What's in My Camera Bag? A UK Wedding Photographer's Gear Breakdown

I get asked about my gear more than almost anything else, usually somewhere between the ceremony and the speeches, when a guest with their own camera bag spots me swapping lenses and wants to compare notes. It is a fair question, and a useful one, because the equipment a wedding photographer carries is not really about brand loyalty or spec sheets — it is about what happens when the light fails at six in the evening, when a ceremony runs in near-silence and every shutter click is audible, or when it is raining sideways at a Yorkshire castle and nothing can be allowed to fail. Here is exactly what goes into my bag on a wedding day, and why.

Why Gear Choice Actually Matters on a Wedding Day

A wedding is not a controlled studio environment. It is one unrepeatable event, often spread across a full day and several locations, in whatever weather turns up and whatever light a British summer or winter decides to provide. There is no second take of a first kiss or a father seeing his daughter in her dress for the first time. That single fact shapes every decision in my kit: everything has to be reliable, everything has to work quietly enough not to intrude on a ceremony, and I need enough redundancy that a single equipment failure never becomes the reason a moment goes undocumented.

I also think about weight and speed. A day photographing a wedding at somewhere like Cambridge often means walking between college courts, gardens, and reception venues for ten or twelve hours with a bag on my shoulder the entire time. Gear that is technically excellent but too heavy or slow to work with quickly is gear that costs me moments. So every item in the bag has earned its place by being both capable and practical.

Camera Bodies: Always Two, Always Ready

I shoot with two full-frame mirrorless bodies on every wedding, and this is non-negotiable. One camera failing mid-day is rare but not impossible — batteries die, cards corrupt, a body can simply stop responding at the worst possible moment — and a wedding photographer with only one camera has no plan B. Both of my bodies are the same model, which means identical menus, identical button layout, and identical file output, so switching between them mid-ceremony is instant and unconscious rather than something I have to think about.

Through the day I usually carry both cameras simultaneously, one on each shoulder with different lenses attached, so I can move between a wide environmental shot and a tighter, more intimate one without missing the moment in between while I change lenses. During the ceremony itself, when I need to be as unobtrusive and silent as possible, I switch both bodies to fully electronic, completely silent shutter mode, so there is no mechanical clatter competing with vows being spoken a few feet away.

The Lenses I Actually Use All Day

My lens choices are built around versatility and speed rather than having every possible focal length available. A 35mm f/1.4 is my most-used lens by a significant margin — it is close enough to how the eye sees a scene that images taken with it feel natural rather than stylised, and it is fast enough to shoot comfortably in a dim marquee or a candlelit barn without flash. A 50mm f/1.2 does the heavy lifting for portraits and couple shoots, with a shallow depth of field that separates a couple from their background beautifully during golden hour.

An 85mm f/1.4 is what I reach for during the ceremony itself, letting me capture genuine expressions from a respectful distance without needing to stand at the front and become part of the scene. And a 24-70mm f/2.8 zoom lives on the second body as my everyday, everything-in-between lens for receptions, group shots, and any moment where I need to react and reframe quickly rather than physically move. I rarely use anything longer than 85mm at a wedding — anything more and you start to lose the sense of presence and connection that makes wedding photographs feel alive.

Lighting: Working With Available Light First

My general approach is to use natural and ambient light wherever it is genuinely usable, because it tends to produce the most honest, timeless results. But British weddings do not always cooperate with that preference, especially through a UK autumn and winter when a reception can be in near-darkness by five in the afternoon. For those situations I carry a small flash unit with a diffuser, used off-camera wherever the venue allows, bounced off ceilings or walls rather than fired directly at faces. I also carry a compact continuous LED light for detail shots in dim getting-ready rooms, where flash would be too harsh for close-up work on rings, invitations, or shoes.

The goal with any additional light is that it should be invisible in the final image — nobody should look at a wedding photograph and think "that was flash-lit." It should simply look like the room was a little brighter than it actually was, and the couple should never feel like they are being lit for a shoot rather than living through their own day.

Storage, Batteries, and Redundancy

This is the least glamorous part of the kit and the most important. I shoot to two memory cards simultaneously in each camera, so every single image is written to two separate cards at the moment it is taken. If one card fails, is lost, or becomes corrupted, the second card still holds a complete, untouched copy of the day. I have never lost a wedding's images to card failure, and dual-card recording is the entire reason why.

Batteries get the same redundancy treatment. I carry enough charged spares to shoot the entire day twice over, because a wedding day does not pause for a photographer to find a plug socket. Everything travels in a weatherproof, padded bag with room for a rain cover, because a beautiful ceremony does not stop for a shower, and neither can I.

The Small Extras That Make a Real Difference

A few smaller items earn their place in the bag despite taking up very little room. Lens cleaning cloths get used constantly, especially at outdoor weddings where confetti, pollen, or a light drizzle can land on glass at exactly the wrong moment. A small step stool helps enormously for large group photographs, letting me shoot from slightly above a crowd so nobody at the back is hidden behind someone taller in front. Spare tissues and safety pins have rescued more than one dress hem or teary-eyed parent over the years, and a printed shot list for family formals keeps that portion of the day moving quickly so nobody stands around in the cold for longer than necessary.

I also always carry a second, entirely separate memory card wallet that stays in a different bag or pocket from the cameras themselves, so that even in the unlikely event of losing the main bag, cards already filled that day are stored somewhere else. It sounds excessive until you have heard the alternative story from a colleague, and then it sounds like common sense.

Why This Kit, and Not a Bigger One

It would be easy to carry three times as much equipment — more lenses, more lights, more accessories — and some photographers do. I have deliberately kept my kit tight because speed and presence matter more to me than having every conceivable option available. A wedding day moves quickly and the moments that matter most are often unplanned and brief: a glance between a couple during speeches, a grandmother's reaction during the vows, a burst of laughter as a group photo is being set up. Being able to react to those moments in a fraction of a second, without fumbling through a bag for the right lens, is worth more than any additional piece of gear could add.

This is also why I photograph weddings largely alone or with one trusted second photographer rather than a large team — fewer people with cameras means a lighter footprint at the venue and a couple who can forget they are being photographed at all, which is when the truest images happen. You can see the kind of results this approach produces across the weddings I have photographed, and how it holds up in venues ranging from intimate elopements to full country house celebrations.

How This Translates Into Your Wedding Photographs

None of this matters to a couple on their wedding day in the abstract — what matters is the result. Reliable, redundant gear means I am never distracted by equipment worries during your ceremony or your first dance. Fast, high-quality lenses mean your photographs are properly sharp and beautifully exposed even in a dim marquee at nine in the evening. A tight, well-chosen kit means I can move quickly and stay close to the action rather than lagging behind fiddling with settings. If you are planning a wedding and want to understand more about how coverage works on the day itself, my pricing page sets out the packages and what is included, and the wedding albums I create afterwards show how these images come together as a finished, tangible piece once the day is done.

Gear is only ever a means to an end, and the end is always the same: honest, beautifully lit photographs of the people and moments that made your day yours. If you would like to talk about your wedding and how I would approach photographing it, I am Yana Skakun of Yana Skakun Photography, and I would love to hear from you — get in touch whenever you are ready.