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PRESENTING THE BRIDE

INTRODUCTION - People  —  Welcome to the unabashed boot camp and survival guide for the Photographer new to Weddings and other events with compelling issues that tend to surface causing great pain and possible financial losses. 

This book has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and we make no claims it will cure any disease, or malady caused by shooting Weddings or you being shot at the Wedding by the Brides Father.  On the other hand a good laugh will sometimes prevent suicide. 

No photographers were injured during the writing of this book and if you cannot afford an attorney, my nephew will be available at the usual attorney fees for malpractice cases. I will get a referral fee if you do use him.

This is the first of several sections.  The first section is the most important, it being about your relationship to the Bride And The Event. 

The second section is the relationship of you to the Business.  

The third section “ Equipment" changes so often it is not what this book is about but occasionally I have to open my opinion and i see something that has to be here.  I rate equipment as secondary because without a knowledge of weddings in general, lighting or negotiation you have nothing.  

The technical relationships between you and your gear are your choices. No two people think the same in this respect and gear branders are hilariously protective and usually quite loud and party lined in the brain thinker department and the louder they are usually the dumber they are.

They have to be,  they bring nothing else to the table.  With gear I speak generically. I also will delve into lighting theory, locations and of course the photo terms confusing to some.

DRAGGED BACK IN  —  I retired from the shooting sports, politics (events) and most Weddings ten years ago after fifty years in the game.  

• My brain is still coherent, thought process wise, I'm 100%, but physically wise, those thirty plus pound bags I carried as a shooter for years and standing for hours has added up in my left shoulder to my neck, my legs and knees.  
• The MRI's confirmed things.  I will listen to the Doc or I will meet his golfing buddy, Dr. Arthur Pedick.  
• I walk and bike ride now instead which in Florida is extremely dangerous as most of our seniors,  car-jackers, drunks and druggies use those same streets.  
• Some places you need to ride the trails and carry a .380 in a pouch that looks like a wallet.  Question? What happens when two punks try to rob our bikes with a baseball bat and a knife?   Army trained CQ and a Black Belt.  Both were found after we radio’d the police to get them, off to juvenile hall, cops recognized them.  We didn’t press charges as it would take my time and my partner, these two got a pretty rough spanking this time.  

NO MAS, NO MAS, NO MAS WEDDINGS —   I'll teach, and advise, but no more marathons on these tired wheels though I will never turn down a good friend or associate in a jam for help.  It happened, I got the call, a good friend needed a pinch hitter and they were good customers of mine for my Black Boxes.  

I said Ok for grins, he was serious, and also to keep a shooters eye on the 2nd.  In the old days who cared, extra gigs were three hour weddings and off we went and dumped the job at the lab.  Grabbed another, sometimes three in a day.  Maybe the reception had good food.

This call was different… a modern day “marathon” complete with sibling competition, intrigue over-budget,  intervening aunts and in-laws.  They had plucked this one from another studio who probably did not get along with the Bride, and were going to be one shooter short.  The 2nd shooter was green and this was above her pay scale.  This wedding was already in containment with tears, changes, exchanges and a host of tainted Estrogen only a few days away.   I somehow had a hunch so i got there early.

I had this feeling the original shooter had this lustful desire to shoot the Bride not with a Nikon but with a Remington 1187.   And this was a late botched booking with little info sourced, acknowledged and in writing.  There were several red flags, as red  as Putins ties.  More like the entire Russian Army in Parade Dress.

The other photographer bailed on them and that explained the late booking.  I’ll never know what happened. But this was all to familiar about what I wrote about thirty years ago when I spoke of the Devil in the Black Dress. There is no replacement for experience and I had nothing to lose, not my gig so I went in, trying to help the new gal. shooter #2 who was in trouble already almost in tears. 

Rule One - Big, Very Big Hint:  Find The Stick  —  Within ten minutes after I got there,  just as they were arriving to do the pre-wedding hair make-up and so forth, I had a plan in place as I had done four hundred times before.  

Just watching the folks arriving tells you a lot.  You’ll see who is directing others, and who is “ the stick”.  One of the critical points in the Wedding Game.  It’s a phrase that came from the carnival business, business dealings, scams, almost any meeting of the minds involves decisions made by the leaders. The true leader or boss always ” carried the stick” or made the decisions.  Thats who you want to deal with.  The other players need to be doing something else.

