Shooting my first wedding - Advice appreciated

I am shooting one in two weeks actually and I am really bored at work this morning so I'll give ya my plan.

You are definitely very well equippped from the sound of it as far as picture goes.  Even sound isn't too bad. so..

1. Definitely have someone help you man another camera during the ceremony at least. That is a one shot deal and they are not going to pause or restart because you miss a shot. Having someone help by getting maybe a wider shot is very helpful and then you at least have the full thing covered.  Then you can use the other camera(s) to get some close ups and even candides of the family in the crowd to help when editing the scene.

2.  Sound is critical and the quality of your video no matter what will be judged on how well people sound during the ceremony and reception during speeches.  The ceremony can be tough to mic.  I am using two wireless lav mics and a zoom h4n.  I am putting one lav on the groom as hidden as possible and the other on the pastor or minister on his right side and somewhat lower to get the bride as well as him during the ceremony.  Lav mics are omni-directional so they pick up anything in proximity.  The groom and the pastor will wear the transmitter packs and i will have the zoom in the back with me and the receiver packs.  Putting a mic on the bride could be tough because you don't want to see any of it because she wants to look as beautiful as possible and fidgeting around with her dress could be awkward after a while depending on how good of friends you are.

For audio during speeches, talk to the dj and record a direct line straight from his console. he might even be able to record a track from the mic directly for you. Definitely use the audio from that mic though, then you don't have to try and put a lav on everyone that wants to say something, cuz nobody got time for that.

3. My plan for this wedding coming up is to take my tripod and slider, use the tripod as a monopod with the legs extended but folded for shots unless you can get a good set up shot with the tripod.  then I am also going to be using my slider set up on the tripod to get some interesting shots as well.

Sounds like you are well equipped. A fast 50mm will be really helpful later at night during the reception and what not.  It was my life saver on my last wedding.  The tokina may not do too bad on the dance floor with the glidecam either depending on the light. Everything else will be perfectly fine for the ceremony, but plan ahead on what lenses you want to use on each camera. switching lenses during the ceremony is almost out of the question unless you have a third camera.  I would recommend going to the rehearsal to see how its going to play out, talk to the bride and groom and get a feel for how you want to shoot and what they are comfortable with.

Weddings are fun and can be a good challenging shoot.  Hopefully this helps a bit. I can post a link to the first wedding I did when I get home later.

I'm going to be using the Sennheiser G3 wireless lav mics i believe.  Not 100% sure on the model but I think thats them. The receivers plug straight into the Zoom via the included XLR cable.  I checked out that video and like that technique on the bride a lot more so i think i will test it out this weekend and see how it all sounds. I just know it's really important to have good sound on them because they really want to hear their vows crisply on screen.

For the DJ, on his console he should have an 1/4" connector or XLR connection line out sort of thing that you would just plug into the Zoom like you would a microphone.  I would double check with the DJ though before hand just in case he is using every port on his console or what not.

For the glidecam entry shots, i would suggest having the other camera going also as the bride enters just in case you bump the glidecam or something. That happened to me and I had to make due with a shitty shot cuz I didn't have a backup on my last one. Just an idea anyway.

I just shot my big wedding of the summer this last weekend and it was a blast! of course it wasn't without its problems but im still pretty stoked on the footage. but when i told the bride i wanted to put a mic on her she was completely cool with it and was down for whatever we needed to do to get the best sound.  I taped the mic to the inside of her dress right at the top in between her cleavage haha (best part by the way) and then ran the wire down the waist and into the transmitter where she tucked that into her garter.  I had her walk around a little to make sure it wouldn't slide and that it was comfortable. it worked perfectly! for the grooms mic, i attached it under his vest to the tie so that it wasn't visible either. im pretty stoked with the results

when you were talking to the bride about it does she know it will be hidden on her? or that you want to try and hide it on her as best as possible?  my other suggestion would be to use one on the groom and the pastor, just place them slightly lower and turn up the levels of the mic so that it is capturing all of the voices right there.  in post you will have to decide which ones sound better because if you use both in the same track you might get a bit of a phase problem from both mics picking up everyone. if you fade them in and out as one is talking it won't be a problem. i would still test this though before hand.  put the mic on yourself or a friend or whatever like you are the pastor, then have two other peeps stand and talk like they are getting married and see how it picks up. you can try different placements and levels until you are satisfied then you'll know how it sounds.

you could set up the external recorder right on the podium out of sight possibly and that will probably pick them up alright. you would have to check levels beforehand as best as possible though. or if you have a good shotgun mic you could try something similar as well.

as for recorders i have only used the zoom out of those options so idk how the others would be.  the zoom worked great for me though, i had it set to 4 channel recording and could monitor the wireless mics as they were getting ready to walk the isle, then hit record and let it run til it was done. im pretty stoked on the audio i got and think it will work out really well. hope this helps a little

ha i haven't even offloaded the videos to my computer yet but im hoping by the end of this week to have some sort of idea of a highlight video or somethin.  ill definitely post that when its done. 

i don't think a lower lav mic would sound too bad on the priest as long as you did a similar placement with the groom so that way they all sound  a bit more ambient than direct. even my mics were placed right about at their chests to make sure they were out of sight and i was happy with that result. you would just have to make sure that the priest wasn't too far away from the couple.

you definitely don't need more than two channels. i just did to possibly catch applause and what not from the onboard mics of the recorder. i don't even know if ill use that or not yet. you can set the zoom to stereo mode only so it uses either the onboard mics or if you click the numbers it uses only the inputs. then you can monitor them from there for only two channels and not worry about the external sound from the onboard mics. 

it looks like that would work. you might have to play aroud a lil bit with it when you first get there but it sounds like that input would take over for the internal stereo mic and you would still have two xlrs available. seems like that would work tho. just make sure you have your levels set right so you don't clip or distort anything. good luck!