These days, with wedding costs spiralling out of control many couples will try and reduce costs by enlisting the help of friends and family. In this article we will look into ways of reducing costs by not hiring a wedding photographer and instead using a family friend or member.

The wedding photos are something that will last forever and be a token and reminder of your special day, so it is important that you only ask someone whom you trust to do the best job possible. You must have complete faith in their ability to ensure your wedding photographs are up to scratch as undoubtedly, if they do make a poor job of it, your friendship will be tested. Remember you will not be able to have a second chance at getting your wedding photographs right.

Wedding Photography Tips

• One of the most important wedding photography tips I could give you is to expect the unexpected. I think it is safe to say that very few weddings go exactly to plan but the important thing is not to panic if things are not going right.  Remember that these ‘unforeseen events’ however stressful at the time will, in time, be funny memories that will laughed about in years to come.

Whether it be the groom not being able to find the ring or the wind blowing the brides dress up, try your best to discretely capture these moments because however distraught the bride and groom may feel at the time, once the day is over, looking back at the pictures I can guarantee they will see the funny side.

• Keep every picture! Another wedding photograph tip is not to delete any of the pictures you take. If you are using a digital camera you may be tempted to start flicking through your pictures and start deleting them. Keep in mind that although the whole picture may not be usable, once cropped and edited you may find there is a perfect picture in there.

• Take photos in varied locations both inside and outdoors making sure you adjust the camera settings correctly when you are taking photos at night at the wedding reception venue.

• Another one of my wedding photography tips is to use more than one camera. Although this may be costly, I recommend borrowing more than one camera so that you have different styles and quality of photos to choose from at the end. If bride and grooms budget can stretch to it and you can not find anybody to borrow a camera from, you could always hire one for the day.

• Make sure you know what the bride and groom want. Sit down and create a wedding photo checklist of photos that need to be taken. For example:

The bride with mother of the bride
The bride with father of the bride
The bride with mother and father of the bride
The groom with best man
The groom with bride and best man
The bride and groom with both sets of parents
The entire wedding party
The best man and maid of honour
Obviously don’t forget to take plenty of photographs of the bride and groom, and also of the bride separately wearing her fabulous designer wedding dress.

Creating this checklist mean that the bride and groom will first and foremost get the pictures they want, anything else that you take is an added bonus.

The last and probably the most important of my wedding photography tips are to relax have fun and capture the moments. It is a wedding after all.