I co-mange the "Wedding Photograhy" section here on UHH! Oh, there's such a section! There is very little traffic there, especially lately, what with the pandemic. Even under normal circumstances, it ain't all that popular around here. If, however, I changed the title to "I Hate Weddings" it might be inundated with new posts every day.
"Weddig Photography for Fun and Profit"??? Yes, it can be fun, challenging, creative and extremely profitable and rewarding IF YOU KNOW WAHT YOU ARE DOING! That comes with education, experience, research, practice, and honing your people skills, which is a talent in itself. Good business management helps as well!
Although, nowadays. 75% of my professional work is in commercial photography and portraiture, we still offer wedding and event photography. At 77-years old, I still shoot- I do work with at least two assistants. Wedding photography and portraiture were my entry-level to the business. I was fortunate enough to start in New York City, as a teenager, where I served as an assistant to an experienced photographer. The city has a very diverse and interesting mixture of many cultures, ethnicities, religious communities and socioeconomic groups. There is enough population where there can be weddings just about every day- not only on the weekends and in the month of June. For me, it was total emersion in weddings both as an assistant and eventually as a shooter.
I went to school for this job too! Well, there's no college or university course in weddingg photography but besides the "school of hard knocks" fortunately, there were many serious courses offered at the Winnona School- the educational arm of the Professional Photograhers of America, where one can study portraiture, photojournalism, and yes, wedding photogrhay. You get with all the programmes and combine the skills you learn
Times change as to fashions, tastes, trends, and what folks expect. Certain traditions still apply but a savvy wedding photograher has to keep abreast of the trends, market and shoot accordingly and not get stuck in the olden days.
Wedding photography is not for every photograher. I know many seasoned professionals in other fields and specializations that would litterly have a nervous breakdown at a wedding assignment. It is certainly not for the lazy shooter or those faint of heart or impatient.
One of my commercial cohorts used to continuously rib me about my insistence on remaining in the wedding business- he kinda looks down upon the job! So, I offered to pay him to assist me on a big ethnic wedding that went from 11 A.M. to 3 A.M. the following morning. At the end of the job, I thought I might need to call an ambulance to bring him home. Well- I did drive him home and as he left the car, he muttered "you do this all the time"?! Took him two days to fully recover! I made it my business to show him the cheque I received for the final payment- including a hefty additional order- he doesn't make fun of me anymore!