You Don’t Need a Photographer Who Takes Over Your Wedding Day
There’s a certain kind of wedding photography marketing that makes capturing your wedding day sound much more complicated than it is. You’ll see words like intentional and editorial and documentary. You’ll hear about photographers who want to spend hours creating a deeply intentional experience, as if the more time they spend directing, prompting, and photographing you, the more beautiful the resulting images must be. We think it’s a little simpler than that.
Your wedding is already meaningful. The people are already important. The relationships, the excitement, the nerves, the laughter, the happy tears—none of those things become more significant because a photographer used certain styling to capture those elements. Our job is to anticipate those moments, know when to step in, and know when to get out of the way.
We Don't Need to Direct Everything
There is a balance to wedding photography. Too little direction and you can end up with a photographer who stands around waiting for something interesting to happen. Too much direction and suddenly you're spending your wedding day performing for your photographer. Neither is particularly appealing. We want to give you enough direction to feel comfortable and confident in front of the camera without turning your wedding into a photo shoot. Your wedding day is not " content" for us or any of the other vendors. We'll tell you where to stand when it helps. We'll fix a veil, straighten a jacket, move you into better light, or suggest a different location when we know it will make a photograph stronger.
There Is a Difference Between Being Present and Being Involved
Your wedding day is not a content opportunity for us. We're there to work. We're there to photograph what is happening, make sure the important moments aren't missed, and create images for you to have and enjoy—not to manufacture moments for our own social media. We'll listen to what matters to you, take your requests seriously, and do our best to photograph your day in a way that reflects what you actually want.
We want to be present for your wedding without becoming part of the wedding.That means knowing when a moment needs direction and when it doesn't. During portraits, we'll guide you. For family photographs, we'll keep things organized. When the light is incredible, we'll notice it and pull you outside for a few minutes. But when you're on the dance floor with your friends, we're not going to manufacture a moment for the sake of getting a photograph. We're going to photograph what's already happening. We'll move through the room, watch what's unfolding, anticipate what might happen next, and make sure the important things don't go unnoticed. We're paying attention.
Your Wedding Doesn't Need to Look Like a Photo Shoot
There is also something to be said for letting your wedding photographs look like your wedding. Yes, we'll make beautiful portraits. Yes, we'll pay attention to composition, light, backgrounds, movement, and all of the technical details that go into making a strong photograph. But we don't want every photograph to feel like it was carefully arranged for the camera. We want the dramatic portrait and the ridiculous dance-floor photo. The perfectly composed ceremony photograph and the blurry photograph of everyone rushing onto the dance floor. The classic family portrait and the photograph of your grandmother laughing at something someone said three seconds later. The photographs can be polished without making the day itself feel overly produced.
So What Are You Actually Hiring a Wedding Photographer For?
You're not hiring us because you can't take a picture. You have a phone. Your friends have phones. Your family will probably take hundreds of photographs throughout the day. You're hiring professional photographers because we know how to turn all of those fleeting pieces of a wedding day into photographs you'll actually want to keep. We know how to use light. We know how to pose you without making you feel awkward. We know how to organize family photographs so they don't take forever. We know how to anticipate a moment before it happens. We know when to use flash and when to let the available light do the work. And we know when to stop directing and simply let you enjoy your wedding.
