where you are in your photographer career, or any career where you are providing a service is mandatory. Make sure your client has a pretty clear picture of what they are getting. Every photographer has their own style and personality to their work, and you need to make it quite clear to the customer what they are going to get. If you are a "traditional" style photographer and you ask your client to describe or show examples of what they expect from your work and they are modern or journalistic, decline the offer. If they are traditional in nature, then your in the clear.
Now with that being said, if the bride and groom still want you to take photos for their wedding, price yourself high. Price yourself at a minimum of $2000 for a full day, anything less is not worth it, trust me I know. I did my very first wedding solo for $200, and I wish I would never have. My client (family) was very happy with the product, but the amount of time I put into this was unreal. I was dead tired by the end of the day. I was up before the bride going over all my gear and making sure I didn't forget anything the night before, then I showed up at the brides house as they wanted photos of the women getting ready. From there we went to our photographic destination and shot for four hours, then to the ceremony, and finally to the reception. Four different locations, and about 8 hours of total shooting. This is normal for a wedding by the way... but also add on the travel time and setup time, etc. etc. It was 14 hours of my life that went by in what felt like 2. That is $14 an hour for my services, and I haven't even processed the photos yet.
I then took 2 hours to go through all the photos myself and weed out all the duplicates, the ones where peoples eyes were closed, out of focus, or whatever. Then another hour to bring that down to what I felt were the best images. I then sat down with the clients for two more hours to pick the photos they wanted in print. And finally another 6 hours processing all the photos and sending them to print. Thankfully I hired my printer to build the books for me. However, I still had to frame a few images and pay for those frames. Total time invested? 24+ hours, around $8 an hour. Not including cost of the prints or frames...which was about $150 in this specific example.
Now that you have declined this offer to shoot this wedding, and the bridge and groom have hopefully found a professional shooter after you have explained to them why it would be a bad idea for someone inexperienced to shoot it, what do you do? You still want the experience to maybe do this yourself one day. Well, befriend the professional.
I do this with every wedding I goto where I am not already hired to be there. I ask the professional and the bride/groom if I can come along to do the wedding photos and just observe and take a few snaps, and make it clear that if I'm in the way to just let me know. I always make sure I never give advice unless asked, and I also make sure I'm behind the photographer. I usually even get him/her in the shot as well and offer it to the pro shooter for their website. I also only use a medium tele zoom for this. What this does is give you examples of poses, and also lets you watch how a pro interacts with the subjects. Watch how the pro gives directions to the subject and how it changes the photo. But don't ask, your only there to be a fly on the wall.
So what do you do with these photos? Well, chances are the pro has better photos than you do, so unless asked I wouldn't bother providing them to the bride and groom, your just infringing on the professionals work. Keep them, edit them, play with them in photoshop, but whatever you do... do not post them online unless given explicit permission from both the pro and the bride. (Notice I said the bride, the groom's opinion in the matter does not count)
Now at the reception, if the professional is still around, and if you have been able to build some good rapport with them over the day, feel free to chat. Learn more about them, and use your shared interest in photography as a stepping stone. Don't talk about your work unless they ask you specifically about it. People want to talk about themselves, they don't want to talk about you. Hopefully, if you play your cards right this person may ask you to aid them in future shoots, which will get you some great experience, and after a while... get paid.
Now, once you start shooting weddings, and your the main shooter... there are a few rules when it comes to gear: pack two of everything, lots of smaller memory cards, lots of spare batteries. My solo kit looked like this in 2013:
Pentax K5 x2
Pentax DA*16-50 f2.8
Pentax DA*50-135 f2.8
Pentax DA*55 f1.4
Pentax FA 43 f1.4
Pentax FA 77 f1.4
Pentax 540 flash x2
Induro carbon fiber tripod
2 lighting stands
Elinchrom EL Skyport transmitter (x2)
Elinchrom EL Skyport universal receiver (x4)
18" reflector
grey card
dozen 8gb cards
8 batteries
The FA primes were backups for my DA*50-135, a lens I should really have 2 of. If I had a second DA*50-135 I would not bring any prime other than the DA*55. Not only does it save on weight, but I usually find I don't got time to swap lenses. The DA*50-135 pretty much lives on my camera for the day.
