Seriously, this is an incredible lens. It is hands down my sharpest lens though I don't own any primes. I have the IS version and I highly recommend it. It's surprisingly light and easy to wield. The f/2.8 MkII version is just as good though quite a bit heavier and offers an extra stop, but I just couldn't justify nor afford the nearly 2x price tag.
No, you'll get horrible results trying to shoot weddings that way. What you will find in shooting weddings is that you more often need wider than longer focal lengths, that speed (faster apertures) is very, very important, and that (especially on a crop camera) most often primes are the way to go, with the possible exception of posed group pictures.
Again, you can rent them. And you can get the bride and groom to pay for the rental, which is much, much cheaper than paying for a wedding photographer.
Nevertheless, they work best for this sort of work, without question. One thing that you may not be thinking of is that it is highly unrecommended to shoot a wedding without a second/backup body. I am assuming you still have your XTi, so you can mount two primes at once; this can be more flexible than using a zoom, due to the extra speed and the fact that a lot of the time one would shoot toward the ends of a zoom anyway.
No. Although you may not like them, they are not too cumbersome to "allow for a good shoot". Switching lenses is easy and can be quite quick, although not as easy as zooming.
Those are all non-choices. Period. Your insistence on these lenses means that you are completely unfamiliar with the focal lengths needed most for wedding work, and with the funcitonal requirements of the lenses; they are too slow and will exacerbate the shortcomings of your camera, and in addition the lack of IS will mean you will waste further light on high shutter speeds to avoid camera shake.
I think you're not ready to shoot a wedding. Not even close.
No, that will give horrible results, especially when compounded by the functional limitations of a non-stabilized 70-200mm zoom. Your plan is wholly unsuited to shooting weddings.
Nobody does this because it just doesn't work. At all. You may be able to capture some exposures, but the results will be awful compared to normal wedding photos.
I'm just telling you the straight facts. You are ill-equipped to shoot a wedding, and going down a worse path with your stubborn notion that adding an unstabilized 70-200mm zoom is the way to go.
Fair enough; you are entitled to your own opinion. In this case it is a completely wrong, uninformed opinion from someone who has little to zero experience shooting correctly under the real-life requirements of a wedding.
I don't know where you're going with that one. I never thought I was the only photographer. What a strange thing to write.
Another quite strange thing to write. Counseling a relative newbie that a slow, unstabilized, long focal length combo is bad for weddings doesn't mean that no photography meets my expectations. Bad photography doesn't meet my expectations.
No, since none of them would try to shoot a wedding with a single crop camera and unstabilized longer zooms, while avoiding primes. The suggestion is quite ludicrous, in fact, that the best wedding photographers would agree with you.
I find this a bit hard to believe, no offense meant.
Okay, I am prodding him intentionally and should not. Sorry.Get it right. What I actually said was that the OP was taking a terrible approach to wedding photography, in planning to use an unstabilized 70-200mm zoom on a crop camera, while ignoring other glaring problems with his kit.
Whoopsie. I guess I am; arrogant in the same way that:
It is not an excellent (with an 'e') wedding lens, unless one plans to use a monopod to make up for the lack of stabilization. In fact it would be a poor choice to use an unstabilized zoom for indoor wedding photography, since it would greatly decrease the functionality of the lens for wedding photography use, and these problems would be compounded on a crop camera. (Note also that the OP is even considering using an unstablized f/4 lens, which is an even worse choice.)
