if I were you I will buy a decent 17-50 2.8 so I can survive w/ ambient light only. plus d7k ISO performance is. excellent! I like it
and get a decent flash like sb-600 or sb-800.
this case provided you have enough budget.
anyway get 35mm 1.8 might be a great idea as well.
a lot of people use that for their 1st paid shoot.

D90 + 50mm f/1.8D
1/160 sec
f/3.2
ISO 1000
without flash unit - regretted very much for not lending one, since I don't own one.

Hence, vearn27, I'd strongly suggest you to get a flash unit and learn it quick in time for the event. You might not be an expert within a day, but it can certainly be very helpful especially when you're counting on your kit lens to deliver. You still have a few days to practise and get a little used to it; or maybe get someone experienced to give you a crash course

Chinese Wedding?
Flash gun is highly recommended. It doesn't matter if you have prime with f/1.4, most probably you're not going to use wide aperture and bokeh is pretty much useless unless for specific special shots. You need to capture movement, moments, you need fast shutter speed. When they're playing those games, you can't afford to miss those moments or blur shots caused by slow shutter. Indoors, depending on the house,etc it might be crowded and the lightings might also be poor, shooting group photo, you're not going to risk using big aperture to compensate for the light, you need to get more in focus and people don't have time to wait for you to adjust here and there and keep reviewing your photo and re-take, it's better to be more assured that you got the shots.

Then the more challenging part, the wedding reception? Depending on the location, the lightings can go even worst especially inside the ballroom and the ceilings may be very high. The important moment, the couple walk-in, the lights will be off and you don't have much time to take the as many shots as you can; You don'y really have time to check and review your photo as the couple will be walking in. You wouldn't want to ruin these important moments..... They don't stop for your to take photo and adjust your camera settings, plus, the spotlights might mess with your photo...

People may say the D7000 have great ISO, but that doesn't mean you don't need flash and doesn't mean there will be low noise, you might be using ISO above 1000 easily for indoors even will wide aperture... will smaller aperture, easily it will go up to ISO 3200 or even higher. Under expose and your images will be filled with noise/grain that is worst than higher ISO.
And without the help of flash to fill in the shadows, those spotlights, etc will cause your subject to have shadow on their faces, etc.

Just my cheap 2 shutter clicks.
Very true indeed.

Totally agree! No need to be OP for Wedding to feel it, actually any event will do, not necessary Wedding. Lighting is very important in photography, it makes a whole lots of difference, and there's also creative lightings.

Even basic use of flash gun (bounce celing), makes a big difference already. One can slowly move on later, there's so much to learn on flash photography.

well.. I think I haven't touch wedding too much, so I have nothing to say from the experience. again those are if I were you
decent 2.8 + decent flash + decent prime can bright up your day.

because with a wider aperture you can balance the ambient and the fill flash. the case will be quite different if you are using pretty small aperture such as 5.6

the picture tend to be filled by fill flash all the way.
again those opinion might be just me hahaha..
it will be best if you can learn your flash in a short period of time. so you can master it before the actual wedding itself.

best luck for you dude!

Talking about flash. I've been missing my flash lately, my last photo shooting is lacking of flash definitely.
well budget constraint makes me not to be able to do much.
instead I am using fill flash function of lightroom

I agree with you. Wedding photography is not a testing ground for you to experiment. The pressure to get good pictures are 10x more than normal portraiture shooting. Every moments, do count.

To me, I think basic foundation of understanding towards different kinds of light source is very important, not just ambient light but also flash photography. The more you understand them, the more you have control over the lighting to shape the picture you want. Sometimes, ambient light alone won't do you any good but it can backfire. Lighting is just one thing, havent even come to those times where white balance is damn tricky that it sometimes could be hard to be recovered during PP even if shooting RAW.

If they off the lights, I will definitely refrain from shooting anything, since in total darkness, your AF will definitely fail to work, MF is out of question.

I am expecting the spotlights to shine over the couples during the march in.

Some things to look at:

1. Be aware of the scene, make sure you shutter speed is adequate as there will be a lot of actions. If your couple is moving about, low shutter speed will cause motion blur, and has nothing to do with your hands steady or not.
2. If you're not confident on your exposure, use Aperture priority mode if you need to control your aperture for depth-of-field, Shutter priority if you need to shoot motion or panning shots (following couple's car), matrix metering mode. Aperture/Shutter priority mode can let you ensure that the exposure will always be consistent because you might be shooting indoors and outdoors interchangeably during Actual Day. Sometimes, beginners usually have common mistakes of forgetting to set to correct exposure when using M mode.
3. When shooting group photos, try if possible use a smaller aperture to have a larger depth of field so that everyone's in focus. Don't be afraid to spam a few shutter clicks because sometimes, your guests may blink their eyes.

