All photos in this article are courtesy of Gary Maiers of Robin Gary Photography in Moline, IL. After twenty years in marketing, Gary opened his own studio, and with his wife JoAnn, has specialized in wedding photography for the last twelve years. Gary left film behind three years ago and has been strictly digital since. His work can be seen at http://www.robingary.net.

[Due to production requirements on our server, all the images provided have been converted to .GIF format, and therefore are not at their optimal viewing quality. Gary's pictures are, in reality, of much higher quality. -- DG]

The ceremony
This is it: the main event. Everything that happens over the next hour or so will only happen once, so make sure to catch it and make every shot count.

The ceremony itself is really one of the easiest and most straightforward parts of shooting a wedding. Basically, you want to catch a couple of shots of every person as they enter the chapel, or wherever the actual ceremony is taking place, and everything else that happens.

This means the parents and grandparents, groom and groomsmen, flower girl, ring bearer, bridesmaids, and oh yes, the bride. She'd probably appreciate a shot or two of her father walking her down the aisle. Make sure you get a picture of the father giving her to the groom like you can see in Figure A. Don't forget to take shots of any musicians, singers, speakers or anything or anyone else that is a special part of the ceremony, such as the lighting of a Unity candle.

FIGURE A

The parents giving away the bride is a wedding standard. Click picture for a larger image.

After the wedding, you might want to go into Photoshop and straighten the picture, and do any other simple adjustments necessary for a crisp shot. However, we'd recommend you give the newly married couple their choice of both the original image and the retouched image. Sometimes the "on-the-fly" look seems more real.

You now will now have your best opportunity during the entire ceremony to get shots of the bride and groom as they will be in the same spot and position for about half an hour. Depending on the layout of the location, and the policy of the person officiating, you should try to get shots of the exchange of vows from every possible angle.