If you have a DSLR camera and you're attending a wedding this summer, please consider leaving it at home and just enjoying your time as a guest at the wedding. The bride and groom have hired a wedding photographer and believe it or not, those pictures are going to be way better than yours! They have the technical expertise, high-end equipment, and years of experience in capturing all the special moments of a wedding ceremony and reception. No matter where you're seated in the pews or the reception hall, the photographers have already scoped out the best places to be in order to record this special event. If you try too hard to usurp them as they do their jobs, you'll only ruin the pictures they're trying to create for the bride and groom.

As a nature and fine art photographer, why am I offering this advice? Because I'm guilty of having committed this very sin at both of my nephew's recent weddings. I was unschooled in the proper wedding guest photography etiquette, because I simply didn't know any better. I'm sure I got in the way of the official wedding photographer and I had no idea I was making their job harder. But in the last year, as I've gotten to know a wonderful group of local photographers, those who photograph weddings have expressed their frustrations with people like me (not with me in particular though!). I can't go back and change how I acted at those two weddings, but I can spread the word to others who might innocently commit the same sins as I did. Please learn from my mistakes!

My own daughter is getting married next June and she's already told me I'm not allowed to photograph her wedding. I think she felt she had to let me know this up front, so I wouldn't sneak my camera into the wedding and spend my time trying to capture it, rather than participate in it. She needn't worry- she's my only daughter and this is my only chance to be the mother of the bride. There's no way I'm going to squander this opportunity to savor all the details of the day and be there for her on her special day. I wouldn't have it any other way. Besides, it's their wedding and whomever they hire as wedding photographers has the responsibility of capturing all those special moments, from the pre-wedding preparation to their first dance as Mr. & Mrs.

One more thought- If you plan to use your cell phone to capture the ceremony, be prepared to put it aside too, especially if the bride and groom ask you to do so. Cell phones are so ubiquitous these days that they're turning up in pictures of weddings, to the point of being really annoying. People with cell phones also get in the way of wedding photographers, often spoiling shots of those special moments during the ceremony or reception. And think about it- even though cell phone cameras have improved a great deal over the years, you're still not going to get the same high-quality images of the couple as will the wedding photographers. I mean, do you really think the bride and groom will want copies of those pictures, once they've seen what their wedding photographer delivers? Maybe you could save the cell phone pictures for the reception and take some fun pictures of yourself with the bride and groom- after the wedding photographers have done their job for the couple.