I am a amateur, but am sometimes thought of as the "photographer" in the family. People pictures aren't my thing, but I do it when there are significant events I would be stuck having to attend anyway. Ususally these events are boring, so I don't mind taking pictures. It gives me something to do and gives me a good excuse to not have to sit there while Aunt Fuddyduddy keeps everyone so spellbound describing here latest ailments and cures and interrupts if anyone tries to change the subject.

The time for taking the pictures is therefore free, even a welcome alternative to Aunt Fuddyduddy. The unpaid time-consuming work is later to post process and thin the lot to ones that are at least acceptable. Others don't understand and appreciate how much time it takes to do this right. This is the real favor they are asking, although they rarely understand that.

I make it clear up front that all they should expect from me is a DVD with the presentable pictures in preview and full res formats. It's up them what they want to select to print, put in a book, or whatever they want to do with any of the pictures. I use my normal system for documenting a set of pictures, which includes a tree of HTML files, several preview sizes, and record of the date/time and other info about each picture. You can pop the DVD into any computer and look over the pictures, drill down to get more detail on any of them, sequence thru the bunch, and retrieve the full res versions for possible printing and the like. It still takes hours to put all that together, but it's a lot less work than what a formal wedding photographer does.