6 Things to do Before You Photograph Your First Wedding
March 31, 2022
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If you just booked your first wedding as a photographer, and are wondering how you could possible be ready in time, this blog post is for you! Whether you’re relatively new to the world of photography or have been photographing portraits or other events for years, weddings are a different beast altogether. So today we’re going to give you 6 action steps to help you get ready!
Six Things to do Before You Photograph Your First Wedding
Today, we’re going to answer one of the most common question we’ve ever seen from newer photographers. It goes something like this: “I’ve been shooting portraits for a little while but I just booked my first wedding for later this year. What should I do to prepare?” Or sometimes, it looks a bit more like, “Help! I just booked my first wedding! What do I do now?!?!?”
There are a ton of different ways that a photographer should prepare to transition from a portrait photographer to a beginner wedding photographer. But we’ve identify just 6 thing that we think can make the biggest difference when that wedding day comes around. So let’s dive right in to how to prepare for your first wedding as a photographer!
#1: Get some starter professional gear
If you don’t already own a basic DSLR (or better yet a mirrorless) camera, now is the time to get started! If you’re still shooting with a point-and-shoot camera, your first wedding is a great excuse to upgrade.
Along those same lines, most beginner cameras came with what’s called a “kit” zoom lens (like a 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6). If you can only afford ONE additional lens, get a simple prime lens, like a 50 mm f/1.8 or an 85 mm f/1.8 to use for portraits and use the kit lens for wider shots as needed!
If you already have a prime lens or two, and are wondering how to further build your arsenal, be sure to check out our Camera Bag Essentials Blog/Video Series, where we explain how to build up your arsenal of professional photography gear in the order that makes the most sense for you and your business!
#2: Know how to use your gear
If you aren’t comfortable with your gear just yet, practice on friends or even on inanimate objects. Practice inside and outside, until you know how to adjust your camera’s shutter speed, aperture, and ISO, and what each of those does and how they affect your images.
You should also intuitively know how to focus, how to change lenses, and how to swap batteries and memory cards. Generally, just take some time to learn all the important settings on your camera. In the unpredictability of a wedding day, you want to know your gear well! You’ll have so much to focus on with posing and organizing families and wedding parties — the last thing you want is to be also trying to remember how to use your camera.
#3: Begin learning to shoot in manual mode
If you’re being paid to shoot a wedding, shooting with all your camera settings on “auto” just won’t cut it. You need to be ready for all the different lighting scenarios that a wedding can present!
If you need help learning to shoot in manual, ask a more experienced photographer friend, look up YouTube videos, or get out and practice adjusting your settings. Do ANYTHING you can to begin getting comfortable shooting in manual!
And by the way, one of the best things you can do for your photography is to find a mentor whose works looks like the kind of imagery you want to produce, and show them your images and your settings after each practice session. They old saying, “practice makes perfect” should really be, “Practice with analysis makes perfect”! Going out and practicing doing something the wrong way won’t help you in the long run!
#4: Get REPS!
Between now and that first wedding, get as many reps as you can. If all you can schedule are free portrait sessions for your friends and family, then get out and shoot those! If you can book paid portrait sessions or events, then do it! If you can assist more experienced wedding photographers on wedding days (even if you don’t get to shoot), it’ll be SO worth your time because of how much you’ll learn. And if you can get paid second-shooting gigs, that’s best of all!
But no matter what, build confidence (and your portfolio) by getting out there and shooting as much as you can, and growing as a photographer each time.
#5: Learn wedding days well
When we booked our first wedding, not only had we never second-shot a wedding before, but we had never even been to a wedding before! We definitely don’t recommend this! ????
If you’re like we were then, you may not be familiar with how a wedding day flows, especially from a vendor standpoint. Look at example photography timelines online. Look at the work of photographers who you admire. Start to get comfortable with the different types of photos you may have to take.
As a wedding photographer, you need to be competent at photographing not just portraits, but now also products, events, families, action — and all while also being able to wrangle a crowd and problem solve on the go!
#6: Communicate with your couple
Find out what’s most important to them, know their timeline (or better yet, build one for them), and make sure that you’re on the same page as them ahead of their wedding day.
Just building a relationship with them will make the day go so much more smoothly! If they didn’t pay you for an engagement session, just give them one anyway so you can keep getting to know them, and practice with them in front of your camera!
That’s it! Thanks for reading! We have so many more things that we would tell a photographer to help them prepare for their first wedding, but we felt like these 6 points were the most foundational and important ahead of your very first wedding. So best of luck out there!!
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If you’re interested in checking out more of our best blogs for beginner photographers, here are the links to a few of our most popular series!
