If you have recently become a wedding photographer, or are trying to become one, then you should know a few things. You have probably heard of all the tips and tricks on how to shoot a wedding with a smartphone camera, or how to end up with quality photos on a tight budget, and where you can find some really good suggestions. However, if you want to a real wedding photographer you need to live up to certain industry standards.

In the following article, we will go over some wedding photography standards, and give you some tips on how to meet these standards. If you are a novice wedding photographer, then you will find these suggestions really helpful, so keep reading.

Equipment standard

In order to be a real pro, you need to carry around a lot of gear. You might not use all of it, but it allows you to be prepared for different scenarios.

First you will need one camera that you will use, but you also should carry a backup camera, just in case the first one malfunctions. For the purposes of wedding photography, you can carry a medium lens (24-70 f2.8), since it will be really useful for wedding portraits.

Also, since some of the pictures will require you to take a photo from a distance, for example photo shooting the wedding ceremony, you can carry long lenses, to make these images more attractive. Finally, wide angle lenses and prime lenses also necessary, these can also come in handy if you want to capture architectural details, big groups and to create shots in the dark.

You should also carry a tripod and light stands for adjusting the angle and the lights before taking pictures, and you should not forget spare batteries and memory cards, and in order to have even greater control over the lighting, you can use a flash diffuser and umbrellas. With all these things at your disposal, you will be pretty much covered for all situations.

Photoshoot strategy

The next thing you need to do is organize your photo shooting sessions, and your breaks. As a wedding photographer you will have a lot of work for a single wedding, and you will be preoccupied for the whole day, so make sure you bring some food and drinks to prevent exhaustion, or see if the couple has arranged that for you.
As far as shooting is concerned, you will need to do some of the following photo sessions:
● Shots of the bride preparing for the wedding – As she puts on her jewelry, as she looks at herself in the mirror, a couple of shots with her bridesmaids, and with her close friends.
● Shots of the groom before the wedding – You need to capture some interesting moments of the groom posing and having fun with his friends, before the wedding.
● Wedding ceremony photo shoot – Before this starts, you can take a small break, and then try to capture the whole wedding ceremony. You need to take photos of the audience, of the bride and groom looking at each other, putting their wedding rings on, and kissing. Take photos of them walking down the aisle, and try to move around to find perfect angles. It would be ideal to scout the location ahead of time to determine your ideal positioning.
● Wedding reception – This is going to be a long photo shoot, because you will have to take shots of the guests entering, and also shots of every guest group as they are standing next to the married couple.
● Shots of guests dancing – You can take a small break and proceed to take photos of guests and the couple as they have fun on the dance floor.
● Cake shots and the dance – You will have a lot of time before this part to eat and refresh and to even do some of your photos and return, because most of the guest will be seated and they will also take a break from dancing. When the cake arrives, make sure you take lots of photos of it from every angle, and the couple will dance to their favorite song afterwards, so you need to capture that as well.

This is how the most wedding days go, so you will need to organize based on this schedule.

Photo editing
Once you are done, you need to edit your shots the day after, and find the best images which you would like to include in the photo album. If your client wants, then you can send them a raw sample of the footage. However, you need to edit the images to truly impress them. There are a lot of tutorials on how to edit wedding photos, or you can simply outsource this part if you are too tired.

Final product
When everything is done, you need to create a photo album for the couple and also give them a CD or flash drive with digital versions of the images. Since you are using high quality equipment, you can easily create larger physical pictures that can be framed, and include these features in your offer.
These are some of the industry standards for wedding photography, and things you should master or think about before becoming a wedding photographer.

Last but not least, in my opinion there is no right or wrong in Wedding Photography. Just like or dislike, and always try to make client satisfied with the photo result, cheers.