The Ultimate Wedding Photography Shot List

….in my opinion would look something like this:

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Nope, you didn’t miss it. That’s right–there wouldn’t be a shot list in my book.

Some of you may be wondering what a “shot list” is–and no, it’s not a list of drink combinations for your bartender (I wish!). It’s basically a list that most every wedding planning booklet or organizer seems to contain with a list of photographs every bride should get. I’m not sure of the origin of these lists, but my guess is that they’re some hold-over from a slower, more traditional style of wedding photography. The kind where your wedding album basically consisted of a series of posed photos: bride and groom, bride and groom with hands and rings, bride and groom looking at each other…or one of my favorites “groom shaking hands with his best man while looking at his watch.” Nice. That wasn’t set up at all.

“Back in the day,” before wedding photojournalism had established itself and proved its timeless appeal, wedding photographers basically thought of the wedding day as a series of shots to take. Get all the shots on the list, and your job was done. The happy couple would have a nice collection of posed photos with little room for originality or spontaneity. Technically beautiful, perhaps, but boring nonetheless. It was just what everyone did, though.

With the advent of wedding photojournalism came an emphasis more on the story of the day, candid moments, and unstaged images. And yet, the Wedding Shot List remains a ubiquitous feature of every wedding planning book. You’ll even find them circulating on the internet. Why is this, I ask myself?

Surely you wouldn’t walk into your doctor’s office and hand her a list of steps to prepare for surgery? Or your dentist’s and give him a diagram of a tooth extraction? Even if we consider fields with fewer training requirements–you don’t tell the man at the cash register to scan your items. He already knows what to do. So, why do we think it’s OK to give photographers a list of shots with things like “bride walking down the aisle?”

It’s like saying, “I don’t trust you, and I don’t think you know how to do your job.”

Now, before I go any further, I want to make it clear I’m not picking on any bride who has ever handed me a shot list. I know that they had only the best intentions and were probably just going with what their guidebook said to do. I know, I’ve seen those books. They tell you to check off this huge list and hand it to your photographer.

And, there’s also one BIG caveat: I DO welcome a shot list of specific family and group combinations. While those photos aren’t probably fun for anyone to take, I know they’re important, and I certainly take them. Also, if there’s something REALLY out of the ordinary they want me to take a photo of–by all means, let me know about it.

But beyond that, I don’t shoot weddings by a shot list.

The worst thing about shot lists isn’t that they’re full of obvious things like “groom waiting for the bride to come down the aisle”, but that they are entirely devoid of all the unscripted moments. Things like “flower girl taking a photo of her friend in the pew,” “grandma getting down on the dance floor,” and “ring bearer taking a leak on the golf course during a group shot” (yes, that’s happened before). If I began to view every wedding as just a series of scripted photos, I’d miss so many great moments!

And what about “nontraditional” weddings? What if there was no aisle? No garter? If I just went by those lists, I’d be lost. What a way to disappoint my clients!

In summation, I think Wedding Photography Shot Lists do a great disservice to the wedding photography industry–both to photographers and to brides and grooms. Unless you’ve booked a super traditional photographer, you as a bride will be much better off by not asking your photographer to follow some old list. I mean, who decided that stuff was important, anyway?

And for the record…I do get many of those “shot list” photos…

And many more unscripted moments…