is there a trick to not blow out the hilights in a wedding dress?

What worked for me at my recent family wedding was to us my hot shoe flash as a fill flash (superflash 383) set at 1/8 power setting and bounding it off the cieling.



dave

The real trick is to get detail in both the brides dress and the groom’s tux. Whoever came up with this tradition was not a photographer.
Set you exposure compensation to under expose by a stop, give or take, experiment

I bounce flash with a diffuser and make sure I meter off the brides face...If you meter off the dress, you will end up with a dark bride smile...Not good...If the groom is there, do not meter off the tux....Results will be a blown dress and faces...:-?

Don't meter from the tux or the white dress.... Point the dslr in Aperature, shutter priority, program modes and point in towards a color that reflects 18% grey.

Think about the human skin who are light skin color in ...or green grass. For instance point the camera towards your own hand....

If you take the shuttertime / diafragma / iso 100/200combination of these, you will be close to the settings you need for a good picture. Some people use a grey card to measure the exact settings.