My first actual wedding, have done concerts and sporting events and so on. I thought I was prepared, home church, 3 cameras, two tripods, mini disc recorder. The church has an excellent sound system with a recorder.

1) borrowed tripod didn't have camera mount, must be on sister-inlaws camera - had to prop up cam 2 on organ with two hymnals

2) after ceremony and reception, went to burn CD of audio only to find it wasn't on great system. Either it was never started or the device got shut off without stopping the recording to save the track. I didn't do this so I'll never know.

I almost took a header off the balcony. I quick grabbed the mini disc player to see if it got the vows and special music and it did and with a little audio editing it should be fine. I'll have to see what video I got. I didn't charge the B&G but they did give me some money. I'm certain I have enough footage to make a decent DVD.

Even though there were some major problems, being prepared with the extra equipment saved me from total doom. I also learned a tremendous amount. I still have no desire to do weddings but it was great experience and I'm sure I'll be doing it again.

downloaded cam footage hoping for more audio, cam2's audio was weird sounding. Video was decent but the audio was usless.

Minidisc audio was able to be cleaned up without an excessive ammount of time

Cam1's audio is good B U T the cruddy chair that some one in the balcony was in was the squeakiest chair I've ever heard. I mean like the real loud rrrrreeeeeeaaaaaaakkkkkkk kind of squeak. Not just one but the person was constantly repositioning. Oh well.

I was prepared enough to offer a decent product but it would have been a lot less stressful if I was 100% prepared.


LESSON: you can't be too prepared