August 4, 2026
Illustrative stock photo · Photo by Recep ÇELİK via Pexels
I get asked about gear more than almost anything else. Usually from a couple's brother-in-law with a new mirrorless body, sometimes from a bride who wants to know if her cousin's camera is "as good as mine." The honest answer is that gear is maybe 15% of what makes a wedding gallery work. But the 15% matters, and it matters more in Florida than most places, because I'm shooting in 95-degree heat with 80% humidity, sudden afternoon storms, and venues that swing from open beach to dim reception tents in the same four hours.
So here's exactly what's in my bag on a wedding day, what I've cut over the years, and why.
I carry two camera bodies on every wedding, both slung cross-body, never one body with a bag of lenses I dig through. One body wears a 35mm, the other a 70-200mm. That's it for 80% of the day. The 35mm stays close for room-wide moments — the first look, the ceremony processional, the reception entrance — where I need context and I need to move fast without changing anything. The 70-200mm compresses distance for portraits and lets me stay out of guests' sightlines during the ceremony itself, which officiants and venue coordinators consistently thank me for.
The reason this matters isn't the focal lengths themselves — it's that I never miss a moment because I was swapping glass. A vow exchange lasts four minutes. A ring drop happens in half a second. If my hands are on a lens mount instead of a shutter, that's a moment gone, and there's no reshoot for a wedding.
I used to carry a 50mm 1.4 as my walk-around lens because it's the "classic" choice. I dropped it from the bag in 2024. On a Florida wedding, the light changes constantly — bright sun on the beach ceremony, shaded live oak canopy for portraits, string lights and low tungsten for the reception. A 50mm forced me to physically reposition for every framing change, which costs seconds I don't have during a timeline that's already tight. The 35mm and the 24-70mm zoom cover that same emotional register with the flexibility to react to the light instead of fighting it. I'd rather have one fewer "beautiful" lens and zero missed frames.
Every body has a backup body. Every card has a backup card. I shoot dual card slots with instant backup — one card is the working copy, the second is the insurance policy, and both are pulled and stored separately before I leave the venue. This isn't theoretical caution. In the last three years, I've had one card corrupt mid-reception and one body lock up during a first look. In both cases, the second system caught it and the couple never knew anything happened. That's the actual job: making sure a hardware failure is never the couple's problem.
I also carry a third, smaller body as a true backup — not glamorous, but if a primary body goes down at 4pm on a Saturday, there's no camera store open and no time to improvise.
Florida receptions are often outdoors under string lights or in tents with mixed lighting, and I keep flash minimal by design. My preference is to shoot available light as far into the night as the venue allows — string lights, uplighting, sunset color — because that's what actually matches how the couple experienced the moment. When the light drops below what a lens can handle cleanly, I bring in a single off-camera flash bounced off a ceiling or diffused through a small softbox, never direct on-camera flash pointed straight at guests. Direct flash flattens a room and kills the mood I spent all day building. One bounced flash, used only when the natural light runs out, keeps the reception gallery feeling like the same story as the ceremony.
A few things I used to carry and cut for good:
- A second flash system with light stands — too much setup time for a day where I'm moving between six locations. - A tripod for anything other than formal family portraits — weddings move, and a tripod anchors me to one spot. - Filters beyond a polarizer — Florida sun is strong enough that a polarizer earns its space in the bag; anything else is a fix I can make faster in the edit.
The pattern across every cut is the same: if a piece of gear slows down my reaction time to a moment that happens once, it doesn't make the trip. Reliability and speed beat "better" specs on paper every time.
I don't shoot in Florida the way I'd shoot a wedding in a controlled indoor venue up north. Every body and lens combination I carry is weather-sealed, because a July wedding here has better-than-even odds of a pop-up storm. I also carry microfiber towels in three separate pockets — not one, three — because a single towel gets soaked through in the first five minutes of a downpour and stops being useful. Humidity fogs a cold lens the second it comes out of an air-conditioned reception hall into the outdoor heat, so I let gear acclimate for a few minutes before critical shots whenever the timeline allows it.
None of this gear list makes the photos good. What it does is remove friction between me and the moment in front of me — so when the groom's hand tightens on the father-of-the-bride's shoulder, or the flower girl loses her nerve halfway down the aisle, I'm not thinking about settings, I'm just there with the right tool already in my hand. That's the whole philosophy behind how I built this kit: fewer decisions in the moment, more attention on the couple.
If you're planning a Florida wedding and want to know exactly how I'd approach your day — venue, light, timeline, all of it — book a discovery call and let's talk through it before you book anyone.
Let's create images at your venue that you'll be proud to pass down for generations. Reach out and let's see if we're the right fit.
View our photographyMost professional Florida wedding photographers carry dual mirrorless or DSLR bodies with a wide-to-normal zoom (like a 24-70mm) and a telephoto zoom (70-200mm), plus backup bodies and dual-card-slot storage for redundancy. Weather-sealed gear is standard given Florida's heat and storm frequency.
Two bodies eliminate the need to change lenses during time-sensitive moments like vows, first looks, or the ring exchange. It also provides an instant backup if one body fails mid-event, which has no reshoot option on a wedding day.
Not for most of the day. Florida's natural light — beach ceremonies, string-lit receptions, golden hour portraits — covers the majority of shooting conditions. A single bounced off-camera flash is typically only needed once natural light drops too low late in the reception.
Weather-sealed camera bodies and lenses, multiple microfiber towels (not just one), and letting equipment acclimate to temperature changes before shooting all reduce fogging and moisture damage during Florida's hot, storm-prone wedding season.
