I know we all have em... and they are way longer than this...

I just had to rant about it...

I think we need to add about 199 other shots:

Bridezilla& Groom who's stuck in Vegas Wedding
July 26th, 2008
Photography “Must Have” List


Getting Ready Photos - Bride
Bridesmaids carrying Sally Spicer bags
Flowers, shoes, and dress shot
Bridesmaids zipping Bride into her dress
Mother of the bride helping bride with the veil
Matron of honor and maid of honor putting bracelet on the bride
Bride getting dressed for the ceremony
Bride looking at her bridal bouquet
Bride by herself
Bride and her mother (Mary Kay)
Bride and her father (Brendan)
Bride with mother and father
Bride’s mother and father
Bride with maid of honor
Bride with matron of honor
Bride with bridesmaids (on the bed)
Bride with the bridesmaids toasting champagne
Bridesmaids on the trolley
Bride leaving the hotel
Bride kissing her mother good-bye as she prepares to leave for the ceremony
Bride and her father in the Model T


Getting Ready Photos – Groom
Groom putting on his boutonniere
Wedding rings with the invitation
Groom with his mother (Peg)
Groom with his father (Dan)
Groom with his mother and father
Groom’s mother and father
Groom with the bride’s father
Groom with his best men
Groom with his groomsmen
Groomsmen and their cuff links
Groom leaving the hotel with groomsmen on trolley
Groom and groomsmen on Levi’s Plaza steps (brick in black & white)





Pre-Ceremony Photos
Bride and her father getting out of the Model T
Groom waiting for the bride before the processional
Bride and her father just before the processional
Groom and groomsmen at church before guests start to arrive

Ceremony Photos
The processional
Trumpet player during bridal processional
Officiant holding up communion
Cousins walking down the aisle doing the presentation of the gifts
Readers doing each reading
Bride and groom saying their vows
Bride and groom exchanging vows
Moms lighting the unity candle
Bride and groom lighting the unity candle
Cantors singing the unity candle duet
Groom kissing the bride at the altar
The recessional

Post-Ceremony Photos (St. Ignatius)
Newlyweds with families, wedding party, and officiant
Bride and groom

Post-Ceremony Photos (Olympic Club)
Newlyweds with the entire wedding party
Newlyweds with both of their families
Newlyweds with bride’s immediate family
Newlyweds with groom’s immediate family
Bride and groom (walking down the stairwell in the clubhouse)
Bride with her parents
Bride with her mom
Bride with her dad
Bride with her brothers
Bride with maid of honor
Bride with matron of honor
Bride with each bridesmaid
Groom with his parents
Groom with his mom
Groom with his dad
Groom with sister (Jenny)
Groom with best man (Mike)
Groom with best man (Kevin)
Groom with each groomsmen




Reception Photographs
The Olympic Club entrance
Guests signing guest book
Close-ups of the cake table, centerpieces, place card table, guest book table
Entrance of newlyweds and wedding party into the dining room
The officiant saying the prayer before dinner
The bride’s father giving the toast
Bride and Groom visiting each table (we want shots of us with every table)
The best men toasting the bride and groom
The matron of honor toasting the bride and groom
The maid of honor toasting the bride and groom
The bride and groom cutting the cake
The bride and groom feeding each other cake
The bride and groom saying thank you
The bride and groom’s first dance
Bride and father dancing
Groom dancing with groom’s mother
Wedding party and guests dancing
Big group shot from above (at stairs by bathroom – during first band break)
Musicians
Candid shots of guests
Bride and groom saying good-bye to their parents
Bride and groom looking back, waving goodbye in the getaway car

Yeah... I usually read them over once, make sure there's nothing totally out of the ordinary on it then chuck it. I mean who has time to be looking for great photos to snap and looking at this list to make sure you've gotten everything.

This one sounds fun though

thanks joe..b.

Better wear one of those astronaut diapers, lest you have to pee at some point during the day.

Seriously though, Jess & I had a bride with a list like that once. I think there were 187 (VERY detailed) things on that list (yes, literally, 187). I looked at her and told her - "We're ready to do the list, completely prepared, we even brought along a checklist girl to make sure we don't miss anything. But, I think you'll be miserable all day - you'll be posing, literally, all day long if we do everything on this list. Or, you can let us do our job and capture your wedding day as it happens, all the real, raw emotion as it unfolds, as you enjoy it. It's completely up to you."

We ditched the list. Really, some people just don't realize what happens at a wedding - especially if they've never done it before or haven't been to many.

melody,.....i haven't used a list like this in over 5 years.... i just wanted to see if it was still out there, and if it is, what are people doing about it....

i love the lists. i think they are great. i wish they were longer....

i have been given a list before that was on lined notebook paper, front and back, filled. we never got around to half of them because once the ceremony was over, some of them basically go numb and forget them.

These lists ruin my day. They freak me out. Seriously. It's like a phobia.

I learned how to deal with it.

We once got this insane list printed off the Knot or something. Our client was very specific in that she wanted all these photos.

The whole day was running behind and we get to the formals. The list had a ton of formals and all sorts of inane crap like "groom putting tie on." "bride looking at ring." "Father and Mother of bride looking at bride, bride in foreground and out of focus" "Bride in focus and mother and father in background out of focus." All sorts of stuff like that. It was an excel spreadsheet! That's like hiring me to show up at your wedding and audit your tax return!

So we are really short on time and I pull the freaking database list out of my bag and get a pen and start going down it. The bride was happy about that for the first 5 minutes and then started getting anxious. I just methodically went down the list.

