The last couple times I have shot weddings, I have made sure to visit the location before hand, and both times it has been close to useless for me. I thought through the lighting situation, hot spots that I wanted to keep out of my backgrounds, and what length of lenses would work in what places.
Both times, the situation changed so much from my exploration day to the wedding day, the information was close to useless, or at least, it was nothing I could not have done in a few minutes on the day of the wedding. In one case, the church was very dark with few lights on when I checked it out, then on the wedding day, I found out the entire back wall was windows, previously curtained, which they threw open in addition to a multitude of overhead lights they turned on. Should I keep checking out the locations beforehand?
Well, I still figure “yes”, if I have the chance. I will try to coordinate that with something else, though. In the case of this past weekend’s wedding, I was able to attend the wedding rehearsal, which gave me both a chance to see the location some and to know the order of service.
If the couple wanted on-location portraits, I would feel a definite need to walk the grounds beforehand to find any nice little spots. Besides that, though, I am tending much more away from the overly safe, time-wasting habit of checking out the locations and more toward the side of evaluating the situation as it unfolds. That is what you end up doing anyway.
