Sometimes my day starts at the ceremony. Maybe the couple is really shy and don't want me covering prep.


In this case, I generally aim to be there two hours before kick-off. This means I can try to find parking as close as possible, which matters for when I'm rushing out of the church after the ceremony and throwing things into the car. And it also gives me time to take my time and to get mentally settled.


  • 2 hours before ceremony: find parking, move gear into church, drone shots
  • 90 minutes before ceremony: detail shots of the church, set up equipment
  • 1 hour before ceremony: detail shots of decorations, guests start to arrive


Then, in the last 30 minutes, everything happens at once. Groom arrives, majority of guests arrive, musicians arrive (and I need to set up sound recording for them), priest needs a microphone, I do a last-minute chat about who's going to be standing where and when, and bride arrives.


So, that's kind of the ideal plan. But what that two hours also gives me is buffer. Sometimes I've missed a turn off the motorway, and that added 15, 20 minutes to the trip. Around a dozen times, a couple has given me the wrong address. And at least once, I made a mistake about address (tapped the wrong entry in my Navman).


Closer to ceremony time, parking can be impossible to find, and you don't want to be desperately, endlessly circling the block, while the clock ticks down to bridal entry.


And then there was March 2021. The ceremony was in the Blue Mountains.


What happened that month was flooding. There was a sign on the freeway saying that the Richmond Bridge across the Hawkesbury River was closed.


"That's not good," I thought.


I backtracked and tried to cross at Windsor, but that was a no-go as well.


So, I changed direction again, and by this time everyone else had too, and the traffic ground to a standstill.


I called the bride -- no pick-up.


I called the celebrant and begged her not to start without me.


End result was that I sat in traffic for 90 minutes, sweating bullets, then ran in five minutes before ceremony was due to start. The trip had taken me two hours more than predicted.


Two hours is an extreme case. But general moral of the story, for photographers, videographers, is to always build in buffer time before the ceremony. I'd recommend at least 30 minutes.


If you have to compromise on getting all the shots of the bride getting ready, then that's just the way it has to be. "Sorry, I've got to go." It's nice to get those shots, but it's more important to be ready for the main event.


And if you don’t allow buffer time, then it’s not a question of if that decision will bite you — but when.