Something of an oxymoron maybe? Any advice would be great, thanks.

I've got an MTB photographer doing ours. Send me an email if you want his details.

Grant

yoeddygrant@hotmail.co.uk

ygm…and thanks.

Ah school boy error there crocodilian. You mentioned the "W" word that automatically inflates any quotation by a factor of 10…
…"you want a cake? No problem £50, Oh its a wedding cake! THat will be £500"
…"You want a limo ? No problem £100, Oh its for a wedding !! THat'll be £1000 please"
etc etc

I'll do it if you don't mind it being a tad surreal

DAMN! The wedding's off!

This thread might get a bit ugly when the pro togs turn up 😈

oh hang on, wedding you say? <sharp intake of breath>

edit

its off? already?

ok I'll do it then!

Surreal sounds interesting, are we talking Terry Gilliam style surreal or something else?

A friend of mine did without a wedding photographer to save money. They handed out blank CDs with a stamped self addressed jiffy bags and got everyone there to send a copy of all the photographs after the event. I think they also tasked some family member (who was a bit of a hobby photographer) to arrange the group shots etc. It seemed to work quite well – I can imagine a lot of brides not liking the idea though

Yes ross980, we've just been told about that idea and we'll probably do that too. We'd just like a pro or someone semi skilled (how hard can wedding photography be??) for a few group shots, not for the entire day though, couldn't be dealing with constant snapping!

"cheap" does your wife to be know you want bargain basement for her big day?
it's a shame Morrisons or Lidl don't do wedding packages, you would really save some money there.

It's a joint decision. We both can't believe how much things cost! I think we were a little naive to be honest.

Our wedding photographer was worth every penny tbh – its one of the bits of wedding stuff that I think you need to splash cash on!

Stuff thats worth money:
– Band. A good band makes a great evening!
– Photographer. You will want those pictures to be good in years to come and you need someone to arrange the good shots. Also it needs to be someone your good ladys happy with – the photographer needs to be able to tell the bride what to do. Good luck to a random mate with that one!

Stuff that you can do cheap:
– Cake. Everyone will eat it anyway!
– Video. No one wants to watch it apart from you and your good lady. Get a mate with a video camera. Job done.
– Buffet. See cake.
– Transport. We stayed at the venue the night before, was cheaper than limo hire on the day!
– Venue. One of the best weddings I have been too (apart from my own obviously!) was a rugby club!

Hope that helps!

David.

(Edit: your pretty far away so shes not much use to you but to anyone in Glasgow Caroline at http://www.clphoto.co.uk/index.php is very very good!).

I'll shoot the entire thing from within a bucket.

albeit an enormous bucket filled with discarded pipes, preferably near a wall and a whale.

Cheers David. We're taking over half a pub in our village for the ceremony and the reception and some friends of mine who regularly DJ are doing the music which is not only what we want but also cheap!
It might end up that we will have to splash out on the photography in the end….unless I can convince my mum that it's her duty to pay!

Ahh, I see MrNutt, David Lynch surreal. Very "Eraserhead".

how hard can wedding photography be??)

About as hard as normal photography. There is a reason for professional photographers, if on the day the light is poor you could end up with thousands of horrible flat photos, a pro will have decent lenses and flashes and know how to get the best out of them.

Read lots of tales of woe from people who tried to skimp on wedding photography.

Here's one example

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=248365

Points taken Prince-john and Grum. Any good recommendations then?

Not really – you could try asking on that forum though, lots of good photographers on there with online portfolios etc.

i had a great wedding photog, 8 years later my wife and i divorced, did i get my photo money back? did i f***, what a waste of money.

seriously though cheap isn't always bad and really expensive is no guarrantee of good work either, make sure you look at photos of other weddings from the people who paid rather than just selected "best of" pics by the pro photog

As grum no recommendations, however like rocketdog says check their portfolio out and make sure you find someone you get on with and can bounce ideas off who won't take over the day.

I also have a megaphone so I would need the large bucket moved several times throughout the day unless you were planning to have the entire day inside the bucket with me?

