Devil's advocate

isophotostudio wrote in post #12112943
I hate never having enough time to do the couples portraits!

It always seems to get shunted back, and squeezed down, and than poof, it's the reception and they just want to party, while I still want to take artistic photos. Ce La Vie, I head off to snap the shutter and enjoy the music.

Kind of along these lines- I hate when they complain that they didn't get enough portraits of just the two of them. I can't create photos that aren't taken and they should realize when they run off to party that not everything was taken. There have been a few times when I've been able to pull them away from the party to take some more but I never expect to be able to do this and rely on it.

But my Devil's Advocate response is that I should have managed the portrait time better. Most of the time they run over because an aunt wants a pic of just her and the bride and then a friend wants one, too. Then the mother of the groom wants pictures of the groom and each sibling individually, and... yeah. You all know what I'm talking about! I think putting your foot down and saying "We can get these at the reception, right now we need to focus on the essential group photos so we are on time for the reception" may make the aunt a bit of an enemy, but will make the bride and groom happy in the end. Of course, if it's the bride requesting these I keep my mouth shut and shoot what she wants!

I've actually had really understanding brides in this matter, a few have even apologized!

I've only actually managed to pull a bride and groom away from the reception once, and that was only because the groom convinced her that she would regret it after the fact.
It's the first piece of advice I give clients, "Get all the family portraits finished before the reception, or they won't get done!"

To get back to the OP's question. I have two things I don't like.

1a: feeling like I have to wheedle a meal out of the couple. I normally shoot at least 10 hours a day and rarely get a break. Is it so much to ask that I get a meal? This leads me to

1b: having the caterers offer to seat me somewhere completely away from any of the guests while I'm eating. I always say no to this.

2: videographers who don't use wireless mics and end up shooting the ceremony almost directly next to the officiant. Yes, I know they are paid professionals so do I simply suck it up and try and crop them out of every single ceremony image later on? Or do I shoot the entire ceremony in vertical orientation, just so I can avoid capturing the person with the large video camera 3 feet from the groom?

PeaceFire wrote in post #12118589
Kind of along these lines- I hate when they complain that they didn't get enough portraits of just the two of them. I can't create photos that aren't taken and they should realize when they run off to party that not everything was taken. There have been a few times when I've been able to pull them away from the party to take some more but I never expect to be able to do this and rely on it.

But my Devil's Advocate response is that I should have managed the portrait time better. Most of the time they run over because an aunt wants a pic of just her and the bride and then a friend wants one, too. Then the mother of the groom wants pictures of the groom and each sibling individually, and... yeah. You all know what I'm talking about! I think putting your foot down and saying "We can get these at the reception, right now we need to focus on the essential group photos so we are on time for the reception" may make the aunt a bit of an enemy, but will make the bride and groom happy in the end. Of course, if it's the bride requesting these I keep my mouth shut and shoot what she wants!

I try and only do a half hour max of couples portraits. Honestly, it's my least favorite part of the day and my unposed, PJ stuff is where I concentrate. I don't think I've ever ran out of time for the portraits. I guess I'm lucky

isophotostudio wrote in post #12112943
I hate never having enough time to do the couples portraits!

This doesn't tend to happen to much to me very much as we talk about it eary and often and they plan for a sufficient amount of time for portraits.

BUT, when the bride is running behind getting dressed, then the limo is late, everyone is slow getting out of the church . . . That's the stuff that drives me crazy as they in themselves don't create photo opportunities, they only steal them because our time gets frittered away.

When I assist The Wife on wedding receptions, the first thing I do is make a sweep of all the tables so we can get as many guests as possible. Consider it insurance. Then I go for the more dynamic shots. When we got married, we specifically instructed the photographer to get shots of our wedding guests, many we hadn't seen in years and may never see again. He ended up taking none, because those types of shots were "boring." We ended up having quite a few issues with the photography from our wedding, which is one of the motivating philosophies behind The Wife's business (she guarantees a wedding she shoots will have better photography than her own).