Everyone has a fair idea of the order of a wedding day, we've all been to enough ourselves to know what takes place and when. An event to look forward to! From the church, ceremony, confetti and speeches to meeting up with old friends, drinking wine and the same old best man jokes! But are we really that familiar with what goes on for the photographer? what exactly is the photographers order of the day? where does it begin, and is it equally planned out with precision?

I'd like to try and run through what its like to be in the photographers shoes, so hopefully you have an insight into the world of the guy behind the lens!

Let's start at the beginning, with the wedding of Sophie and Ian as an example. Sophie and Ian were married at All saints church in Mumbles in July 2009, with the reception at Mumbles golf club.

It may be suprising to hear, but a wedding photographer doesn't just turn up on the day and start to take excellent photographs, relying soley on his or hers brilliant camera skills. For us at least and in the case of Sophie and Ian it all began the week before with a visit to the church and venue and a met office forecast of the weather a week in advance. With heavy cloud and a 60 percent chance of rain forecast we visited the church and walked through in our minds where the outside photography would take place and also the location of the sun at 2pm in relation to the church if indeed the sun decided to break through and blind us all like we all know British weather can!

So the Sunday before the wedding in mumbles we ran through a plan A and also a plan B of where the photography outside the church would take place in the event of two possible weather situations; extreme rain and hot sunshine. Our perfect senario would as you may already of guessed... clouds! We not only thought about the background for the photography but also tried to combine that with sheltered spots away from both the sun or the rain.

We also did some test photographs inside the church and met the vicar and ran through how many photos would be allowable during the ceremony and whether a flash was allowed. Usually there is no limit to how many we can take during the ceremony and most of the time there are no problems using a flash. However there have been occasions when no photography has been permitted during the ceremony itself and times where only one photograph can be taken at the end of the ceremony, so its important to note all these details and check these out in advance. We'd also need to do test photographs at different ISO levels if a flash was not allowed.

For the wedding of Sophie and Ian I was also lucky enough to go with them on the thursday night before the wedding to the rehearsal, even though I'd done my test shots inside the church already it was too good an opportunity to have a real life test run, not for me so much, but for Sophie and Ian, they could then see where I was standing and feel a little more relaxed when it came to the Saturday having run through the test ceremony with the flash going off. The less nervous the happy couple are, the better the photography as they will feel more relaxed with the photographer and this is one of the reasons why we offer a pre marriage shoot as part of our wedding package. Even though we have been through the situation many times before, its easy to forget sometimes that this is all new to the bride and groom, and if we as photographers can make them feel at ease then it helps everyone.

I'd also that week got some photos of the church with the flag flying, the aisle and some church clock shots that I would use after the wedding as album fillers and also slideshow backgrounds. It means I get some of the work out of the way before the wedding and usually Dave and I will start to play around with album overlays and slideshow backgrounds before hand so we at least feel we have made a start on the work for that wedding and make sure these look good.

Saturday was then upon us. Our memory cards were wiped, the camera set to take the photographs at Jpeg fine and NEF format on my Nikon and Daves set to RAW on his Canon. Our batteries were charged and our backup batteries and laptops also charged.

One this occasion we'd also bought in a few extra golf umbrellas due to the weather forecast. We usually carry two with us, but on this particular day we bought and extra four umbrellas as a backup for the group shots just incase we got caught out and to shelter the bride and groom and bridesmaids if they were standing around waiting for a particular group shot or confetti shot to take place. As you can probably tell by now planning and preperation for the photographer is key. Get this right and it helps massivley for your day to run smoothly

The morning of the wedding, we popped round to the grooms parents house in swansea to take some pre wedding shots of him and the best man and also take some close ups of the wedding rings. Once we checked off our shot list and double checked each others photos we made our way to the bride. While we were kindly offered champagne, lager and all sorts of refreshments at the grooms house we prefered to have the extra time and get to the brides house earlier than planned. Sophie and her bridesmaids and family were getting ready and it meant adjusting the camera settings once again for the increase in light at sophies parents house.

Once those shots were done we were off to the church to meet The groom and best man. We had a few poses lined up and had pre planned the timings to ensure that we could run through a few shots in plenty of time before they needed to go inside. Once again the shot list came out and as we made our way through the start of the day and double checked the images on each others camera we could see our workload decreasing as we went along. This was also an opportunity to get reportage guest photography early on and we picked the grooms parents out immediatley just incase we were unable for whatever reason to get suitable shots later. We always make a point of getting as many shots early on in the day of immediate family as possible - that way your not worrying at a later point when there are other more important bits and pieces going on. You can never have enough photographs of these, and you'll be suprised how handy the come later on when we are designing the album or slideshow. Sometimes you can have a brilliant photograph of the mother of the bride but it doesn't fit or doesn't look perfect on a particular page of the album design so opening up your options gives you a little breathing space.

We were soon into the ceremony and while I got prepared up front and set up the camera ready for the brides entrance, Dave was waiting for the car to arrive outside. Having two photographers shoot your wedding is in our opinion invaluable. Dave was able to capture the moment Sophie arrived and didnt have to panic about running down the aisle before her to get to the front of the church aswell which is usually the case if you have a photographer that works on their own. Why add any extra stress to the day! This ensured for us as photographers that the only nerves were from the bride.

Luckily after the service it didn't rain and the sun didn't shine either, it remained cloudy and lady luck made our jobs a little easier for some traditional group photos outside the church. This we decided was our window to get as many group shots out of the way at this point. Looking at the sky it was still dark grey and we felt that we were due a storm. We already knew beforehand what the bride and groom wanted in terms of what photographs and where so there was no running around having to check what photographs they wanted at that time. Due to our planning and check list of information we already knew.