How to Prepare for Your First Wedding as a Photographer

Okay, so you recently had your first couple book you for their wedding - eek!  You’re probably feeling a lot of emotions -  excitement, nervousness, confusion, and motivation.

But the one question you're probably asking yourself is, “How do I actually shoot a wedding as a photographer?”

I totally get this feeling. I still remember my first wedding years ago, and all of the butterflies and nerves that I felt on that day.

If you are feeling this way, this blog post is for you! In it, I'm going to be walking you through how to best prepare for your first wedding as a photographer and some tips to help make sure you are truly ready for that big day.

Make Sure You Have Some Experience with Weddings

When I talk to new wedding photographers, the one piece of advice I always give is to make sure you have some sort of experience with photographing a wedding.

When I first started out and booked a wedding, I had no experience photographing a wedding or elopement AT ALL. Since I didn't know a lot of photographers personally, I actually reached out to a big photographer couple in my town and asked to shadow them for a wedding.

This is a great experience for both of us, as they didn't have to pay or rely on me to provide photos for an event that I had no experience with, and it also gave me a great behind-the-scenes look of how to photograph an entire wedding day, without the pressure of having to be a second shooter.

Second shooting is also a great way to get really amazing experience on the job as a wedding photographer. Reach out to as many photographers as you can and ask if they need a second shooter or if you can shadow them. Either experience will work in giving you enough knowledge to be ready to photograph your first wedding.

The Equipment You Need for a Wedding Day

Photographing weddings is a lot different than photographing a session because you're dealing with a longer day and lots of different elements like lighting, groups of people, and different settings. This means that you're probably going to need a little bit more than just your favorite lens and camera body.

Some of the things that you want to make sure that you have in your camera pack when you're preparing for a wedding are:

• A couple of batteries for your camera

• A backup camera in case something happens to your main camera body

• Lots of memory cards

• A couple different lenses (think a zoom lens, a portrait lens, and a wide-angle lens)

• Flashes for receptions.

Also you want to make sure that you have a camera where you can record on two cards at the same time. This is extremely important for a wedding because you never want to run into the scenario that your memory card stops working and you lose all of the photos from the wedding. This allows you to have a backup in case something bad ever happens to your memory card.

Make sure that you have a hard drive as well to backup photos as soon as you are done photographing the day. Weddings are a lot higher pressure than sessions, since you can't really do them over, so you want to make sure you have a good backup system set up so you never run into any issues of losing photos.

Work with Your Couple to Create a Timeline

Although it may feel like you're being pushy, it's actually really helpful if you sit down with your couple and create a timeline for their wedding day.  Most couples have no idea how long it takes to take photos let alone how long activities take on a wedding day.

Since you probably don't have a lot of experience photographing weddings, I would just recommend Googling how to create a timeline for a wedding day.  There are lots of photographers who have created posts about it and can help you create a rough estimate of what you need timing-wise for your couple's wedding day.

This is a great way for you to establish a strong connection and sense of trust with your couple, and it also gives you complete control over the entire wedding day. It can be really scary to go into a wedding day if you have no idea what the day is supposed to look like or how much time you'll have for each photo, so preparing ahead of time and creating a timeline with your couple can really avoid that lack of knowledge and unease.

Don't Be Afraid to Save Poses on Your Phone

On the actual wedding day, you are probably going to be extremely nervous and forget a lot of things. One thing that still happens to me is I sometimes blank out on poses, whether it's for the bridal party, the couple, or even for family photos.

There is no shame in pulling out your phone and looking up some poses. First of all, your couple probably knows that you're fairly new to photographing weddings, so they shouldn't be too judgmental if you need to take a little glance at your phone throughout the day to check on poses. If you feel self-conscious about it, you can do it during some down-time, like during the ceremony or when you're waiting for your couple to be ready for photos.

You can also preface it by saying, “Hey, I have a pose that I wanted to try out; I need to check my phone to make sure I remember what it looks like.” This way it makes it look like you had a plan for this great pose, which will probably excite your couple and not really make them doubt you and your ability as a photographer.

 Lastly, just make sure to have some fun and not put so much pressure on yourself for the wedding day.

Although it can be very scary and intimidating, it's also an amazing day to celebrate your couple.  Focus on trying to make it the best day possible for them and highlighting the love and excitement of their big day in your photos.

Don't freak out if you miss a photo - there are always so many moments to capture on the wedding day, and you won't get them all. Have fun, be prepared, and have an amazing first wedding day as a photographer!

If you liked this post, check out my blog post about how to set your prices as a wedding photographer!