Marc Silber interviews San Francisco wedding photographer Bambi Cantrell. She packs a lot of good tips into a short interview. There is a glitch (blank section) at about the 1-minute mark but the rest of the video is okay.
She has an interesting suggestion: check out the light direction, highlights, and shadows with your hand. When photographing mature women, she recommends a high camera angle, to hide the sagging skin under the chin. Ask your subject to look up with her eyes, to make the eyes look larger. Very useful for photographing older brides!
I like her summary observation: “Expression rules. Expression over perfection.” When shooting portraits, it’s important to talk to subjects and pay attention to small movements of eyes and mouth, to see what makes them happy, and to try to “capture their soul,” as she puts it.