August posts- Weddings, weddings, weddings!

Ahhh weddings.  Nothing stirs up the old sentimental feelings quite like a wedding.  Two people decide that they're going to spend the rest of their lives together and so we have a big ceremony to celebrate that fact.
Usually, weddings make me happy and I love dancing and hanging out with the people I'm there with.  However, I just shot my first two weddings and I have to say that weddings now make me a nervous wreck! :)
My buddy Paige went along with me to this first wedding.  She was a great moral support and a great helper as well.
I think I learned a LOT from this wedding and I applied some of those things to wedding number two which will be my next post probably.
Here are some things I learned:
1. You work on the bride's time.  The whole show revolves around her and if she's not moving fast, then everything is delayed.  We did not take any pictures before the wedding because the wedding party in this case didn't seem to want to get ready very fast.  I would have liked to get some of the pics done before hand because that meant we were doing a ton of pictures after the wedding.  I don't care personally, but pictures are pretty boring for most folks at weddings and I could tell that the whole party just wanted to be finished with the pictures and on to the reception.  So, then, I felt a bit rushed.  I didn't get some shots I would have liked to get.  I learned that I must put this in my contract--- certain pictures must be accomplished before the wedding and then all of the group shots can be afterwards.
2. Church and reception lighting sucks.  Jeez.  The lighting in both places was so dark.  I didn't really want to have to use flash during a ceremony, but I had no other choice.  Some of the pictures still came out more grainy than I would have liked because I had to boost that ISO up to a minimum of 800.  I learned that I better get ready to work in low light=more flash batteries and buying a program to clean up noise.
3. It is a long, long day.  During the ceremony, I didn't feel like I had a lot of time in which the camera wasn't up to my eye.  For me, that means neck pain!  There aren't too many breaks in the action.  I took about 2000 pictures for this ceremony.  Some were multiple shots of the same thing so I could make sure everybody's eyes were open, etc, but that's a lot of shooting for one day.
4. Posing is my weak point.  After the wedding, the family is ready to listen to ME to tell them how to pose.  That is where I felt the weakest.  I need to take a lesson in this or read a book about it because I always have trouble with this no matter what I'm shooting that involves people.
5. Shoot RAW.  Of course, I do this anyway, but on several pictures, it really saved me.  I could adjust the exposure and white balance in the editing instead of having to worry that I didn't get an especially dark shot.
Here are some shots from my first wedding.  I'm pretty pleased overall- they look better than my wedding pictures do and the family seems pleased.  I will keep trying and keep learning about it and hopefully the next one will be a little easier.