Yes, I have a Tascam DR-40 which has been a great tool since I started shooting with the GH2. Great tip is to call the DJ day before wedding and see what his setup will be, and if you can patch a line/mic out from him into your recorder. So if he only mic's up the officiant, you can then mic up the groom and put that on the 2nd input, and you're set. Usually the onboard mics can pickup good ambience indoors, outdoors if there is even a slight wind, might as well turn those off and save battery life.

If you have more than one shooter, Canon's might work great for you, but for solo work, GH2 with the continuous recording really helps for those stationary shots where you can hit record way before ceremony start and not have to worry about it stopping throughout the entire ceremony...Same with reception.

@tinbeo Or you could use a Sony RX100 if you start it just when they enter and if the ceremony is less then 30 minutes. Autofocus is damn good and low light is much better then a camcorder. Plus it's small enough to be hardly noticed. I'm trying out mine now with good results and who knows what it will be able to do once the NEX-hack team start working on Sony cameras.

Awesome thread for someone like me who has to record the highlights of his sister's wedding in a few weeks!

I´d be very much interested in more tips and warnings concerning audio, especially without lavs, if anyone had some more to give.

Thanks!

Just finished long Syrian wedding with 6 GH2:s. Crazy stuff! Gotta hit the sac and catch some z:s before posting some examples. 30h of footage to sift through in the next couple of days.

Oh yeah I forgot! They changed to another church without notice - Nerve wrecking!

Minutes before the ceremony was due to start, the minster kindly asked "You do know they are facing the congregation, right?" I said no they never said they were doing that.

Cue last minute mad dash to re-config set-up, and move up to balcony with lots of gear!

End result worth it, now every consultation we ask, which way are you facing?!

@oscillian, 6 GH2's!?!?!?! That is insane. I hope they are paying you well for it! How many shooters? Would love to see some of that 30h footage.
I am usually one person trying to manage 3-4 cameras: 1 GH2, 1 GF3, 1 Sony V1U, and a Sony TX100 point&shoot for hiding. Audio is through Tascam DR-40, and kudos to all the kind DJ's letting us get the audio feed for ceremony & reception!

I use a personal recorder with lav mic attached for the ceremony. Guess who inserted the mic into the earphone hole? oops

I have now taped over the headphone hole to prevent this.

Catrin and David got married on 29th of september this year. We started out at Catrins parents place with the ceremonial greetings from Davids family and then took off for church (last minute change!) The party lasted until 5 o'clock in the morning :) This was my first Syrian wedding with 600 guests and my first gig for Carlsbeckers Studios.

40+ hours of raw footage with 6 GH2s. Edit in Premiere CS6. Music: themusicbed

Shot one a couple weeks ago was my 6th wedding I've done since I started shooting weddings… the wedding started an hour and 15 minutes late, and was an hour and a half long ceremony (was my first Catholic ceremony, and from what I heard, this was long by even Catholic standards!). The reception was across town, and the bride and groom arrived an hour later than expected, which was then proceeded by a 5 course sit down dinner which took 5 hours for the caterers to serve. Needless to say, you can only shoot so much footage of people sitting around waiting for food to arrive. The DJ's were in a panic trying to re-arrange the wedding schedule as dinner was only scheduled for an hour. What was supposed to be a 6-7 hour day for me, turned into an 11 hour day… but I learned a lot about making a better contract so I get paid more when these types of issues come up.

10 Things a Photographer Should Never Do While Photographing a Wedding

Do not share technical problems with the wedding party.

Let’s face it, stuff is going to happen. Problems will arise. Equipment will break, lenses will lock, lights will refuse to fire, and you will panic. No matter how seasoned of a wedding photographer you are, a lens that locks up in the middle of an event will give you the same sensation as if you swallowed an ice cube. But no matter what the problem, it is YOURS, not the couple’s. The last thing a bride wants to hear on her wedding day is, “WTF? Hold on everybody! My lens locked up and I’ve got to switch everything over now, so it’s gonna be a few minutes. I can not believe this is happening. I mean, come on!” Yeah, brides really love that…not. Just switch to your backup plan and move on. You do have a backup plan, right?

Via: http://petapixel.com/2013/05/15/10-things-a-photographer-should-never-do-while-photographing-a-wedding/

@oscillian, those are really crazy hours for shooting a wedding! I hope you are well compensated. Just filmed one this past weekend with great results...just forgot to shoot some establishing venue shots! My issue is I always bring too much equipment to use. Thankfully the venue had excellent staff with golf carts helping me out. Don't be afraid to ask for help (staff not guests) carrying stuff around a large venue where the ceremony and reception are at different sites and your car is way far off in the parking lot.

Sigh... Unfortunately I didn't discover the Panasonic G6 black coma issues before this recent shoot. Actually its white and black coma to the left. The ETC on the G6 makes it even worse so most of my closeups are weird as hell and its impossible to grade (unless if I go low contrast, 70s style look on everything). To make matters worse, the groom ripped out the cord from the H1 so I had no LAV sound during the ceremony. Frosting on this disaster cake: this was also close to an airport, so I got some great Airbus 230 foley instead!