We always go to rehearsals, even though it usually means we'll have to get a motel and stay over for the wedding due to the fact that we live in a very rural area and we service an entire state and sometimes even the entire country.

It gives us a chance to see the venue, check lighting conditions, the house sound system and positioning of the wedding party as well as any movements of the officiant, couple and/or wedding party. Often we need to intervene just a little, to ensure we'll have a view of the couple that is unblocked by tall groomsmen or bridesmaids, etc. If the stage area is too shallow, we'll ask the officiant to have the couple face each other from much earlier in the ceremony than he might otherwise, so that we can shoot from forward positions and still get faces.

Speaking of faces, I don't want them to look like racoons. Many churches and chapels have lights in the ceiling that shine straight down. These often need to be toned down and the remaining shadows should be lightened by light that is on a more horizontal plane. Windows can be helpful here, but when shooting from the rear position (behind the officiant & couple), they can cause glare that will ruin your image by reducing saturation and just plain being annoying.

If windows are a factor, we try to have the rehearsal at the same time of day that the ceremony will be held, so we can see exactly how the light will affect everything.

Checking the sound system visually, is not enough. I've learned I must bring my digital recorder and headphones and verify that I am going to get a signal from the "Line Out" or "Tape Out" connections. Even so, if I can find an accessible speaker, I'll drop a lav in front, just to be sure I get that house sound. This is also the time to firm up arrangements to get a copy of any CDs that will be played or better yet, to actually receive those copies.

This past weekend's wedding was another lesson in not taking everything you're told at the rehearsal, literally. I'd forgotten to bring in my digital recorder and headphones, but the sound guy assured me he'd done this hundreds of times and there would be no problem connecting to the board. Wrong! I hooked up thirty-minutes before the ceremony was due to start, which is when the sound guy arrived, but we couldn't squeeze any audio out of the board.

We were told there would be only one officiant (who didn't show up for the rehearsal), but twenty minutes before the ceremony, we were presented with two officiants who decided to share the responsibilities!

We'd been told that at one point, someone would read scripture from a podium, so we miked the podium, but there was no reader. (Watch for another version of "Two Podium Monty", where they tell you all the speaking will be done from just the one podium, then they end up using both or just the opposite podium!)

We were told there would be no live singing or music, but there was a keyboardist and four singers!!

At the end of the ceremony, the couple and wedding party were to dance two laps around the church, in a counter-clockwise direction. Due to lighting conditions, I needed to move to a specific corner forward of the stage to properly video this. As I was quietly making my way, the exit began and I noticed that the party was going clockwise! I barely got to the opposite corner in time.

Having already planned to mic the fob; one officiant; groom and podium, I suddenly found myself needing at least two more microphones - one for the second officiant and one for the keyboardist and singers. By the way, the ministers assured me that they would be standing next to each other and therefore would only need one mic between them, but the one that did the most talking, was quite energetic and spent most of his time preaching while he moved about the congregation sometimes more than twenty feet from the other officiant! If I'd only miked the other minister, I would have had terrible audio.

So what's the point of going to rehearsals? I still feel they're extremely valuable, but you can't believe everything you see and hear. Expect changes. Expect that the florist will totally block your camera positions (bring a machete!). Expect that you've been given some innocent, though potentially video-ruining misdirection.

There are other things I like to take care of on my rehearsal excursions. I lecture the wedding party on the evils of gum-chewing and talk to the best man and try to make sure that we'll be advised of any car-decorating or other shennanigans. It's one thing to video a "decorated" car, but much, much better to video the act of decorating. It's one thing to have a map to the reception venue, but much better still to actually drive there from the church the day before the wedding. For more on this read, "Scouting the Reception Venue" - in Articles section.

One time the bride sent us the reception address via email. Being careful, we double-checked the address on the Internet. Everything checked out, but after leaving the ceremony for the reception, we arrived at a vacant building with a "For Lease" sign! We wasted another ten minutes frantically trying to learn where they'd moved to (groom wasn't answering his cell phone). When we finally arrived, I let my wife out at the door. She ran around the rear of our station wagon, grabbed her camera bag and tripod and dashed inside. I quickly parked and grabbed my camera (onto which my wife had mounted a shoulder mount), and hurried inside just in time to catch the last half of the first dance, which was the first event.

We missed the arrival and shooting the reception setups, but it could have been much worse. We later learned that the couple had been to the reception venue when they originally reserved the place, but had gotten the address to send to us, from the Web, not realizing that they had recently moved and the addresses were different.

If I had time to review our rehearsal section from our video course, I'm sure I could add a lot more here, but (probably like you) I've got weddings to edit, etc. Two months to go before we get a break! (September and October are usually our last two busy months of the year)

PS - this wedding coordinator claims to handle over three-dozen weddings a year and has been doing this for a decade. She told me I am the very first wedding videographer she knew of, that used more than one single microphone!!!