Wedding/reception venues

As having spent some years as a wedding photographer I wonder about the sanity of people who design/prepare wedding venues.

Many places (the majority in fact) seem to forget that weddings have a photographer and often a video crew.  Why for example cover the entire wall behind the top table with mirrors, the Bride can't see them, shes got her back to the bloody things, but god help the photographer/guest who want to take pics of the speeches, they are reflected in every shot, pointless and an expensive waste of time.

Then there are the top tables against the windows, yes lets back light the entire wedding party, it helps no one, they are in their own shade, that means we have to use lights or flash with the same reflection issues of the mirrors.

The latest 'fad' I've encountered is the 'gloom room', yes the bloody rooms blacked out, I was at a friends wedding a few weeks ago, blazing sunny day (and we don't get many here) yet the reception rooms like the black hole of Calcutta, talk about depressing, the dessert was Prozac! and another with the mirrors behind the top table.  You had to use flash, I nearly needed night vision goggles, it was so bloody dark  none of could see what we were eating.

My final whinge is the venues (mostly churches) who use those horrible yellow sodium lights, yes I know they are cheap but did the bride really pay two grand for her dress to look like a banana!  If she's wanter a yellow dress I suspect she'd have bought one.