I'm no professional, but just sharing some information and experience; Hope it can useful to you.

During the March In, there should be spot light; Not the tricky part, the spot light may mess with your settings and you can still use flash if you want. Try to expose for the background or environment as well instead of leaving the background dark; It makes a difference to the whole picture quality, and stands out from typical point and shoot. Another tricky part is the spot light may not directed to the couple "properly", I've experience the spotlight shine on one of them only... Keep your shutter speed fast enough to capture the movement in low lights. When of stage, the spotlights may mess with the couple face causing shadows, you will need to use flash to fill-in those shadows (you might want to practice this).

If you're using Aperture Priority mode, remember to set the minimum shutter speed and max ISO. Don't put your max ISO too low though...
Try to becareful with focus-lock technique especially when using wider aperture. You can use wider aperture to get the effects you want for special shots, but most of them time, you might not want to use big aperture, especially group shots; The couple will love to take photos with groups of people and so on.
You can consider using continuous shooting mode so you can capture few shots (especially for group photo), it's hard to get everyone looking at their best.

For day time, you might need to be careful when outdoor under the sun, then going to the house porch playing games (this part you need to be fast and try to capture all the best moments), then moving into the house, then to the bride's room, etc. The lighting available changes dramatically from each area.

As for Flash practice, well, not sure how can I explain, you need to buy it and experience it first. The most basic technique is bouncing off the ceiling, but this gives "OK" or "normal" quality, you may try to bounce off wall and you will get much more natural lightings and professional too. Most probably you will enjoy it especially as you can use lower ISO and be amazed with the difference in terms of sharpness and overall image quality produced. You can play around with bouncing off different direction, etc. But during actual event, you might not have much time to adjust the position as you also need to move around or if you're taking in portrait mode, there's more limitation.
As for diffuser, you need to try it,... it gives again, a different output all together,  it gives bright lightings, but again, it's just "OK" or "normal" quality, sometimes worst; You need to play around and see.
You can buy SB700 or SB900, both these comes with the diffuser and also color gel; there's also built-in flash/bounce card which is small and you can actually DIY bigger flash/bounce card for more flexibility and soften the light more. These are useful when there is no wall or ceiling.

When you're practicing, you can also play around with off the camera flash to create more creative and professional lighting effects; Of course, when you're shooting on the event day, it's not really an option; BUT, you can do it during certain times (e.g. taking picture with the couple in the room; try to create more creative shots).

Above are some of my sharing, it's kinda messy actually, not so good in writing or putting down in words; hope it's beneficial to you.

My cheap 2 shutter clicks...

Congrats on your purchase.

I suggest you give this article a read. Lots of useful tips there.

http://neilvn.com/tangents/

i'd say use appropriate iso. wouldn't want the flash to overheat if it's firing full blast all the time. during overheat, the flash will unusable. overheating happens quite easily in ttl mode if the place is too underexposed.

just from my little experience

base from my noob exp..i never see wedding photographer do their job without flashgun..its a very2 important thing u should hv if u wanna be a wedding photographer..

nice 

just use TTL mode & after this wekend event, try to learn M mode

Let me explain colour gels.

When you shoot flash, it is white light bursting out right? So let's say, you have a place where the ambient light and some places is tungsten. Tungsten light is brown btw, so if you are shooting without flash, you can easily overcome the tungsten browness using white balance, tungsten.

However what happen if you are using flash?

flash firing range isn't that big btw, so some part of the tungsten won't be wiped out by the flash so it will till remain present in the photo. Therefore,

White + brown = ????

White balance set to tungsten = ????

yeap. This is where the colour gel usefulness comes in.

Let me take the brown colour gel as example.

You apply the colour gel, and then the flash will become brown, so brown + brown = Brown, white balance set to tungsten = ???? = PROFIT!

The whole photo will be brown so the white balance will adjust it to be white.

There. Hope you learn something.

People often thinks that colour gel don't do anything, but actually, it helps a lot.

Thanks , nice say +1

im using enolop 2000 MAH and panasonic 2500MAH. used to have energizer 2500MAH b4. never had problem. never heard of it btw. new info i guess.
battery pack normally i survey around differ around RM10 - RM20 only. not worth to me to go shop around. i bought mine RM100 for 8 enelop which i forgot what mAh and i assume 2000 mAh

Just an advice, you might wanna switch off the cut off during overheat, when it get overheat, u won't be able to shoot. In my experience, I've tried to use under overheat condition, working well and save me from the lighting issue to get the moments. After all just my 2cents. U may ignore if you think it's too risky. 

I have never heard of flashgun died of overheating though I have never heard of my SB-800 Overheating too

Check your manual page 103; you can download the softcopy for easier reference and you can use find to find the worst; It's under Auto ISO Sensitivity Control, you can read more information there on how it works.

