Wedding Wednesday – Inaugural Address

I’m excited to announce another blog feature today! Wedding Wednesday will be coming to you every – you guessed it – Wednesday, to help you plan your wedding photography. In these Wedding Wednesday posts I’ll be sharing favorite images from weddings past, answering frequently asked questions, discussing the thought process behind certain aspects of wedding photography, and other fun wedding related stuff as it comes up! I’m going to kick off this new feature by sharing why I love photographing weddings.

You may remember the post I did over the summer where I talked about why I photograph weddings. This post is similar to that, but today I’m going to discuss it more from the point of view of the actual wedding day. I said in that post that what fuels my fire is getting to participate in true celebrations of love. Weddings are a time when two people bring together family & friends who wish them well, support them, believe in them, and want to celebrate them being in love. And I feel lucky & honored to bear witness to & capture all of that through my lens. I believe those days should be documented in the most beautiful way.

The first wedding I photographed sealed the deal for me. I didn’t own my business yet, but the bride asked me to photograph their wedding because I was a friend. She said she trusted me and would feel comfortable having a friend follow her around throughout her special day. The moment this sentiment hit home for me was when she was finally dressed in her gown. Her sisters had run off to find her dad for their first look. It was just the two of us alone as she took her first peek in the mirror while I grabbed a few portraits. When she took in her reflection, she began to cry and said, “wow.” I told her she looked beautiful, she let me take the photos, & I was overwhelmed at the honor of this bride feeling comfortable enough with me to show her emotions.

That feeling has stayed with me and I want every wedding day to feel like that for my couples. Having your photograph taken can be intimidating – we’re not all natural models (thank God!). Add that to the overwhelm that can be felt on a wedding day & I can’t imagine the pressure. That’s why I like establishing a connection of friendship with my clients before the wedding day so they feel comfortable with me following them around all day with a camera. I like to strike a good balance between the feeling of friendship – laughing with them & being awed by everything they’ve put together, while still taking pictures, and fly-on-the-wall photo journalist, capturing candid moments and allowing things to unfold naturally.

So on this, the inaugural Wedding Wednesday, I will just leave you with this: I love photographing weddings because it gives me all the feels, and I get to capture my clients celebrating with their family & friends while they have all the feels too <3