10 Essential Tips to Follow When Photographing the Wedding Ceremony

The ceremony is considered the most important part of the whole wedding event. A lot of preparation would have been done into making the ceremony perfect, and every detail carefully arranged by several people, from the wedding planner to the mother of the bride. As the photographer, it is your responsibility to be as prepared and meticulous when recording the ceremony. Here are several suggestions to guide you when shooting the wedding ceremony:

1. If the wedding is big, with hundreds of guests and a wide church area, it would be an advantage to have an assistant. Someone who can help carry all your gear and help you guide people in group shots means you will have more time to focus on the actual picture taking.

2. Having an extra photographer would also be a plus. You will have more shots to choose from and give to the newlyweds. Another boon is that you both can cover two strategic areas in the church area rather than just one.

3. Try different angles and perspectives when shooting from the aisle to give greater visual impact. Being in a room filled with people allows you to take several shots that include a lot of guests in one shot. Since they will be seated for most of the time, you have more opportunities to set up your composition.

4. Lights from a flash can be distracting so ask the priest’s permission beforehand if you can use a flash. Never fire the flash repeatedly at the bride and groom’s faces. This is one sure way to irk them and not want to refer you in the future.

5. Whenever you are not using a tripod, use camera settings that will not capture camera shake. Keep your shutter speed to at least 1/60 because any slower than that will increase the effects of camera shake.

6. Take note of the aperture size since this has a direct impact on depth of field. If you want to take a shot of only the bride and groom without including the guests behind them, you can use a shallower depth of field to blur out the background. Alternatively, you can set it to keep as much of the scene in focus.

7. Use a long lens such as a 70-200 zoom to keep track of the movements of the key people in the wedding. This way you won’t be interfering with the actual ceremony and be as discreet as possible.

8. If you will be using fill flash indoors, also use a flash diffuser to soften the intensity of the light.

9. Use memory cards with lots of memory space so you won’t need to change it during the ceremony. 4GIG or 8GIG memory cards will do, especially if you are shooting in RAW since that would create huge image files.

10. Check out the church before the ceremony so you have a good idea of its layout, where you can set up your tripod, which areas would make great backgrounds, and what the lighting is like so you know what kind of extra light sources you will need to use.