Catholic Church Wedding in October

[jnksherman]

Hi all. I've been "hired" to shoot a family friend's wedding in October. I'm feeling pretty good about despite the lack of wedding experience and hearing the horror stories in this forum. Just seeking some advice from anybody that wants to offer it.

The wedding will take place in a very large cathedral type church. Lots of stained glass windows on the north and south side. The front of the church faces west. The B&G will face east towards the altar. I have been told that no flash is allowed during the ceremony. I'm kind of just wondering about lighting tricks when working by yourself. It's obviously impossible to handle any relfectors, etc. and operate the camera. I have some stands for that during the formal shots.

That's another thing, the wedding party will be 18 people total. B&G and 8 on each side. My widest lens is the 18-55 kit lens. Is this sufficient?

Here's my gear list below, and any tips or advice are greatly appreciated!

Canon EOS 20D Body (I may rent another body or just buy a used one… not sure yet)
Canon Kit Lens 18-55mm
Tamron 28-75mm f2.8
Canon 50mm f1.4 USM
Sigma APO 70-200mm f/2.8 EX DG HSM
Speedlight 420EX
BG-E2 Battery Grip
2 x 1 GB Sandisk UltraII Compact Flash
SmartDisk FotoChute 20G Portable Storage Device
Bogen/Manfrotto 3021N Tripod Legs W/ 322RC2 Grip Action Ballhead
Lowepro Backpack
Lowepro Toploader Pack 70 AW
DynaTran Photo Studio Light Stand Support
DynaTran Photo Lightdisc Reflector Holder
Dyna Tran Photo Portrait Lighting Kit DP-2497K
Dynaphos 5 in 1 Collapsible Reflector Kit 40” x 60”

[EOS_JD]

Used at the wide end the kit lens should be ok., It's only f3.5 but you will not need super fast shutter speeds at this range. You should be able to use it at around 1/30th and get good shots. It depends on how close you are. Last one I was at I was pretty far back and even the 50mm f1.4 would have been wide enough.

For set up shots stand back with the Tamron and you should be ok. If space is tight use the 18-55.

If you can borrow or rent a spare body (highly recommended) then I'd probably use the Tamron and the Sigma 70-200 f2.8. You may need a higher ISO to get decent shutter speeds but if the shutter speeds are low, try the 50mm f1.4.

Regards
Jim

[DaveG]

Hi all. I've been "hired" to shoot a family friend's wedding in October. I'm feeling pretty good about despite the lack of wedding experience and hearing the horror stories in this forum. Just seeking some advice from anybody that wants to offer it.

The wedding will take place in a very large cathedral type church. Lots of stained glass windows on the north and south side. The front of the church faces west. The B&G will face east towards the altar. I have been told that no flash is allowed during the ceremony. I'm kind of just wondering about lighting tricks when working by yourself. It's obviously impossible to handle any relfectors, etc. and operate the camera. I have some stands for that during the formal shots.

That's another thing, the wedding party will be 18 people total. B&G and 8 on each side. My widest lens is the 18-55 kit lens. Is this sufficient?

Here's my gear list below, and any tips or advice are greatly appreciated!

Canon EOS 20D Body (I may rent another body or just buy a used one… not sure yet)
Canon Kit Lens 18-55mm
Tamron 28-75mm f2.8
Canon 50mm f1.4 USM
Sigma APO 70-200mm f/2.8 EX DG HSM
Speedlight 420EX
BG-E2 Battery Grip
2 x 1 GB Sandisk UltraII Compact Flash
SmartDisk FotoChute 20G Portable Storage Device
Bogen/Manfrotto 3021N Tripod Legs W/ 322RC2 Grip Action Ballhead
Lowepro Backpack
Lowepro Toploader Pack 70 AW
DynaTran Photo Studio Light Stand Support
DynaTran Photo Lightdisc Reflector Holder
Dyna Tran Photo Portrait Lighting Kit DP-2497K
Dynaphos 5 in 1 Collapsible Reflector Kit 40” x 60”


When I shoot weddings I don't want to be the star of the show so I don't like to be in the front of the church during the ceremony. I go up into the choir loft - if there is one - and shoot the ceremony from there. If there isn't a choir loft I shoot down the centre aisle.

I have a 5D and a 20D but I use the 20D for this part of the wedding. First off it gives me "additional" focal length with my 70-200 f2.8. Now I know that this is artificial but if I were to use the 5D and crop then the file size works out to be about 8MP. SO I get the same results in a smaller file size.

