“Thinking about having my friend photograph my wedding.”

“Thinking about having my friend photograph my wedding.”

I tend to hear that from time to time and when I do hear it, it always makes me laugh a little inside and worry at the same time. I think to myself that some brides may not want beautiful images of their wedding or they may not care too much about it, because if they did they wouldn't trust their friend who, chances are, they are not a professional photographer. More than likely they bought a $600 camera and took a few photos of their trip to where ever and they have never photographed a wedding.

There is a lot that goes into being a photographer at a person's wedding, there is experience you need to keep you ahead of the game and makes you ready for the awesome shot. There are skills that you acquire from continuous shooting and classes that you attend to keep that skill up. A pro wouldn't have a camera you'd buy in Wal-Mart or Best buy, they would have spent a couple of thousand I'm sure.

Even though I consider myself mechanically inclined, when I have car issues, I take it straight to the dealer or a qualified mechanic. Same thing applies if I wanted the roof on my house repaired, I would contact a licensed carpenter so I can have to job done right the first time. With the wedding supposed to be once in a lifetime event for you, magical and memorable, how will you look back on the memories, by looking at your photos. To me that seems important, not something I would just trust anyone with. Another good way of thinking about it, If your friend watches a lot of Discovery Health on TV and owns "some" surgical tools, would you let that person operate on you?

Oh god I hope not, I'd go find me a doctor with education and years of experience.
Having been to one too many weddings, I can see that a wedding is like an orchestra. Every professional is there to do their part and without each one, your wedding could be out of sync.
To have a reception you should have a Disc Jockey, you can't really have a good party without one. I've seen weddings without them and I've seen those receptions suffer.

You can't get married without a wedding minister or officiant, they are pretty important and hard to get married without one.

Wedding planners, personally I would go with one of these all the time. They help run the show so you don't have to. I can't tell you how many times I've seen the bride or groom running around trying to put out fires or do things they shouldn't be doing because they don't have anyone else to do it for them. It's the couples celebration and they should be relaxing and having fun.

Photographers and Videographers, these are your record keepers. These are the people the capture all the memories of this most important day. As I have touch on photographers, Videographers are just as equally important that get over looked. Can you imagine going to a movie to see, Spider Man for example. What if you sit down in your seat with your popcorn and you look up at the screen and you see images of spider-man. For an entire hour, you see cool image, after cool photo of spider man and all the cool things he is doing. After an hour or so, it's over, and you leave, but all you saw were images and photos, not a movie. Video brings you into the story in a way that photos can't. You can look at a photo and you can get a flash of a memory that is brought on by that image, but when you watch a movie it allows you to relive that memory and you began to see things you might have missed or might have forgotten.

I could go on listing various wedding professionals and their key roles they play, but I'm sure you will have gotten the point by now.

Allow the professionals to do what they do best so that you don't have to worry and enjoy that celebration of love.