The mistakes I made shooting my first few weddings

Every wedding photographer has a first gallery they'd rather not look at again. Mine is from 2016, and at the time I thought it was pretty 'artistic'.

I knew my camera. I could take sharp photos of the bride walking down the aisle in a dark church, and I knew flash. I understood the exposure triangle and was quick to change settings. What I couldn't see were the myriad small mistakes I was making — the ones that jump off the screen now, ten years later.

I watch new photographers make the same mistakes all the time. The sooner you spot them, the faster your portfolio starts doing the work of booking for you.

Here are some that come to mind (in no particular order):

1. Not scouting your portrait locations properly

Knowing where a location is means nothing. What matters is where the light falls, and light moves.

Sure it helps to look at it in Google Maps in street view but that is never a substitute for scoping it in-person.

Buildings and trees throw shadows in directions they didn't last time. "I've shot here before" gives you false confidence, which is worse than no confidence.

Areas or backdrops that were amazing last time you were there, are under construction, are not flowering or blooming as they were, or are closed for renovations. This is very common.

The fix: treat every location as new, even the ones you know.

• Visit new spots on a separate day, ideally within a week or so of the wedding, at roughly the same time of day the shoot will happen.
• Go on a sunny day. Sun shows you the worst-case contrast, where the harsh light lands and where the open shade sits. Overcast hides all of that and give you a false sense of security.
• Have backup plans for different weather scenarios. If the sun's out and brutal, where's the shaded backup within a one-minute walk? Couples don't wait around while you problem-solve. If it's raining, are there any indoor spots that could work or covered areas? Think about where you might set up a flash to backlight the rain (for example).
• Get familiar enough with the location that you can absolutely fill however much time you have allocated for couples portraits / bridal party portraits. There is nothing (and I mean nothing) worse than running out of ideas and still having 30 mins of portraits to capture.

2. Skipping the pre-wedding consultation

A questionnaire is not a conversation. Sending a form and reading the answers back feels efficient, and it quietly costs you the single most useful thing you can walk in with: a shared timeline in both your heads.

When you actually talk it through, you get to discuss all the details and make notes that will jog your memory on the day, and make everything run much smoother.

The getting ready period is usually the most staged of the whole day. If you have spent less than 15 minutes discussing 'getting ready' with your couple, you probably aren't as prepared as you think you are. Shots of the dress? How we are going to hang it? Do you have a decorative hanger? Can the bridesmaids help me move the dress. Have the dress ready and hanging up somewhere for me on arrival please (nothing worse than having to remove tags and plastic wrapping). Is it actually hangable? And that's just discussing the dress...

The fix: get on a phone call, or better a video chat with the couple, and walk the whole day chronologically from start to finish with them in that order. Don't let the client control the pre-wedding consultation and jump ahead because they just can't to show you their Pinterest mood board.

Start at the very beginning (who is going to let me in and what's their mobile number) and narrate forward: prep, first look or not, ceremony, family formals, portraits, reception. As you go, you'll both spot the pinch points. You leave with a plan, and they leave feeling like they've hired someone who's done this before. Both matter.

If you haven't done too many pre wedding consultations, by all means prepare your own questions in advance if its not second nature. This is where checklists are super handy and reduce anxiety.

3. Reaching for flash when you don't need it

Flash has its place. Some new shooters (myself included) just reached for it far too quickly and early and without justification, and it costs them than they realise.

• It can inject the wrong colour temperature into a scene that already had lovely warm ambient light, giving the wrong look to photos that otherwise would have been better shot with natural light.

• It takes time to set up and dial in. Every second you spend fiddling with a trigger is a second the couple stands there, smiles fading, wondering if you know what you're doing.

• When it misfires or doesn't trigger instantly, and it will, you're troubleshooting in front of clients. Nothing says "unprepared" like popping test frames and frowning at your screen. Skip the flash and that failure mode simply can't happen. Note: This does NOT apply to the reception period when flash is almost always required.

• It always, always results in less photos and you can't burst shoot so that in itself means less keepers due to eyes being shut etc.

The fix: learn to get everything you can out of available light first. Use fast lenses f2.8 or less such as prime lenses, lower your shutter to as low as you can and still get sharp shots, find the window, move subjects out of bad light into better light (quality and quantity). Bring flash out deliberately for the dark reception and the situations that genuinely need it, not as a reflex the moment a cloud appears.

One of my early photos. Probably one of my least favourite shots ever. The flash does NOT improve this photo and was a mistake.

I shoot regularly at Roma Street Parklands in Brisbane, Australia and it simply puzzles me why I see so many 'professional photographers' firing off flash in the distance, outside on a sunny day, one hour before sunset. I just don't get it... don't make your job harder than it needs to be.