For the shutter speed settings, it depends on the type of movement and so on (e.g. group shot with slight movement, people walking, people running,  and also during the actual day "game"); For safe and lazy to adjust (and worry forgot to adjust back), you can adjust for  fast shutter speed... OR save two different settings under User Mode 1 and User Mode 2. (e.g. U1 for faster shutter, U2 for slower shutter to compensate for smaller aperture for group shot).
By the way, with Flash, it can help to freeze motion as well, but slow shutter can result in trails (or whatever that's call).

As for under the sun, using the Flash you may have limited shutter speed, you will need to set the Flash Sync Speed to "Auto FP"; See page 222... As for overflare issue, as long you adjust the exposure right (if you're in M mode especially), the flash i-TTL will automatically balances the flash for fill-in.
You can read more about i-TTL Balance Fill Flash here (or the manual):
http://www.nikonusa.com/Learn-And-Explore/...Fill-flash.html

There's also something called D-Lighting (also Active D-Ligthing); This can actually help to brigthen the shadow area as well as recover some details on the highlight area. Something like Lightroom Recovery and Fill Light feature.
Active D-Lighting works as you take the picture, while D-Lighting is for processing later.
As to whether to use or not to use this, it's up to you to decide; You can try and experiment with it yourself.

Regarding bouncing the lights off ceiling or wall; I've bounce before on brown wall, green wall, etc. Yes, it does affect the picture, like slight green tint, etc. but so far, not really a problem for me or can still be fixed. Anyway, it "may" not be as bad as it seems; You have to try to and see it yourself (plus, brown wall is not obvious or probably not noticeable, probably it's not as effective in terms as they say darker colour absorbs light). Also, try bouncing off wall from different direction, if gives creative effects lighting and professional image quality; it can also help you fill in the shadow area.

Diffuser and Flash/Bounce Card, again, it's best for your to try out yourself and see the different effect; of course, if you're in a room or with ceiling/walls around, you will also get different effects. The built-in Flash/Bounce Card is very small, you can DIY bigger ones to soften the light more, or get the "Demb Flash Diffuser" kit, which I think few forum-mer here are using, it helps in situations without walls/ceiling especially.:
http://www.dembflashproducts.com/diffuser/

The colour gel is same like the diffuser provided, attached to the flash, except it useful for situation to correct the "lighting";
Example: Try shoot in Karaoke room and use the default diffuser provided and the orange color gel; The default diffuser, the picture will make the room as if lighted by bright flourescent light (under Auto WB); but the orange color gel can get more accurate ambient colour (under Auto WB). Anyway, I think it's best to experiment yourself as experience is the best teacher and also helps you to capture and learn faster.
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/light...to-correct.html

Yes yes the colour filter, because you said gel before this so I try to make it easier hah.

You can get a yellow bulb table lamp and try firing you flash PROVIDED the table lamp's light don't get wiped out hah. Then you can see. Normally tungsten filter is highly used.

Anyway, go shooting spree. It will help you feel your equipment better and prepare yourself

I don't turn the Active D-Lighting on too; Used it before but didn't really pixel peep and compare; But will be nice if I take a picture, it can produce 2 output, one with D-Lighting and another without 
But then, I prefer raw, so these features become pointless.

The diffuser that provided/comes with the flash, it will soften and also spread the flash around the sides (not really sure how to explain) and the output is not what I really looking for. Most people use it and use it the basic way, flash head up 90 degrees or maybe slightly tilt. That's what you see commonly, even indoors with ceiling and walls around; When I use it, I just don't like the output. It's unnatural, and very "basic" or "mediocore" output result, in my personal opinion.
The diffuser is useful for situation without ceiling or wall as well; you often see people use the diffuser just about anywhere..... and I don't really find the light as soft "enough". In many situation, I tried it, took it off and put it back into my bag.
You can check out more on the Demb Flash Diffuser as it provides more flexibility and better results.

Sorry about the gel thingy 
Forgot where I got the term, but there was also color gel which works the same as the filter; not sure which was first tough 

dear vearn27, grats for the purchase
and good luck ahead for the wedding

Basically, if there is a burst usage on the speedlight, it will heat up fast, so when the speedlight get overheated and when that happen it will have a beeping sound indicating that the flash unit is overheating(there is a graphic thingy showing temperature), therefore it will cut off not allowing you to use it anymore, but u can switch off the cut off so that even if the flash unit still beeping, but u can still shoot. This will allow you to capture the moments and not losing it, but i will say that the sound is kinda annoying. Good luck to you.

Here is the link to off the Thermal Cut Out.
http://www.ehow.com/how_7566056_disable-ni...flash-unit.html

Sanyo Eneloop, highly recommended from me. So far it works well and never failed me.