Before I get going - let me just say that I'm well aware that I'm not the be-all and end-all of wedding photography. There are many photographers out there that are far better than I am, and far more experienced than I am. However - I've shot a million weddings, and I've learned stuff I can help you with. That's what's important here.

Anyway.

I got an email this morning from a starting out photographer. Let's call him John Smith. His email below:

Hi Ett I'm shooting my first wedding next month. What Setting is best for weddings?

Now, I'm not even sure what setting he's talking about, but if he's asking this question about any setting on his camera, he's not ready to shoot a wedding. I'm assuming he's referring to the mode (A, S, P, M). We'll get back to John Smith in a moment.

There are 15 824 208 173 people out there who want to be wedding photographers. I personally think that that's great, and I hope they make it some day. However, my concern is that 99% of those people have a good camera, but don't know what to do with it, and they're going to leave many couples feeling cheated. A decent camera makes up 5% of a good wedding photographer.

I want this post to serve as a checklist and as an eye opener for anyone that's considering shooting weddings. I'm not going to tell you that you can't shoot a wedding. You can do it better than I can, for all I know. What I am here to tell you is that it's not something to take lightly. There's no room for error. None.

Let's quickly take a look at what shooting weddings involves. A wedding day is all different kinds of photography, not just portrait photography. On the day, you'll be doing a whole lot of all of the following: