It’s the height of the wedding season now and people that are shooting their first weddings or considering shooting a wedding should know a few tips to make sure the day goes as smooth as possible. Since weddings are our primary income at L7 Studios we figured we would pass along a number of our favorite tips and tricks.

Do your homework
Before the day of the shoot, go to the locations at the same times the ceremony and reception will take place to make sure you know where all the best photo locations are around the property. It is important to do this at the same time as the time you will be there is to make sure the lighting will be the same. Obviously you don’t want to do this six months in advance as the sun will be in a totally different position come the day of the shoot.

Be prepared
We have talked about having checklists for both weddings and equipment in the past so make sure you review those articles as well. Make SURE you batteries are charged, your flash cards are formatted, you have spare batteries, your lenses and sensors are clean, your bags are organized, you have your printouts of the schedules and maps to the locations done, your clothes cleaned and ready to go, gas in your car. You cannot be overly prepared when shooting a wedding.

Arrive Early
It stands to reason you cannot be late when shooting a wedding but how early should you be? Regardless of how far away the wedding is from you, or even if it across the street, plan your trip to arrive an hour early. If the location is normally 60-90 minutes away this ensures that you will make it even some really bad traffic occurs. If you do make it an hour early then you have plenty of time to scout the location, take some detail shots around the venue, if the ceremony or reception areas are decorated then you can get the detail shots in those areas as well. Arriving an hour early shouldn’t be an hour of sitting around, make use of the time to your advantage.

Have an agenda
Before the ceremony, preferably way before the ceremony you have already worked out the agenda for the day with times and schedules of each major event during the day. This assures that you, the DJ, and the people in the wedding know what is happening when and where they need to be.

Run the show!
This is a critical part of the entire process. The photographer is in the best position to run the entire show during the day. Nothing moves until you say so. If there is a wedding coordinator, they almost always understand this and will be there to support you. While this may sound surprising that the wedding coordinator will help you to run the agenda, their goal is to make it the best day possible for the bride and groom and help you to get the best possible shots.