Diary of a Wedding Photographer: What They Didn’t Tell You

by Lydia Strehlau –
Wedding photography can seem like a good idea. You have shot a few family and friend’s weddings and have had tons of praise heaped on you. You then decide to go professional and with the encouragement and insistence of the latter, you find yourself shooting your first paid wedding that is not of a relative or a friend of a relative or a long lost friend of a relative who is a friend. It is a genuine stranger with whom you share no relations with any known living or dead persons that you know of.
So as the day looms closer, you experience a few qualms of doubt. To quell them, you call up the instigators of your new profession, those trusted friends and family, who assure you that you are a brilliant photographer and have no need to break into a sweat. To further affirm yourself, you go through your album of flowers, wildlife and landscape photography, approving your spot on composition lighting and choice of subject in focus. You agree that there is nothing to worry about. After all you have been photographing since the dinosaurs walked the earth, and while most of it has been inanimate subjects, give or take the few willing and unwilling relations, you can confidently bestow upon yourself the title of professional wedding photographer.
So the day looms sunny and bright, you smile as you realize that even the weather has come to the party. You adjust your brand new crampler camera bag and enjoy the prod of the tripod you are carrying, that you believe completes the whole professional wedding photographer look.
You arrive at the bride preparation venue, eager and ready to get the camera shooting. At the door, you are greeted by a nonchalant relative of the bride who tells you that she is running late from the salon but will hopefully be there in time for you to get the shots you need. You are ushered to the living room where you sit in the corner and try look professionally absent minded (think tortured French artist) as the family ignore you and stroll past in various stages of undress, expletives and shouts punctuating the air. Your artist stare wavers a bit, but you ignore it and breath a sigh of relief when the bride waltzes through the door.
You wonder whether the salon was closed or she missed her appointment, but eventually gather that the “out of bed where I had many nightmare look” she is spotting on her head is actually the latest “blase bride” hairstyle that is all the rage. You hope that you will faithfully capture the “blase” look and pat your camera bag in encouragement. You hoist it and faithfully follow the bride (who you have inadvertently christened Bridezilla at this stage) past the sympathetic stare of the six year old lounging by the staircase. You are ushered into the badly lit boudoir to capture whatever rushed preparations your lens can get at, as you manoeuvre and squeeze past the bulky frame of Aunt Helga, who grunts threateningly as she tugs and wrestles everything into place.
8 hours later, you drive in a daze back home. The artist vacant stare a reality, only this time it is not brought about by genius or artist angst, but by pure unadulterated fear, terror, shock, remnants of adrenaline…… Take you pick. The resounding sentence in your head is “whatever in the world possessed me…..” and it remains hanging mid thought, as you remember that some of whatever possessed you are probably first asleep in their beds, blissfully unaware of your baptism of fire.
So you stumble past the doorway and will yourself to reach towards your carefully documented and written diary. Oh sweet bliss. It is carefully filled with details of amazing photographic opportunities when you waited for the perfect sunset shot, the great wedding shoot of cousin Bosco’s, the award ceremony you went to for 13th place certificate for the best bird in flight photo. Right now you wish you were in flight. Being a creature of habit, you faithfully reach for your pen. You diary reads something like this.
“wedding photography is stress filled action packed non stop littered with minute by minute events that you must document and there is no time to compose sometimes like that landscape shot, it is in the now. You blink and you miss it (try explain that to blasé haired bride).
Lighting is murder. You have to work with whatever you get and be prepared for it. From badly lit rooms to orange walled churches.
The bride is not your friend. She is also not your relative. She is your client. She may not always cooperate with you, but you must always deliver amazing photos. Fill in the blank.
That is the truth. You must have nerves of steel to see it through. If you are professional photographer with lighting and compositions taekwondo belts under your shoulder and amazing pics of wildlife, sunsets and landscapes to show, good on you. To be a wedding photography that is not enough, you must have the charm of Cleopatra, the nerves of steel, as many lives as Chuck Norris and then some and to crown it off, on those early days, your ever faithful Photoshop cs5.”
The author runs a successful wedding photography business and when she is not capturing blase hairstyles, she offers helpful wedding hints and tips at :-  How To Photograph A Wedding "Best Wedding Photography E-Book in 2011"