Time to recount my experiences after recharging, after waking up at 6am in the morning and ending the day when i reach home about 12. All i can say that being a wedding photographer is not such an easy task. He being entrusted to capture the days events so that the people involve can look back and enjoy and if possible capture the side of the wedding that the couple did not see, that's quite a big job considering that he cannot fail in his task. haha so remember pls take pity on the person who dares to take on this big challenge!

After the experience i find that the Wedding day photographer gotta have these skills.
1. Be very prepared -> Lots of Backup equipment (Flash, body, batteries), make sure that you know how to operate the backup equipment if it is different from your main camera.

2. Knowledge of the whole wedding procedure -> to be able to advise and also to preposition for the best shot as the wedding happens.

3. Be confident and assertive -> So u can direct the couple positively, sometimes they also might not have a clue as to what is going on :) !!

4. Next is to see and read as much as possible -> Look at other photographers photos and read relavant books (I will list some that i found useful later), to get new ideas and have better technical skills.

Main problems that i encountered.
1. Flash photography
You need to know your flash techniques well, like when to use bounce flash and when to put on ur bounce card or Omni bounce. Anyway i was using only my SB600, therefore guide number is low, with a more powerful flash, some of the below symptoms might not happen.

Omni Bounce, the shadows were very harsh but at indoors due to the low ceilings of HDB flats with lots of surfaces to bounce the light off, it tends to light up the whole area quite evenly.

Bounce card, When possible try to use bounce flash instead, but HDB flats tend not to have a flat ceiling (usually there is a beam running across somewhere) so need to take note on the bounce angle. If blocked use a bounce card, which usually diffuses the light so that shadows are not harshed but take note of big groups, the light fall off at the edges may be quite significant, and if the bride and groom are wearing white there may be premature flash cutoff (Either A or TTL) due to the white clothing reflecting more light and so generally the scene may be under exposed.

2. Lens Focusing
Remeber if u are not using a Parfocal Lens, you will need to focus after u compose your shot, if not your focus will not be correct. Only some lens from Canon and Tokina are Parfocal. Don't remember any lens from Nikon being Parfocal but i could be wrong. But no matter what the case is "After u compose the shot, then Focus". I''ve got quite a few shots the focus wasn't quite spot on.

3. Group Photos
Remember that the Chinese families are quite big and some although there are less and less 3 room flats around in Singapore, they are still around. U will need at least a 28mm (35mm equiv or 18mm for Digital 1.5 crop) lens to shoot (just barely as i found out). And trying to get all of them sharp is also a big problem.

I've read this book "Group Portrait Photography Handbook" By Bill Hurtner about a week before the shoot, it contain tips on how to shoot big groups and how to arrange them too. Although I read the older version the new one should be just as good, anyway the link is below for u guys to check it out.

Basically the main thing is to ensure that your subject is in your plane of focus, thus it is important to get you subjects close together (front and back rows) to ensure that they fall within your plane of focus.

Anyway for it was fun, although i wasn't paid but it was good experience and probably i will try to find somemore unpaid jobs. Its always happy to take pictures of happy people !