Feedback —  ( Recon) I was told by the 2nd, no one had interviewed the Bride but the feedback was, “ She's mean, and used to pushing people around".  Experience told me I didn’t see it or want to pre-judge that way.  From what I gathered, her attitude was nothing more than pressure building up and exerted on her as her confidents, her aunts and friends had been doing a lot of manipulation.  She was just taking on everybody alone and needed an ally.  I wondered if I had packed MY Remington 1187, a couple of the Mothers and Aunts needed it.

Right Foot  —  I went to the ladies dressing room, like I owned the place, and met the Bride for the first time.  Not my usual procedure, in my Bridal world, by wedding time I usually had been with the Bride that I booked and sold,  at least three times.  Even a casual lunch plus two rehearsals makes you a friend, and puts everyone on the same page.  

After we exchanged pleasantries mostly on my behalf and some unpleasantries on her behalf, aided by her chorus of confidents,  I just sat down and didn’t say a word.  I got ten minutes of face job and her list of things that went wrong. 

I simply stated that I had to do a required Bridal Interview and asked the non-essentials ( Aunts, Mother and a Future in-law)  to leave “  Politely”  ( As I do not negotiate with three screamers)  Next stage is,  "Ladies please leave for a few moments”  and after that it becomes something like “ Please get the Hell out we are running out of time”.    And I tell them they were distressing the Bride. They were stunned.  I made it clear, get out or I’m leaving, The Bride asked for privacy and for them to step out.

Turn around —  I carefully made an issue of wrapping up my gear and headed for the door.  She said something like "Where the hell are you going"?   I said, "I have done Bridal work for forty years, some in featured Bridal Magazines and thought this Wedding had great potential since I had heard how pretty the Bride was and  “ Obviously, I’m at the wrong function.”   

Your crew has managed to turn me off.   I said to her,  "I came to make the most important day of your life a magnificent one” and I told her “ I felt bad because she was beautiful, radiantly stunning, invitingly wholesome, and had quite a healthy look that would really be expressed in the photos and a winner but the whole attitude here was ruining my creativity".  

"I explained we could make the photos the center of her experience that day like a model photo shoot and keep her focused I would be doing the posing. She should not be overwhelmed by small things and the mistakes and the regimen her supporters had tossed on her.   This was her day and all the others do not count.  She is the Bride the most important figure in the room, not her mother, not her aunt, not her future mother-in-law”.

I said to her she and I could save the day if we worked together.

Nothing was said for about two minutes, and she was shaking, turned to me and asked, You really think so?   I said yes, she was drop dead gorgeous, and with me armed with a point and shoot, she could have gotten married in a potato sack and pulled it off on a Bridal Magazine.  

I explained, this is the time for her to be the star and I was there to help her achieve that.  A wedding is all her, all about the day and it’s now.   

Finally, she told them all to back off, get ready and leave her alone or go home.  I got a hug, an apology,  they got started on the hair and makeup, listened to a few of my suggestions and we formed a bond.  Amazing what an underliner and some simple makeup tricks to bring out the eyes can do working with her great friend doing the hair and preparation work appreciating being away from the cackling hens.

Summation:  And it went as smooth as butter left out of the fridge on the table all day.  The pictures were glorious and not one episode of complaint from the family choir.  They all took direction and what I took back from the challenge was —  

They really did not have any leadership, this was the first grand daughter getting married, I still do her kids and family shots.  No one had taken the time to show her a little human compassion for the job she was about to do.  She still is drop dead gorgeous and only a few shots missed, tons of kids got in the way,  99% keepers was very acceptable.

Command And Control  —  For those who watched the episodes from Bridezilla,  I’m sure you  could feel the warmth and calm demeanor exhibited by the Brides to be.   It is the only TV show where I wanted to  strangle the producers who make up all this crap to sell the suspense..  

They alone, in conjunction with great fictional staff writers, some wine, lots of wine or booze, weed and a fair amount of "feminosterone" are responsible for making so many brides look so unrealistic.  The show portrayed them as "bitch-like," making trouble for Wedding Photographers, caterers, wedding designers, and others in the industry.  Looking on the good side…be happy you are not the groom.   They ( the producers) changed Brides into Douchbags.          

Actually watching the Bridezilla show was good training for the Wedding shooter, as the Chinese General SUN TZU mentioned, "Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster”.  