In any case these shots from the back of the church are ALWAYS with a tripod. I'm effectively using a 320mm lens and shooting at 1/60 of a second (at ISO 1600) . Without a tripod I wouldn't have a prayer even if my 70-200 has IS. Now I find that the 70-200 is great for this but it was only a few years ago that I would be using a 150mm lens on a 645 film camera and that's the equivilent of using a 50mm lens on a 20D! So you use what you have.

Of course from the back of the church you are just going to use available light and no flash. There's no way you could properly light a church of this size and the flash fall off looks horrible. You will have to pick your moments when the subject's aren't moving too much or there will be subject blur.

Around here one of the things you have to be concerned about in a Catholic wedding is that most churches have a Mass on Saturday afternoon. I've literally been backing down the aisle of a Catholic wedding with the just-married B&G coming towards me, while Mass go'ers were entering the church! Ask about that when you talk to the B&G as it removes the church as a resource for doing other shots. You don't say where you are from but I always want a plan for a rain day, and a Cotholic church is a great place to do groups as there's usually enough room between the front pew and the alter to have an infield practice in!

Be also aware that this wedding is taking place in October. If you live in the Nothern US or Canada (where I am) then it's going to get dark EARLY in the day by October. If you are planning park photography dig out an almanac and find out when sunset is that day and take an hour and a half to two hours from that time. There will be no park photography if there's no light.

If you can practice as many of the parts of a wedding between now and then. I've written this before but you can take three or four people outside and shoot them while using fill flash. You can practice taking pictures of your wife. And so on.

[imhotep]

.....and hearing the horror stories in this forum. Just seeking some advice from anybody that wants to offer it.



I'm curious about the horror stories, because I'll be shooting my first wedding in November.

[DaveG]

I'm curious about the horror stories, because I'll be shooting my first wedding in November.

The majority of my wedding horror stories seem to happen at the wedding presentation rather than the wedding itself. If I get a bad vibe from the presentation then I decline the wedding. Hopefully I do this in such a way that, if asked, the b&G will say that THEY turned ME down. And that's the way that I want it. I want to be grey and forgotten in a couple of days. Maybe I'll pick up her sister's wedding in a couple of years. The original bride might have been a problem but her sister isn't. But if the sister hates me ...

So what horror stories can I tell? I had a groom get drunk in front of me at a wedding presentation, when he drank a whole bottle of wine. I have a shot of a B&G walking down a path framed by trees. His drunken response was, "I don't want any beeping pictures of us walking through a beeping cave!"

I had much older bride (50+?) with a much younger groom (25ish) say as she started to look at my portfolio, "I have to take my eye out first." Luckily, after a bad moment for me, she meant her contact lens. Then she said that she would only hire me if I could assure her that the two of them would look to be the same age in all the photos. She showed me a 4X6 print that she had of the two of them to illustrate how it could be done. Well both of their faces could be covered up with my finger nail on that print so I explained that I would probably get closer. Oh he was about 6' 2" and she was maybe five foot tall so there was that. Mostly though she was a bully and I wanted no part of it.

I had a bride who refused to consider that it might rain on her wedding day. "I won't talk about rain." Now where I live it can rain on any of the 365 days of the year, so that was just stupid. Now more to the point, it's either going to rain, or not going to rain on her wedding day and neither one of us has the slightest control over that. What I was afraid of was that she had the red colour of her roses in her mind already. When she saw the actual roses the red wouldn't be that colour - and how could it be? The limo is white instead of black. There's a baby crying during the service. Any or all of these run of the mill situations would send her into bridezilla mode if she wasn't there already, and I don't know what she would say about the pictures.

Normally I suggest that I arrive an hour and a half before the wedding service to do the pre-game shots, but that assumes that the church is no more than a ten minute drive away. I don't need the full hour and a half but I do it this way to build in some glitch time. A bridesmaid is late, dad is off on an errand; those kinds of things. I had one bride that wanted the before-the-wedding pictures but she lived a good 50 minute drive from the church. It was an early wedding as well, 1:00 or so, and my arrival time would have to be about 2 1/2 half hours. I was starting to say that she was likely to have problems with scheduling her makeup and hair when she solved THAT problem by telling me that she wanted me at her house no ealier than 12:00 noon. That was a full half an hour LESS than normal. I figured that I had maybe 10 minutes - assuming no glitches - before I would have to leave to ge to the church JUST as the ceremony was starting! I almost lost it at this one. I wanted to say, "Tell you what. Let someone else shoot this wedding. When you grow up and get married again in five years, give me a call then. You are still a child." But of course I didn't, sigh ...

