...but my uncle has a nice camera....

...sigh...

I talk to a lot of photographers and it's happening to all of us. Bride contacts us, she's excited in our work, save the date for me and I'll send a retainer, a week later we hear "my uncle has a nice camera so he's gonna take pictures at my wedding."

It's the newest trend in wedding photography. Why hire a professional when Uncle Bob just spent $600 on a good ol' camera from Wal-Mart?

Oh man....there's a lot of good reasons why you don't want your uncle taking photos at your wedding! Does he have back up equipment? What if his brand new "fancy" camera malfunctions at the wedding? This happens WAY more often than you think! I take 3 cameras with me to each wedding. You can never be over-prepared! Does your uncle have a variety of lenses? Does the lens go down to 2.8 or 1.4? He may not even know what that means. Does he have an awesome flash and back up? Does he have back up batteries? Does he have enough memory cards? Ok, so that just touches base on the subject of equipment - there's a lot more to it!

Does your uncle know anything about composition? Did he take a photography course back in 1975 and that automatically makes him knowledgable? You don't forget how to take pictures? Right? I mean....right?? Will your uncle know how to capture the moments that are happening? Wait, he's family - he'll want to mingle, socialize, eat, sit around.......he's not getting paid so who cares if the flower girl just stuck her face in her cake.....he's not thinking he should get photos of that funny moment! This again, just barely touches on the subject of weddings.

Wedding photography is much more intense and harder than people think. Just because you bought a nice camera doesn't mean you have the experience or knowledge of the fast paced wedding! There's a lot to do, think, take in as a photographer. You have to be on 100% of the time. It's not a family portrait shoot, it's a wedding and it happens just that once. You can't screw it up.

I hear from so many people that I run into about how their family relative took photos at their wedding and it was a disaster. They wished they hired a true professional but it's too late....the wedding has gone and they have nothing to show but maybe a handful of snapshots that Uncle Bob took with his nice fancy camera from Wal-Mart.

You decide. Leave your memories to your uncle? Or to a professional.