Knowing there are Brides to be who watch that drivel, and think that is how you act is inconceivable.  So I am asking you for your help in a project I am working, a hardcover book, “ The Wedding Photographers Guide To Matrimonial Murder ".  If you have a story of a Bride, you broke your heart on, and wished a few other body parts on, we will use it in the book to help others and give you credit.  I got over fifty letters, so far.

Great Words -  “  FUNDAMENTALS” — 

Blurbs have popped up on some retail sites offering Wedding guides and suggestions for the new wedding shooter.   I found them terribly interesting and boring because it’s basically fundamentally what I have been saying and offering for the past forty  years since I wrote about the wedding game.  And I published it in the eighties.

Nothing has really changed, good advice is good advice and often repeated. Actually it looks like someone copied some, make that all of my ideas.  I initially wrote this guide decades ago. If you even think of doing a wedding get this in your head.

Do’s  — Mostly Common Sense Nothing Radical

• When you’re initially breaking into the business, consider becoming an assistant or apprentice to a well-established wedding photographer.  He/she often needs extra help, and you’ll have the opportunity to learn this craft first-hand.
  
  
• Learn how to expose a bridal gown correctly. To keep the gown white, you will probably need to overexpose just a little over the camera’s recommended exposure, but not so much that the gown becomes a mass of white with no detail. Check the exposure after the first shot, and adjust it accordingly. A very slight amount of underexposure can be corrected in post-production, but at the same time, you don’t want to lose detail in the groom’s dark suit. Many cameras have a highlight warning so that overexposed areas flash at you once the image is taken, allowing you to shoot it again.
  
  
• When you begin getting hired to photograph weddings, always get a second shooter or an assistant. It’s always a good idea to have backup on a big job like a wedding. And if the couple wants to hire a videographer, it’s very important that two different people shoot still photography and video and have lunch with the video guy some of them are not nice.
  
  
• Meet with the couple in advance to determine a “shoot list.” It’s important to know what they want you to photograph. Generally, they will want you to capture events like bride and groom’s first kiss, the bouquet toss, the first dance, and carving of the wedding cake at the reception. Spend some time to get to know the couple in advance of the big day. It’s important that you learn about their wishes and what’s important to them.
  
  
• Draw up a contract or another written agreement that both you and the couple agree upon, so that nothing is in question (such as your prices or hours of shooting).Does the couple want prints, digital images or an entire wedding album?
  
  
• If possible, visit the church and reception venue in advance to plan camera angles and potential photos. This will also help you decide what equipment you’ll need to bring. You may find, for example, that you can get a great view of the ceremony from the choir loft, but you’ll need a long lens in order to get a good-sized image of the subjects.
  
  

Bad Ideas  —  Walk In Weak — Crawl Out Weaker —  

• Don’t take on the responsibility of shooting a wedding until you feel confident about doing the job. It’s important to be realistic about your abilities and experience before committing to shooting or doing video of a wedding — especially if you’re being paid to do so.
  
  
• Don’t assume that you can use flash everywhere. Find out in advance what restrictions that the wedding venue may have. Very often, churches don’t allow flash during the ceremony because it’s very disruptive. Be prepared to shoot at a higher ISO setting if this is the case.
  
  
• Avoid shooting only posed photos of the bride and groom and their attendants. Keep in mind that wedding photography is part photojournalism, part posed portraits. Sometimes the strongest images are the ones that weren’t pre-planned. Look for opportunities like the emotion on a proud father’s face as he walks his daughter down the aisle, or a spontaneous kiss between bride and groom. Or two dogs having sex, it happened and six pups months later
  
  
• Don’t overlook small details like the bridal bouquet, the couple’s rings, the lace details of the bridal gown, or the groom’s boutonniere.These details will help contribute to the unique quality of this particular wedding—and along with the more traditional photos—can be an important part of the wedding album.
  
  
• Don’t rely on just one camera. You must have a backup in case your primary camera breaks down. It’s at times when you have only one camera that problems tend to occur.Also, a second photographer and/or videographer will undoubtedly capture moments that you’ve missed, and vice versa.
  
  
• For those who enjoy shooting special events, wedding photography can be one of the most lucrative photographic specialties. Because you only get one chance to capture a bride and groom’s special day, be prepared!