'First Wedding' Story

Jambo_84

Jambo_84

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Rob
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Hi everyone, just thought I'd share this with you, I'm sure people will learn from it, I sure did!

After getting into photography a couple of years ago I got the inevitable 'will you do our wedding' from my cousin and his now wife. I generally say no to this request as I am a hobbyist and do not have the confidence to perform under pressure. This was a bit different, he was on a super tight budget and said he wouldn't be getting a photographer if I didn't give it a go so don't worry if I messed it up! Either way I finally agreed and wanted to do the best I could for him.

I hired a 70-200 L f2.8 IS lens to get the job done right but ended up only using it for a couple of shots!

Anyway the problems started before the ceremony...

About 10 mins before the bride was due to arrive my camera decided to die on me (no backup), I removed the grip and tried a single battery but it still wouldn't work, my heart was pounding and could have cried! I put the grip back in and luckily it turned on :shrug:

I took the shots of the ceremony on my 2gb Sandisk card and when it was full switched to my (new) Kingston elite pro card for the signing of the register shots and all of the outdoor group shots. While I was taking my last group shot I looked at my top LCD screen only for it to say Error02! On the main screen it said 'card not formatted, please format with this camera' (I had done this before use). I could not view any of the 200+ pics I'd taken. By this time I was devastated and told my other half what had happened who said it wasn't my fault but I blamed myself for agreeing to do the damn thing in the first place!!

I carried on and shot all the speeches and some candids at the night doo and proceeded to get drunk with my family and forget all about my horrific experience!!

When I got home on Sunday morning the first thing I did was plug the laptop in to see if I could recover any of the pictures. Luckily I managed to download them all including the ones on the dodgy card, phew!! I've done some editing and have some nice shots that I'm sure they will be happy with.

I read lots of threads on hobbyist's doing weddings so knew exactly what I was getting into BUT I also read lots of articles where different people said 'if it's going to go wrong, it's going to go wrong at a wedding' to which I thought I'll be OK, my camera will be fine!!

So will I do a wedding again? NOT A CHANCE!! Pro's charge what they do for a reason, they have the gear and the knowledge to pull it off. It turned out OK in the end for me but the experience is one I never want to repeat.

Hope you enjoyed my story :D

Rob.
 
Jambo_84 said:
Hope you enjoyed my story :D
Click to expand...
I wouldn't have used the word 'enjoy'. It was painful in places :( :'(

One aspect of wedding togging that really comes out of your story is the need for the quantity of kit - not just the quality of your kit. I wonder how much you would have paid if another wedding guest had sidled up to you and offered to sell you a memory card at just the right moment?
 
I was having a conversation with someone the other day and we agreed that usually, if you're prepaired and plan things, you're ok for shoots, including weddings. That kinda thing you have no way of planning that!

Personally, I did some, well, best described as snap shots, with my bridge camera before I got my DSLR of my SILs blessing. For me personally, - never again! Trying to fight through people with a wheelchair and trying to be discrete when my chair bleeps etc....nah, it's just not gonna work is it? LOL

Really glad that you saved the images, bet your heart missed a couple of beats that day! Good on you though and well done!
 
2blue4u said:
I wonder how much you would have paid if another wedding guest had sidled up to you and offered to sell you a memory card at just the right moment?
Click to expand...

I had 4 memory cards totalling about 20gb so quantity/memory wasn't an issue
 
Thanks MagicMynx! I was so relieved when they downloaded :clap:

Still never again lol
 
ive been thinking about this i dont have a spare dslr

if i went to something like this i would have my g9 and my old film slr as a backup
 
nightmare stuff,
I do weddings every weekend and whilst I've never needed it yet thanks for reminding me why I have 20 x 4gb cards, 2 x D3's and 2 x D2X's as backups and pro glass with backup glass to match. I hope I cope as well when it does happen to me.
 
A cautionary tail of Sod's law in action. The saving grace was that they would not have had a photographer if you had not agreed to do it; I hope and bet that any photographs they got would be appreciated.
Its make you think though, would the same things have happened any other day when you were not in the spot light, and your fingers turn to a 1lbs of sausages.
 
well done chap
hope you enjoyed the wedding yourself in the end
I turned down a friends wedding for this coming november.
I will take photos and got lots of family compliments for the candids I did at another cousins wedding this summer...
but main togger??? unless they were absolutely skint and begged?? not on your nelly.
(then I'd borrow all my friends kit if I could so I had backups!)
 
Well, that sounds like some problems you had! I do weddings and have (touch wood) never had a single hiccup from my gear :) As rare as it is though....it does happen, and well done for coping!
 
Well I now have two weddings to do in similar circs i.e. if I don't do the photographs there will not be any! Luckily we will have 3 bodies, 2 flashes and a selection of lenses. I'm the best man at one of them!!!! Just 8 people including B&G I will need to read the instructions re timer or alternatively a wireless radio remote :)
 
I had a fully charged battery pack up on my first one shooting on my own. Quick check on the top panel, no power at all. Thankfully the other camera over my shoulder took over until the first natural pause where I got a spare battery out my belt pack and changed it, all in under 11 sec. No break in coverage at all. :)

Phew!

Well done with coping all on your own too and thanks for sharing. :)
 
I enjoyed reading your story Jambo and can sympathise with you, I did my mates wedding a few weeks ago, I only did it because he said he just wanted SNAPS!! so I used 2 bodies my d300 and my old fuji s2 pro and when I got the pictures off the fuji I noticed that lots of the shots had black bands through them and green fringing, I was devastated but managed to get some usable shots from my d300.

The B&G had a harley davidson motorcade and trying to organise them was a nightmare.

Anyway my fuji has gone off to fuji to be repaired and the gold lining is that fuji said that they would fix the camera free because it sounds like an inherant ccd fault(it is 6 years old) however they said that they have no ccds and if it is the inherant ccd fault then they will replace my s2 pro with a brand new s5 pro..Free of charge.

i am still waiting to hear from them.

thanks for sharing the wedding story.
 
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