"Ok, now I need you to look at your bouquet."

click .... check

"Ok, now I need your mom to stand behind you and look lovingly at you." (I'm TOTALLY not kidding!)

click .... check

"Ok, what's next. Now I need your maid of honor. Next I need the best man. Then I need the groom and the maid of honor. Then I need the groom, the maid of honor, and the best man. Then I need all four of you."

click .... check

click .... check

click .... check

click .... check

click .... check

After about 15 minutes I looked at the bride and said "Shall I just get rid of the list and do what I do?"

"Yes! Please!"

"Awesome."

Cheers,
Zack

OMG....what the hell was that. I agree with Kadie. Out with that!

It was 193 to be exact. She'd even gone through my galleries and cited specific images. "#39 rachel and lee's wedding"

Yupp. Misery.

I was a second at a ceremony this spring where the bride handed over a 7 page typed list of shots. I think my eyes popped out of my head!

Zack I just love reading your posts and this post of yours today is one of my favorites
because it's something that I could see myself totally doing too!

http://www.opensourcephoto.net/forum/index...mp;#entry275862

wow, did they seriously give you this!? We beat them to the punch, we provide a questionnaire with about 15 spaces for their family formal/combos. That seems to do the trick except the rare occasion when they have more family combos but we've never had someone essentially tell us how to do our job like this detailed list..yikes!

I think a shot list is okay for formals particularly just as an overview before hand to know about step parents, grandparents, whatever.. or maybe any special request (my best friend from Australia is coming, can we get a pic together at the reception) or something.. but like posed faux photojournalistic stuff seems a bit silly (and aggravating) to make a list of that. Too much knot reading.

This made me LOL ""Father and Mother of bride looking at bride, bride in foreground and out of focus" "Bride in focus and mother and father in background out of focus.""

I usually tell people that I can either stick to the shot list and have my eyes on a piece of paper half the time, or I can use it as a guideline and have my eyes on what's happening around me. They almost always opt for the latter. Also when I get these shot lists I will tell people that I will do the best I can, but I can't guarantee every shot (i.e. all of the girls that were in my Bible study.) I'll usually try and find someone who KNOWS who was in her Bible study, but chances are several of them will be gone once there's breathing room enough to get the shot. Some weddings are like an ambling river, and some are like the Starship Enterprise hurtling through space.

On a different note I once got a program sheet from a bride, who had listed a time for every little detail. For example: 6:00 - usher escorts grandmother down the aisle. 6:01 - usher comes back down the aisle. 6:02 - music playing. 6:03 Usher escorts mother of the bride down the aisle... etc. I was DREADING the wedding b/c I thought it was going to be an anal nightmare. It turned out to be one of the most fun weddings I shot that year. I think sometimes brides get a little carried away in planning their fairy tale, but on the day-of they're in a completely different frame of mind.

Zack: That's awesome. I love it!

Our way of handling this is we give people shot lists to check off. So they're not supplying the shot list...we're supplying the shot list. On it? All the shots we generally do anyway. So it doesn't matter what they check, we're going to get all that stuff, anyway. So, they can check these items off to their hearts' content, but it's not going to make a lick of difference in how we cover their wedding day.

However, I do like when they have special requests. It is, after all, their wedding day, and I want to make sure if they have certain images they have to have, I want to make sure they have them. That's just good customer service, IMO.

Then again, I also do table shots at every wedding. Photographers hate them, and I don't know why...they're easy, it guarantees we get a picture of everybody who attended the wedding, they give me something to do while people are sitting around after dinner, and we sell about $400 worth of them in reprints every wedding. I used to hate them, but once I started thinking of them ironically, it made it fun. "Oh man...I'mma go do table shots!!! Rock out!!!"

Yeah...I thought that was a great idea last year. Until I delivered the wedding and the Bride's fathers business partner apparently was incredibly upset at not being in the photos. Turns out he was using the facilities while I was taking the picture. I only recieved 7 calls from the Brides day inquiring as to why I didn't have 'that shot'.

What picture would that be? Was it on the shot list?

Also, another useful tip...about 25 minutes before we're scheduled to leave, we'll seek out the B&G and each set of parents and say: "Well, our time is almost up...before that happens, are there any other pictures with friends or family we haven't gotten that you would want?" Generally we wind up doing 3-5 grip & grins at this point. It's also handy to avoid the weird "hey...it's time for us to go but they haven't cut the cake yet..." awkwardness. They had 25 minutes' warning...they could speed things up at that point.

Anyway, so, if we've got a shot list, and we follow it, and then we ask for additional images at the end of the night, and we're still not informed they want this image made...there's not much we can do. We clearly did our due diligence. You can't make everybody happy, but at this point, when they complain, you can easily say, "I apologize that we didn't get this shot. However, we asked you for a shot list and special requests. This posed image wasn't on it. At the end of the evening, we asked for any additional pictures you wanted that we hadn't gotten, and you didn't mention this one. I'm sorry it didn't happen, but there's nothing else we could have done."

And also, by doing table shots, we'd have a picture of the business partner, anyway

I just make it really clear that I don't do 'shot lists'.

If I have a client that, during our inital consultation, wants 87 specific pictures... I'll simply tell them "I don't do that". They either decide they like me and my work enough to 'risk it' (as the Knot says it's a risk) or we part ways amicably...

I'd rather have a free weekend and keep my name in tact than get a booking from a client so controlling that I'm destined to 'fail' in their eyes. Passing up bookings because you and the cleint do not 'click' is not a bad thing, but a GOOD thing... imho.