The full works is excellent, and far better than an eighth wedding has any right to be.
First off though, it's a crying shame what that "hairdresser" did to the poor bride. Trouble is, though, a lot of them just
lurve doing wedding hair and to them that means an up-do and Dangly Bits. And a lot of brides know no better than to just go along with it when they suggest Dangly Bits. The only way we ever found to deal with this curse was to lay it on thick with brides right from the start about how Dangly Bits can be a real PITA on the day and can phuq up a lot of their snaps. I actually used to say to them at our first meeting when talking generally about their wedding "If we do your photos, will you promise me now that you won't have Dangly Bits?
Anyhow. Ref the blog post ...
5th one in (second hair shot) - WTF
is that red bar and where did it come from?
Mum hugging - it's OK, but once you've caught a nice moment like that, it's always worth lining yourself up for a shot over the bride's shoulder of what happens next i.e. them pulling back a bit and mum looking her straight in the eyes
The two tight b/w headshots of slap going on - I reckon the first one's a dud but I love the second.
Me and my brother (after the cufflinks) - nice enough, but a step to the right would have got a better angle
and lost whatever that is in the doorway
Slap picture before Dad with his tie - a clever MUA to doing the customer's eyeliner and powdering her own nose at the same time, but that's a nice example of the safest angle for the eye-makeup shot
Bride and dress on hanger through to when you left for the church. Take out the b/w of the youngsters, the two reaction shots after that and the grab shot of Dad hugging the bride (all of which you do right to include), and you have a run of twelve very good wedding photographs indeed.
Ceremony's fine, but if you meet that vicar again, point out to him that he sent these two out the wrong way round
That b/w confetti shot's a beauty. We did a
lot of weddings before we got a better one than that.
Posed shots are perfectly fine AFAIC, and the same goes for the speeches. BTW, ref that one of Dad turning to the bride and it looking like his eyes are closed, one way to avoid that is to adopt my secret technique of always shooting the FOB's speech from table-top level, crouched down just to the right of the bride.
Cake-cutting. If that's as it happened, it's fine. If the venue set them up like that, they should know better. If you did, they're arse about face. Bride to your right of the cake, groom to
her right, he puts his left arm round her waist and holds the knife in position with his
right hand, upon which she places her
left hand so you can see the ring.
Dance shots are fine too, although I'm not keen on that Big Arm in the first one.
All in all, an excellent coverage with a very nice feel to it - and it's
exactly what many discerning brides want from their wedding photographer. There's no aspect in particular that strikes me as something you need to be concentrating on at this stage in your development: you're obviously thinking hard about what you're doing, but without over-thinking it and trying too hard.
If you can keep on turning out a product like this, you're going to have to do something very silly on the business side to be short of customers next year.
PS Just remember (because if nothing else, you're bound to be asked) that the bloke on the bride's left arm should be her Dad. The bloke on her right arm should be her husband. During the ceremony, the groom is on the right as you look at them from the back of the church/room. Once the deed is done, the celebrant should rotate them so that the bride is on the groom's left for the recession (and for the posed photos).
