My actual kit, wedding by wedding

Three cameras, three jobs:

GFX50S II + 50mm f/3.5 — roughly 80% of the day.

This is the workhorse. Handheld, all day, every part of the timeline. Medium format files, a lens that’s small and quiet enough to disappear, and a rendering I’ve never wanted to move away from.

GFX100RF — around 10%, but intentional.

This is the wide angle. It hangs on its own strap over my shoulder all day, and when I need width — a room, a group, a doorway I can’t back away from — I swing it round rather than swap lenses. It’s a fixed 28mm-equivalent, so I know exactly what I’m getting before I lift it, which speeds me up rather than slows me down. In the evening I’ll put a Godox iTT30 Pro on it: slim, small, doesn’t unbalance the camera, and gives a proper direct flash for speeches, the dinner room, or a packed pub garden where ambient light has given up for the night.

X100V + Godox Lux Senior — the last 10%.

Dancefloor only. Light, small, and the Lux Senior gives that soft, warm pop of flash that doesn’t flatten a room full of people mid-song. I want to be invisible on the dancefloor, and this is the smallest, quickest thing I own.

Where the GFX100RF earns its place

It’s not there to be a second full system. It’s there for the shots the 50mm can’t get without me physically backing into a wall:

• Wide shots of a room before it fills — architecture, table styling, the scale of a marquee or a barn
• Group shots where there’s no space to step back
• Doorways, staircases, tight bridal prep rooms
• Any moment where I need the whole scene, not a slice of it

Because it’s a fixed lens I know before I raise it whether it’s the right tool, which means it’s fast in a way a zoom never quite is. And because it lives on its own strap rather than in a bag, there’s no fumbling — it’s already there when the room asks for it.We ducked away from the crowd for ten minutes on Mermaid Street, cobbles underfoot, timber-framed houses either side. Sarah’s family had never seen anything like it. Neither had most of the guests, judging by the number of phones out.Dancing Until the Family Went HomBy the evening it was arms in the air, drinks spilling, three generations on the same dance floor. Grandparents in wide-brimmed hats watching from the edges before eventually giving in and joining. Nobody wanted to be the one to call it a night — least of all the people who’d flown furthest to be there.