In all honesty I'm finding it pointless to write a review on this lens. This is by far the most commonly used lens in all of the wedding industry (especailly newbies) and possibly very popular in fashion and glamour too.
It's tough, durable, sharp, and solid, basically it has everything you want in a lens.
The 2.8 aperture is gorgeous, soft however not too soft. If you looking for a completely blurred and "bokeh destroyed" background then you should rather look at the Nikon 70-200 2.8 or the Nikon 80mm 1.4G
If the zoom bothers you, maybe you haven't moved to full frame, then let me explain.
Your crop sensor camera will change this zoom to a 36-95mm lens, keep in mind this won't effect your bokeh as you are merely cropping the image. The crop sensor actually makes this lens a little more versatile as sometimes 70mm just isn't enough.
On a full frame, you get an awesome wide and perspective 24mm, at 2.8 everything is pretty darn sharp and it's great to use for wedding dance shots. This is really your only lens for a small reception or church. And with the 2.8 you have a lot of light coming into the sensor.
Is it all roses? Yes.....BUT.....there's always a BUT!
Tamron launched a 24-70 2.8 with vibration reduction, it's good, it's sharp and it's much cheaper!! Yes...I know Nikon also launched one...but have you seen the price?
So the argument is do you need vibration reduction? Yes I know if your shutter has to be taken down to 1/80 you should rather bump up your ISO and bring it back to the 1/150 mark for sharper photos, and your modern DSLR has such great ISO it works.
The problem is sometimes you shooting at ISO 800 and you on 1/100 already...regardless of camera (I'm currently shooting with a D800) you will see noise at ISO 1000, maybe I'm too fussy I don't know. But as a fast paced wedding photographer where sometimes you could seriously blur a good shot at 1/150, I personally think vibration reduction would help.
So...what you really need to ask yourself is this...
Do I need vibration reduction?
Do I have enough money for the Nikon with or without VR?
The choice is yours...all I can tell you is that I am happy with my Nikon 24-70 2.8 and if Nikon gave me the VR version, I would definitely upgrade...wink wink Nikon!
Here are 3 images taken with the Nikon 24-70mm 2.8
Thank you very much for the useful and informative topic. That is what I was looking for. Also special thanks for the funny photos that perfectly complement this article. Good luck