Get someone that comes highly recommended.

We didn't scrimp on our photographer, he even made me look quite attractive on my wedding day, even though I had a cycle vest top type tan showing through the low cut back of my dress.

http://www.enjoyphotography.co.uk/ Chris is a friend of ours and he's ace.

make sure you look at photos of other weddings from the people who paid rather than just selected "best of" pics by the pro photog

This is the important bit – anyone can get lucky and then pick good photos from a few weddings. You need to see a full set of everything from at least one wedding.

I had a cycle vest top type tan showing through the low cut back of my dress.

Ooohh….

I actually don't think wedding photography itself is too difficult, just make sure you have good lenses and flash etc.

What I think makes the real difference is the production of the album.

I wouldn't ask about 'cheap' wedding photography on Talkphotography. MrSmith's rather predictable response is probably the nicest you'll get!

FWIW, we were very lucky, had a friend's fiancee (who's in his final year of a photography degree) do it for us. We donated him my wife's car (we were emmigrating, and it was only worth £200), hired him some prime lenses (cost £250 for about £12k's worth of glass for the weekend), and lent him my 5DII as well so he had 2 pro bodies. I've yet to see anyone who's seen the photos who has taken or seen better themselves. Sometimes, gambles can pay off.

The alternative would be my friend's wedding in the Lakes. She paid c£5k for a 'pro'. I had to rescue her with my snaps from the back, taken on a camera I'd had for less than a week. Sometimes, gambles don't pay off.

Amateur togs can be crap, pro togs can be crap. I'd guess there's possibly less chance of the latter, but there you go…

We got a pro at short notice for our UK wedding. The photos were 'OK' but just OK. Strangely we had 3 people at our wedding who could all weild a camera quite well, but at their own insistence were keen amateurs. Our album we got made back in NZ has photos taken here from a very good snapper and a mix from the UK one. When we counted them we used 1, yes ONE of the pros photos !

we handed out USB to people with Cameras and also put disposable ones on every table, got some really good shots of people enjoying themselves, and not just us.

We went down the DIY route and just asked our friends to send us the photo's.

THINGS i learn't.

Make sure one person is in overall control so that everyone is looking in the same direction.

Quality SLR cameras are almost idiot proof for this kind of shot. 3 people used these, 2 Nikons, 1 Fuji, point, shoot, keep finger on button and one out of five will be good enough.

We managed enough very good photos for our wedding album, total cost inc 2 extra for mums about £80.00!

Also how often will you look at them, especially after the divorce! 😉

We were approached at the church while we were having our bands read, by a woman who is expanding her photography business into weddings and wanted to know how much we had paid. I told her we had a friend doing it who was a hobby photographer as we couldnt afford to spend the big money. A week later we got a letter from the vicar, given to him by the woman, offering to do our wedding photos for free as long as once they are all done she can use them on her website.

Her website looks pretty good, and she has a vested interest in the photos coming out looking good. Wedding is in 3 weeks so i'll have to let you know how that works out

Quality SLR cameras are almost idiot proof for this kind of shot.

Christ, even I am tempted to come down on the side of Ti29er when people think like this.

c.f. "That cake was damn good, do you have a good oven?"

steve-g, sorry to break it to you, I am in fact both the "woman" and the "vicar" you refer to, I thought you'd notice by the very slow wink I did at the end of each sentence?? anyway, where should we site the large bucket first and as a matter of precaution could we please have a smaller bucket to hand filled with sand incase one of the aforementioned pipes has not been correctly extinguished?

My bro has done a few, & seems to be quite good at it.
Wheres Wendover then ?

@ Zokes: 5K for wedding photography?
Jesus H Christ, I'm going to get back into it PRONTO! I had no idea I could charge that much…
*please wait while I work out how many new bikes I can buy with a couple of those gigs every month*

Yes, I was flabergasted, especially when he only appeared to have a Nikon D3000 and a D90, and one flash, which broke, and two ultrazoom lenses. And an addiction to vignetting and horrendous B&W conversions…