Photographing a wedding - what could I have done better?

This is the last post of the series about my assignment I did some months ago. I have written about different aspects in part 1, part 2 and part 3. Today I will try to summarise most important improvement areas. Just to remember about them in the future.

Have a second shutter

Capturing all important events during the wedding is difficult, sometimes even not possible. I had one moment that I had to be at two places simultaneously. And I of course couldn't. After the ceremony, best man and best woman were signing the marriage certificates (which deserves a picture). At the same time the couple obtained best wishes from the priest. Being focused on the couple I had to skip the moment of putting the signature by the best woman. The second shutter would solve the problem easy. 

Mind the background. All the time

First plane is important. But the background can weaken (or even ruin) the picture. Just a few examples.

In the picture above there is everything in place on the first plane: beautiful woman, nice light, great moment of joy. But the background works distracting. It would have been better to move the camera just 40-50 centimeters left, and a little bit down. Just to have only one wall of the room as a background.

The above picture has a wooden frame on the left side that works distracting. Again, moving the people just a few centimeters to the right would solve the problem.

At last, an example of the great moment where a lot of joy and love is going on between the bride and groom. If only the fragment of the building wouldn't be captured... To be honest, that was just a first test shot to check the lights. And because I have noticed the cluttered background I could correct it in the latter shooting.

Note that to some extent those kind of mistakes can be corrected in the post processing. But it cost a lot of time and is not always possible.

Mind all the guests

While the wedding focuses on the bride, groom and their closest relatives, in my opinion it is important to capture also as much as possible material that will document the day in the future. For this occasion I have realised that I didn't put enough attention to the guests in the church. I simply didn't capture all of them! Luckily I had all the important persons in picture, but still - I could have done better.