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Amazing where this thread has gone, just now finished catching up with the latest. Some interesting points raised about wedding photography.
Here is my 2 cents: (come on, you knew it was coming !)
Great wedding photography does not happen by accident.
Not everyone should even attempt it.
It is the most demanding form of photography although these days it is a little less so due to the ability to review the shot immediately.
It requires someone with excellent attention to detail.
It requires someone who can deal with people at their level, whatever that level may be.
You have to be a diplomat and sometimes a magician to get people to do the things you know will give them excellent images even when they do not want to co-operate.
You need reliable, high quality equipment for the job, and you need 2 complete sets of it.
You need to stay 'focused' the whole time you are there.
I know people who will do the job for $500 and have friends who charge several thousand for the coverage.
I am not the most experienced by a long shot but I have shot in excess of 400 weddings and would not take on one for less than $1500.
I shot almost all of the weddings on film, using Nikon F4s, F5 and Mamiya 645Pro equipment (about $ 30,000 in equipment went to each wedding)
I also had an assistant to almost every wedding to whom I gave an F5 with an 80-200 F2.8 to shoot candids.
I looked at it this way:
With landscape photography I was very happy to get 3 great images out of a roll of 36 Kodachrome. With wedding shoot I was cross if I ended up with 3 rejects out of a roll of 36.
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