Ever crashed a wedding with your camera?

So my GF and I were thinking about how crazy it would be to actually crash a wedding, using my camera and a lousy "2nd shooter" excuse to get in easy. Anyone ever actually try this? Not that I'm seriously thinking of doing it, I just thought it'd be amusing.

Right behind you

Best have a friend prepared to post bail.

Precisely.


Although my first thought was "I hope you can fight".

My dear old Mum, now 93, once told me that if the wedding, was a church wedding, anyone could attend whether invited or not. HOWEVER, you could not go to the reception unless invited. Them were the rules way back - as for today who knows. Suggest asking the wedding party (the Best man, Maid of Honor etc.) for permission.

I was on vacation last week in south Carolina, and just happened to be doing some Kite Aerial Photography on the beach, when we noticed a bunch of folding chairs set up on the beach and a guy setting up his steel drums. He said that it was a wedding, and it was suppose to have started already. Since I had the camera in the air, I figured why not? My wife and I walked upwind about 30 yards, which was on a public beach, at the entryway to the public access point, and parked ourselves to get a good aerial shots of the ceremony. After it was done, I packed up and gave my business card to the videographer. Hopefully, he'll share it with the wedding couple! Not sure if this was crashing a wedding as you intended, as it was held in a public place, but I did poach a bunch of good pics. Sorry for the watermark, too lazy to upload separate ones to flickr...

The setup:

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Technically that's not crashing. That's just being an innocent bystander. I think "crashing" in the "crashing" sense would mean that you go to a church or somewhere and shoot a ceremony without being invited. Public property aside, actually going into a building that you weren't invited into to shoot a ceremony that you weren't invited to would be crashing to me.

Although I don't think there'd be too much hubbub if you did, since churches really aren't in the habit of turning people away. At the worst you'd probably just get a really stern talking-to by the hired pro. Technically they can't do anything but yell at you a lot and make you feel bad. There's no legal way anybody can physically remove you.

Pub, as a fellow Kite Flyer and Photographer I admire your work! I for one would have introduced myself to a friend of the bride or groom and offered those shots as a gift. What a great perspective for a couple to have photos of their wedding. Not many (if any) can say they were photographed by a Kite!

quadrant6 wrote in post #8476351
So my GF and I were thinking about how crazy it would be to actually crash a wedding, using my camera and a lousy "2nd shooter" excuse to get in easy. Anyone ever actually try this? Not that I'm seriously thinking of doing it, I just thought it'd be amusing.

I'm sorry, but I don't find that amusing at all.

Bryan

Geez, lighten up. Didn't yall see the movie Wedding Crashers with Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson? That was some funny S!
But two douchebags could use a camera and the 'second shooter' excuse to get in. Once you're in you don't have to shoot, just park your but through the ceremony and have a good time at the reception. If they question you getting into the reception, use the gear again, then have a good 'ol time. Everyone will be like "who's that?" and they'll be like "that's Bill, Aunt Sally and Uncle Joe's third cousin from that second marriage...You remember..." then they're like "Oh yeah..."

perhaps the best way is to ask the bride-groom (or someone senior from the family) that you would like to photograph & then give the pictures away as a gift , people are usually nice.

I don't think he's talking about rollin' up in a wedding to shoot the thing out of the goodness of your heart.
I think he's talking about Crashing a wedding. i.e. rollin' up in a wedding to get your drank' on and your groove on. Or just to get some tail like in the aforementioned movie. Purely to have a good time. That's "crashing" a wedding, isn't it?

I shot some photos of a famous English sportsman's wedding a few years ago - I found out it was in my village so I just turned up outside the church and shot photos of them and the guests as they arrived (there were a lot of other famous sports stars there too). I later emailed his club via their website and his wife got in contact a few days later. Turns out thier photographer didn't get any shots of the guests outside before the ceremony so she asked if she could have some of mine!

It's not something I would normally do but I knew there would be a crowd of onlookers and fans so I mingled with them and stayed out of the way. I also knew the vicar, having gotten married there myself the same year, so he was able to tell the couple that I was a local and not a photographer from the media (there were 2 press togs there who were not made as welcome!).