It’s the day of your shoot and you are packing up your car with everything you need for the wedding reception shoot. The first thing you want to remember is that you have a backup of all your equipment. It is the worst feeling in the world when you realize one of your most important pieces of equipment suddenly has a problem and you are 45 miles from your studio, or you forgot to bring business cards. This only has to happen once, because you will never forget again - that’s why a checklist is always a good idea.

Here’s a typical scenario: When you arrive at your location, you discover the reception will be held in a small room with awful lighting. However, there is one large window to help bring in light. It’s almost three in the afternoon and the rain won’t stop, so shooting outside is not an option. Gather as many chairs as needed to accommodate your wedding party and position them about five to eight feet from the window facing the window. Stand back and see how the window light is hitting the chairs and look for “fall off.” Set your flash and reflectors to bounce light back into your set, keeping in mind you will have two rows so f-11 is possible with enough light. Place one large long reflector flat on the ground in front of your subject. You can purchase a professionally made reflector or just make one by using simple items such as aluminum foil-covered cardboard or white foam core. Just be sure that whatever you use will reliably reflect light back towards a subject. Also, I use what I call a “Mini Me” or “mini Slave Wide” by Morris. I have used several of these little remote lights at a time to not only to reflect light but push light to accent areas of a subject or brighten up a corner.

The reflector helps fill-in light under eyes and chins. Take a test shot with your on camera flash bouncing off the ceiling (remember this is a small room so bounce will work). Eyeball your shot and make obvious adjustments then shoot again while looking for fairly even lighting on the chairs.

When your party arrives place them with the biggest people in back with “bookends” on each side. Little ones go on ground level while the bride and groom with family elders and first generation get to sit on the chairs. Place some of the flowers on ground level leaving the bride with hers in hand. WARNING never only do one pose no matter what. You want your client to be able to choose. Next shot: move bride and groom behind the chairs and make a little opening in the chairs so they stand out in the middle. Be sure to shoot at least three to five shots of each post to help the blinkers. If you choose to shoot in RAW your edit options increase in case of an emergency, especially if you need to adjust tonality with high-contrast shots (such as a white dress and a black tuxedo). No worries though, you can always use the ACDC batch converter and save the RAW backup.

Remember to stay cool, have fun, and be in charge because you are the who needs to direct everyone to keep the flow going.