Shooting at a friend's wedding - Quick flash questions

I'm fairly new to photography (been about 4 months, snapped a few thousand pics). Recently I broke my 580EX II mount, but it has just been fixed. My mom's friend's daughter's wedding is coming up soon and I just wanted to brush up a bit on my flash 'theory' in preparation. And of course take some snaps for practice.

I have read decent amount of materials dealing with on-camera external flash units and understand at a basic level how to make use of ETTL, 1/250 sync, bouncing, fill/catch-light flash. Most of the shooting I've done with the flash is in Av (either with 1/250 sync or off) then using exposure compensation afterwards to lighten/darken to taste. Not really much experience using manual.

Currently, I have a 580EXII and Stofen, and intend to make a foam bounce card before the wedding and just wanted to make sure I have my ideas right.

- For the wedding, outdoors shooting (daytime) since there is nothing to bounce off of, I should generally use ETTL.. 1/250 (or Av?) and then lower flash output (if necessary) and use direct flash to fill?

- For indoors reception/banquet I should probably bounce of ceiling (if not too high, else use side wall) with perhaps flash card up to reflect some of the light towards my subjects to reduce harsh shadows on nose etc? Also would you recommend shooting in Av and having dragged shutter to properly expose the background, or 1/250 sync to ensure no motion blur?

- For nighttime outdoor pics, is it better to shoot ETTL in Av (non 1/250) and expose background properly but have some blur etc, or shoot 1/250 and have a pretty dark background you can't see.. I've tried both recently in nighttime photography and seems drag shutter has a interesting artistic effect if their moving, but 1/250 is nice to stop action with the drawback of having a dark background.. thoughts?

And lastly, my question is about ABBC's which have the top angled forward opposed to straight up. This is just from guessing, but wouldn't this in effect have the 'head-on-flash' look that is undesired? I realize that the area of the card tries to make it seem like it's coming from a bigger light source.. but I imagine it would look pretty harsh.. so what's the point? Am I missing something?

This has been long winded.. oops, I appreciate any pointers!

First - for weddings/events/etc - if I put the flash on I put the camera in M. If nothing is working for me, ie it's one of those days, I'll even resort to P.

Outdoors straight on - meter the ambient with the camera, set my camera exposure, let the flash do its thing in ETTL and adjust with FEC to taste.

For indoors, camera in M, with a bracket, Lumiquest ProMax System with the 80/20 generally, meter for the amount of ambient I want (raise ISO if necessary), shoot.

Night outdoors same as day outdoors, just higher ISO.

ABBC - I've not seen the bent forward version. I have adjusted the length of the vertical by rolling the foamy down or up which does push more or less light forward. But much prefer to use the bracket with the Lumiquest.

Thanks so much for the reply Titus.

As for the foam diffuser I was referring to something like: http://www.cs.hmc.edu/​~geoff/diy/softbox.htm​l

Eyies wrote in post #6535412
Thanks so much for the reply Titus.

As for the foam diffuser I was referring to something like: http://www.cs.hmc.edu/​~geoff/diy/softbox.htm​l

OK, that's basically a Lumiquest 80/20 with a white insert....part of the Lumiquest ProMax System I mentioned.

You may want to look into a flash bracket such as a Stroboframe camera flip bracket...not too pricey.

jdpence wrote in post #6556436
You may want to look into a flash bracket such as a Stroboframe camera flip bracket...not too pricey.

That's what I use too. Not the best but it works.

I hope you are not the main photographer, if you are, try to see if you can assist a couple of weddings before.

I'd do what Titus said. If you already have a stofen, put it on at 45 degree and shoot away. Don't worry about bracket or any other gimmicks, you do not want to mess with anything unfamiliar at a wedding. You'll only make it worse.

Two important things to remember, change ISO from dark to bright & vice versa, compensate your flash when needed. The easiest way to remember how to compensate your flash is this: if the scene is bright, add, if it's dark minus.