Wedding Day Prep Lessons Learned

Luke and I started less than a year ago on our wedding photography journey. Since we photographed our first wedding back in June 2012 we are still super new to the game! After that first wedding, we automatically talked about how we did, what we can improve on, and what needs to be changed. This casual form of process improvement has led to a lot of procedures getting put into place, future goals being recorded, new equipment purchased and lots of practising techniques (FYI, 10pm in the loungeroom wearing trackies with no make-up, all the lights dimmed using flash doesn't make gorgeous pics!). There are a ton of responsibilities, tasks and behind-the-scenes  things that photographers do and so it goes without saying that there is much for us to learn!





All of the weddings Luke and I have photographed feel like they are our first. wedding. ever. Before any wedding, I definitely get a case of the butterflies. Since we both know that the nerves can run a little high the morning of a wedding, Luke and I prepare all our gear the night before and stack it at the door (Although this has now changed and is put up higher since little Erik loves to forage through gear - Spoodle hair on a lens, no thank you!!). Our stack includes all our primary gear plus backup gear, snacks, water, ladder, lighting equipment, blankets, first aid kit, shoes, jackets, sunscreen...etc!

We have our little routine that we've somehow fallen into that we follow every time we do a photo shoot. It works pretty well and it goes something like this...Luke preps all our gear - charges all the camera and flash batteries (this usually takes forever and needs to be done the day before) and cleans and packs our lenses. I handle the logistics - printing off info sheets, checking timelines, addresses, phone numbers, packing food and being Luke's cheerleader to provide encouragement so we get out the door on time the morning of the big day! The 'Cheerleader' job of course is most important!

Although this system works for us and gets everthing packed, at the end we find ourselves looking at a pile (or several!) of stuff and asking "Have we got everything? Yeh, I think we do!".   This is the one thing I don't like - I want us to say "We have everything!!" and knowing that everything is packed into the boot as we're backing out the drive the next morning. We are heavy photography packers, we like to be prepared!! Better to have it and not use it then need it and it not be there.

I'm a list maker. So of course the solver to this problem is a list! I've drawn up two lists - one for gear and one for the other tasks/stuff that I tend to pack. The goal is to each get everything ticked off our list and then we will know we have everything we could possibly need for the wedding.

Here's to a fabulous wedding season and or course butterfly reducing organisation!