My last wedding presentaion story is both funny/stupid and then not the least bit funny. I'll tell the truth as much as I can but I am changing some things: It was about five years ago and I got a call from a bride to shoot her wedding a few days later. It was off season wedding and they had gone back and forth over whether they'd have a photographer. So an hour and a half later I arrived at what turned out to be the groom's parents' home. The bride was there, along with her mom and his mom. The groom was at work. His mom wasn't part of the presentation but was puttering around the main floor. The bride and her mom started to look at my portfolio and were making all the regular bride & mom noises, slandering other brides "How tacky ..." and stealing ideas, "Oh those flowers look nice."

After about 25 minutes or so the groom's mom leaves the floor. As soon as she leaves the bride and mom turn to me and say, "There may not be a wedding Saturday!" I responded with "Eh?" and then "What happened?" They had just found out that the groom was $50,000 in debt, the wrong debt like maxed out VISA cards, motorcycles and so forth; and that he hadn't told her!

Then they said to me, "What should we do?" Now I've known a lot of people for a lot longer than 30 minutes and I'm not looking to give them a lot of life advice! Of course I had given up on this wedding by this point. Never mind getting the money, what if a fight breaks out! As I packed up my stuff the two of them followed me out to my car still asking "What should we do?". I turned and said, "OK. You've asked my opinion and here it is: Marry him in six months. Marry him in a year. But don't marry him Saturday. Get this fixed first."

And off I went never to hear from them again. But about three years ago (this is the creepy, non-funny part) a man who fitted this guys education and life style was convicted of murdering his wife. She had the same job as my bride too. Now I know that it wasn't the wedding presentation bride who was murdered, as she came from away and the victim was from here. There is a chance that it wasn't that goom either, and I've searched my files looking for their names to no avail. Yet the guy's job, the wife's job, the new location and his money problems all add up to it being him.

That kind of makes drunk grooms pale by comparison.

I guess that a lot of wedding horror stories don't happen if you pick the right B&G. Ninteen times out of twenty the B&G pick me. Of course I think that it's very important to not pick that 1 in 20, if they act like any of the B&G's above. A speaker at a sales convention I attended a few years ago told us that we all had clients that we couldn't afford to keep. They were 1% of our profit and took up 5% of our time. They pushed us to discount the product and then wanted more added to it. The best thing for us was to make it our competitor's problem. If you nip this in the bud at the presentation then you'll save yourself a whole bunch of grief and probably book another wedding for the same day.

[Dimitry]

Dave, that was interesting to hear. I'm shooting weddings for someone else currently and have heard some pretty interesting stories myself to say the least. The last one regarding the possible murder, that's just scary. Very unfortunate and lets hope it wasn't the bride you knew. My condolenses go to the victim anyways.

Regarding the business seminar, that wasn't Brian Tracy you were listening to regarding the 1% of the customers comment? Sounds a lot like his philosophies and seminars on business.

[EOS_JD]

Dave Good advice but I have a couple of points.

I have a 5D and a 20D but I use the 20D for this part of the wedding. First off it gives me "additional" focal length with my 70-200 f2.8. Now I know that this is artificial but if I were to use the 5D and crop then the file size works out to be about 8MP. SO I get the same results in a smaller file size.

If you crop a 5D image to the same field of view to that of a 20D, the 5D image is only around 5 megapixels.

If you take the same photo with the same lens from the same location with both cameras, and then crop the 5D image down to the size of the 20D image, the 20D image has a 3 megapixel advantage.

In any case these shots from the back of the church are ALWAYS with a tripod. I'm effectively using a 320mm lens and shooting at 1/60 of a second (at ISO 1600) . Without a tripod I wouldn't have a prayer even if my 70-200 has IS.

IS allows around a 3 stop advantage so 1/60th should easily be enough to get sharp images at from a 200mm lens even on a 20D. I can shoot sharp images with the 70-200 f2.8 IS at less than 1/30th sec handheld (and at 200mm - 320- equiv) . Do not underestimate the usefulness of IS.

Cheers
Jim