4. Sloppy group photos

Group shots are where inexperience get exposed, because there's nowhere to hide. Ten people to check, and if one has their eyes shut and you didn't notice the frame is dead. This is the part of the day you should control and concentrate the hardest, and it's usually the part beginners rush under pressure.

Things that sink group photos, and all three are avoidable with care:

• People not ready. Someone's blinking, someone's looking at the wrong camera, someone's half-turned talking to Aunt Sue. You are the director here. Call it loudly, get every face pointed at your lens, and burst shoot each grouping so you've got a clean set of eyes to swap in later in Photoshop as a last resort.
• Standing too close and shooting too wide. Get too near a group with a wide focal length and the people at the edges stretch and bloat. Keep your focal length above 40mm, with 50mm the sweet spot, and step back to fit everyone rather than zooming wide up close. Use all the space that is available.
• Chopping off limbs. Careless framing lops off feet, hands, the top of someone's head. Before you fire, run your eyes around the edges of the frame, not just the faces in the middle. Feet in or clearly out, never sliced at the ankle. Allow room for cropping so if a foot is close to the edge of the frame you need to get back, or go wider if there isn't room.

Group photos are a management job as much as a photography one. Slow down, take charge, check the eyes on 10 X zoom and know how to do that by muscle memory alone. Know when to retake a photo and don't be shy in telling guests why... 'we got a blinker' works for me. This keeps guests busy thinking if it was them, laughing and blaming others while you reframe.

5. Not delivering enough photos

New photographers get so tangled in settings and posing that they simply don't shoot enough, then panic when the edit comes up short of what the couple expected.

A wedding gallery has a rough weight to it. Couples don't count or expect exact numbers, but they absolutely feel the difference between a thin gallery and a full one, and a thin gallery reads as "my photographer missed things or was stingy in editing."

The fix: shoot throughout the day with moments in mind, not just hero frames. Every guest looking happy, laughing, hugging, smiling, cheersing.. these are all candid photo ops.

That means walking into getting ready with at least one camera ready to go, to start snapping every happy moment you come across.

• Cover every phase of the day properly: details, prep, ceremony, formals, portraits, reception. A gap in any one is obvious in the final set.
• Work each moment in a small sequence: the wide for context, the medium, the tight detail. That's three real, different images from one moment instead of one.
• Grab the connective tissue too. Guests laughing, the room before it fills, hands, reactions. Those quiet frames are half of what makes a gallery feel complete.

You're not padding. You're making sure the day is actually documented, not just sampled. Often you won't really deeply understand what's important to the client. Remember: Wedding photography is an exercise in disaster mitigation. So always be mitigating disaster... always take the shot.

6. Every portrait looking the same

Related trap, different shape. You get a pose that works, it feels safe, so you shoot it twenty times with tiny variations. Now the couple has twenty near-identical frames of the same kiss and not much else.

Variety is what makes a portrait set feel like a story instead of a contact sheet.

The fix: consciously work through range on every portrait stop.

• Distance: wide environmental shots that show the location, mid-length, and tight close-ups.
• Interaction: kissing, sure, but also walking, laughing, foreheads together, a whisper in ear, one looking at the other, both looking at you, a quiet still moment.
• Angle and framing: move your feet. Shoot high, shoot low, go around them. Same pose from three positions is three different photos.

A simple habit: before you leave any spot, ask yourself what you'd be missing if this were the only location you shot all day. Then go get those frames.

7. Leaning on black and white to rescue a photo

This one's a little controversial, so take it as one working photographer's honest opinion.

In my experience, most couples don't actually love black and white. The ones who do will tell you, usually up front. Everyone else quietly prefers the colour version, even if they'd never say so.

The real problem isn't black and white itself, it's why beginners use it. A shot with an ugly colour cast or messy mixed lighting gets converted to mono to hide the problem, or a flat, unremarkable frame gets the treatment to make it feel "more artistic." Black and white becomes a bandage. It rarely fools anyone.

The fix: get the colour right in the first place, so a photo never needs rescuing.

Nail your white balance where time permits (otherwise change it in post) watch your mixed light, expose it well. Then use black and white on purpose, for the frames where it genuinely lifts the image (strong contrast, real emotion, great light), not as a place to bury your mistakes. And if you're not sure whether a couple wants any, just ask them. It's a 10-second question that saves a lot of guessing.

The through-line

None of these are talent problems. Every one is a preparation-and-attention problem, which is good news, because those you can fix this weekend. Scout the light, talk the day through, control the groups, cover every phase, keep your portraits varied, and always, always watch the light.