Anyone else using Alien Bee's or are they too mundane for you lot?
I'm a wedding shooter, I have 3 AB800's. Not the most powerful but with a translucent brolly (shot into not through) I still get f5.6 @ iso 100 for large groups indoors and that's plenty. I use two as main/fill and the thrid for background or accent. For modifiers I use two 40" translucent brollies from Calumet. In a room with a white ceiling half gets bounced from the brolly and the other half shoots through, spreads and bounces of the ceiling for an incredibly soft and even effect, far softer than regular silver or black backed brollies which I hate, far too harsh for me. I also have two of the Lastolite umbrella soft boxes (36" I think), basically an small octobox which folds and stores as a brolly. Great for when I need more directional light, lighting the background or accent. Also great for product shots though I don't do much of that anymore.
Reason I like the AB's are that they are truly tiny, I carry two in a tiny backpack, they are very efficient with fast recycle and loads of features and although at the very much lower end of the power they aren't as consistent as our studio bretheren may like, on location and with digital (not trannies) a difference of a 1/3 of a stop isn't enough to worry about, certainly at that price!
I usually shoot with a simple 1:2 ratio for indoor wedding portraits or switch off the fill entirely for effect. Nothing too complicated and turn the subject towards or against the main depending on whether you want broad or short lighting. I don't go for more complicated than that simply because with wedding photography you need to work very very fast with a fool proof (the fool being the assistant) setup that you can repeat again and again without having to test the setup. Nothing is more unprofessional at a wedding than taking a long time setting up and then doing test shots with the bride as subject!
In the reception hall I use both my AB's and Wireless ETTL (always in C mode) in conjunction with on camera bounce. It provides lighting where I want it to truly replicate as far as possible the natural lighting, i.e. to achieve with flash a look that is similar to what the eye saw. To that extent I use the lights bounced to bring the ambient light level to the level of the lighting on the subject (if that is what it looked like, candlelit is very different). You can of course do this by using the flash only as fill and exposing for the ambient but most of the time I need more DOF and a higher shutter speed so I try to achieve the same effect, or close by using judiciously placed strobes bounced. I hate false sidelighting or backlighting from direct off camera flashes during a reception which although so beloved of most people shooting in my small sector of the market, I prefer it to look like it did on the night unless using the natural light for a specific effect. It's one thing to have sidelighting on the brides face as she looks at the groom lovingly during his speech (shoot without flash using the videographers hotlight!), it's another to have weird sidelighting in a impromptu friends shot during the meal!
I've never used anything other than on camera fill outdoors and then rarely for effect, more just for even lighting or because I want the subject backlit or sidelit. I would love to use off camera wireless flash diffused and held high but I'm yet to find an assistant good enough for this to work seamlessly on location in limited time.
If I had the time I would love to take 6 months working for an excellent fashion/people photographer in studio and on location to learn how to achieve truly great lighting to achieve a specific effect, but with the minimal amount of faffing around. I have a huge amount of respect for the talent that uses just one light and a reflector plus possibly an accent light to achieve real greatness. I understand light, I can use light, but what I want to learn is how to choose a specific look and then use the lighting, whether natural or manmade, to achieve the effect. I have a small understanding for it, I use a lot of natural sidelighting and backlighting in portraiture and 15% of any wedding album is shot without any flash at all using the direction of the light to tell the story, but there is an entire world out there that I would love to learn till the point it became subconscious and I truly believe that only working day in day out with someone whose grasp of lighting you admire can to do it properly just as when I apprenticed before I became a wedding photographer.