> If you are a pretty good hobbyist photographer, one of the worst things you can do is shoot a wedding. Shooting a wedding, even for professional photographers, is one of the highest stress environments possible for photography.

I class myself as taking "decent snapshots", have a good DSLR and a fair bit of experience. I've shot three weddings for family & friends, all of them were under duress. None of the couples were going to pay for a photographer so I was pretty much the only alternative to them asking people for whatever pictures they happened to take and share.

On the day it was a balance between taking part in the wedding and getting decent pictures, including the formal shots. I was pretty nervous and didn't like the directing part, I prefer to be anonymous in the background. Not everything turned out well but compared to the alternative they were all very happy and I did get good coverage of the days events. I did sort of enjoy it and was well prepared with kit & plans for the day plus it was certainly an experience but have said to myself never again.......