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History

Due to the nature of the bulky equipment and lighting issues, wedding photography was largely a studio practice for most of the late 1800s. Over time, technology improved, but many couples still might only pose for a single wedding portrait. Wedding albums started becoming more commonplace towards the 1880s. By then, the photographer would start including the wedding party in the photographs. Often the wedding gifts would be laid out and recorded in the photographs as well.

In the beginning of the 20th century, color photography became available, but color photography was still too unreliable and expensive so most wedding photography was still practiced in black and white. The concept of capturing the wedding "event" came about after the Second World War. Using film roll technology and improved lighting techniques available with the invention of the compact flash bulb, often photographers would simply show up at a wedding and try to sell the photos later. Despite the initial low quality photographs that often resulted, the competition forced the studio photographers to start working on location.

Initially, professional studio photographers might bring a lot of bulky equipment, thus limiting their ability to record the entire event. Even candid photos were more often staged after the ceremony. In the 1970s the more modern approach to recording the entire wedding event started evolving into the practice as we know it today.

Technology

During the film era, photographers favored color negative film and medium-format cameras, especially by Hasselblad. Today, many more weddings are photographed with digital SLR cameras as the digital convenience provides quick detection of lighting mistakes and allows creative approaches to be reviewed immediately.

In spite of diminishing film use, some photographers continue to shoot with film as they prefer the film aesthetic, while others are of the opinion that negative film captures more information than digital technology, with less margin for exposure error. Certainly true in some cases, it should be noted that exposure latitude inherent in a camera's native RAW image format (which allows for more under- and over- exposure than JPEG) varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. All forms of RAW have a degree of exposure latitude which exceeds slide film - to which digital capture is commonly compared.

Currently however, it is fair to say that many professional labs have a greater capacity to provide services in post-production for film compared with digitalcn: date=December 2007, such as quickly generate adequate prints in the event of some over- or under- exposure. This should change over time, with manufacturers like Kodak announcing a commitment to further develop streamlined services in the area of professional digital lab output.