Wedding Photographers: my wife wants to start "dabbling" in wedding photography. What's the minimum equipment?

She has a Pentax DSLR camera - what I'm really wondering is, what are the specs of the lenses she'll need to get started, and what are the specs of the flashes she'll need. Not wanting to go full-time, just wants to make a little extra money as she's home with our new baby daughter.

Hey "Sam C," I'm 1/2 mexican, and 1/2 asian indian,so you're racial slurs missed the mark. Try again.

Wedding photography is an expensive career. The investment to begin is quite large considering the things youe need to buy. You can expect to spend between 6000-12,000 just to get started with the minimum's necessary.

Here's what was in my bag when I started:

A bag that's deep enought to hold my gear: $300
1 main camera body $2500
1 back-up camera body (you can't go without) $1200
50 mm lens $400
85mm lens $450
70-200 with IS $1700
Wide Angle 17-35mm $800
1 580EX Flash $450
1 430EX Flash $400
1 macro lens 100-300mm (for tiny little details like rings) $500
Extra batteries for cameras $120
Flash batteries $80
Various filters for the lenses $350
CF cards - 30GB $1500

$10,750 was the grand total of what was purchased before I ever shot a wedding. Plus you need to take into consideration all the expensive software you need to develop the photos to professional quality:
Photoshop CS3 - $1200
Lightroom 1.0 $350
Show it Web - $300
And a website / marketing!

Since first starting I have added an extra $10,000 of gear and additonal software beyond the basics just to make sure I have everything. Getting into photography is quite expensive, you should consider it a long term investment!

Insurance is a must when it comes to taking wedding pictures, you can really get yourself in a bind if you don't have it... Report It

Remember that most DSLRs have a crop factor of 1.6, which means you multiply the lens mm by 1.6 to get the *actual* range in 35mm terms. I am not sure how the pentax sensor size works, you can verify your sensor size and crop factor at www.dpreview.com

At a minimum:
One zoom lens with a good range, such as 24-105mm.
One large aperture lens, like a 50mm F/1.8
Telephoto is nice to have, but not necessary. Something that goes to 200mm is handy to get candids of shy people from far away.

Flash: Get the strongest flash that is made for your system, you'll use it! Zoom flash with auto settings are great. Learn how to use it in a variety of situations. I shoot with bounce using the bounce system instructions at www.abetterbouncecard.com

Memory: lots of it! Shoot RAW! You can correct so many minor mistakes if you shoot RAW. If you shoot jpeg, you better hope you got it right because you can't adjust much without majorly sacrificing quality.
Batteries, lots! Spare camera batteries, spare flash batteries.