Photography & Video
The shots and moments you’ll wish you’d captured
The shot-list conversation goes wrong in a predictable way. A couple is asked whether they have any requests, produces a list of thirty-four specific frames copied from a website, and hands it to a photographer who then spends the day working through a checklist instead of watching a wedding.
A useful list is short and it contains only the things a stranger could not know: which people matter, what will not repeat, and what you are worried about missing. Everything else is the job.
The list worth handing over
People a stranger could not identify. The person who travelled furthest, the friend who introduced you, the aunt who made the cake, the grandparent whose photograph you will want most. A photographer cannot know who matters, and this is the single most valuable thing on any list.
Things that will not repeat. A hired car leaving, a piper, a first look, a specific tradition, a ring that belonged to somebody. Anything happening once, at a known time.
Details you spent money or effort on. The stationery, a handmade item, the flowers before the room fills, the table before anybody sits down. Good photographers cover these anyway, and naming them guarantees it.
Anything you are worried about. A relative who dislikes being photographed, a family situation requiring care, somebody who will not be there long. Say it, plainly, in advance.
What does not need to be on it
The rings, the dress hanging up, the first kiss, the confetti, the cake, the first dance. Every wedding photographer takes these. Listing them signals that you do not trust the photographer, and it uses up attention you want spent elsewhere.
The moments people report missing
Consistently, and they are rarely the obvious ones.
The room before anybody is in it. Set up, lit, complete, empty. It exists for about twenty minutes and it is the only record of all the work that went into it. It has to be scheduled, because it can only happen before guests arrive.
Both sets of parents, properly. Frequently everybody is photographed with the couple and nobody photographs the two sets of parents together, or each set on their own.
The people who did the work. Whoever made something, drove somebody, carried something. They are working during the parts of the day when photographs happen, so they are missed by default.
Grandparents seated. Group photographs are taken standing, and the guests most likely to be sitting are the ones people most want photographs of.
The couple, alone, not posing. Ten minutes away from everybody, just the two of you, without instructions. Almost every photographer will offer this and almost every schedule squeezes it out.
The back of the dress, and the details on it. Chosen carefully, photographed from the front all day, and visible to the whole congregation for the entire ceremony. It needs one deliberate frame and it rarely gets one.
Guests arriving. The only part of the day where everybody is in one place, dressed, and pleased to be there. It happens in about fifteen minutes and it is when the photographer is frequently still with the couple.
The two lists that should not be the same list
There is a difference between what you want photographed and what you want to look at afterwards, and conflating them produces a long list of dull frames. The cake, the favours and the seating plan are things you want recorded. The people are what you will look at.
Split the list accordingly. Details can be covered in ten minutes before guests arrive, in one pass, and need no further attention. People need the whole day, which is where the photographer’s time should go.
The approach by budget
Short coverage, so make the list shorter
With fewer hours, every minute spent on a requested set-up is a minute not spent covering the wedding. Keep the list to five or six items, all of them people or one-off events.
Schedule the empty room deliberately, because it costs nothing and it is the shot most often missed. Ten minutes before guests arrive is enough.
Ask a guest to take photographs of the people who were working. It is genuinely useful and nobody else will do it.
A named list of people, and a named gatherer
At full coverage the list should still be short, and the thing to invest in is names. Give the photographer a list of ten to fifteen people who matter with a note on who they are, and give each family a person responsible for finding them.
Cap the formal groups at eight to ten. Each takes three to five minutes once people are located, so twelve groups is most of the drinks reception.
Put twenty minutes for the couple in the running order and defend it. It is the first thing to be lost and the last thing anyone would choose to lose.
Buy the time, not more shots
With a second photographer and full coverage, almost everything on any list is covered without being asked for. What a generous budget should buy is time in the schedule rather than a longer list.
The two windows worth protecting are ten minutes in the empty room before guests arrive, and twenty minutes with the couple in the best light of the day. Both are cheap and both are routinely lost.
Where a long list stops helping is when it turns a photographer into an administrator. The best frames from any wedding are the ones nobody could have listed.
What actually makes the difference
- Names, not shots. A photographer can find a good frame; they cannot identify your grandmother.
- Ten minutes in the finished, empty room. The only record of everything that was set up, and it exists once.
- A gatherer per family. The fix for group photographs overrunning, and it costs nothing.
- Twenty protected minutes for the couple. First to be cut, most regretted afterwards.
- Saying what you are worried about. Family situations and camera-shy relatives are handled well when known and badly when discovered.
Common mistakes
Copying a list of forty shots from a website
It looks thorough and it converts the day into a checklist, which is the surest way to get competent, unremarkable photographs.
Instead: list only people, one-off events and worries, and trust the rest.
Not scheduling the empty room
It can only happen in a short window before guests arrive, and nobody thinks of it until the room is full.
Instead: put ten minutes in the running order and tell the venue you need the room finished by then.
Leaving group photographs unorganised
The list exists and nobody is responsible for finding people, so each group takes twice as long as it should.
Instead: name one person per family as gatherer and give them the list the week before.
Forgetting the suppliers and helpers
They are working precisely when photographs are being taken, so nobody is looking at them.
Instead: ask for one frame of anybody who made or did something, by name.
Assuming somebody has photographed the parents together
Everybody is photographed with the couple, and the two sets of parents together is an obvious combination nobody calls.
Instead: put it on the short group list explicitly.
The one-page version
Give the photographer one side of paper containing: ten to fifteen named people with a word on who each is, up to ten formal groups, any one-off events with times, anything you are worried about, and the two protected windows, meaning ten minutes in the empty room and twenty minutes for the couple.
That is a brief a professional can work from, it takes fifteen minutes to write, and it produces better photographs than a list four times its length. Everything not on it is what you are paying them to see.