I’m not one of those girls who dreamed about what her wedding would be like. Hell, I had little to sub-zero interest in the idea of marriage, white dresses or being somebody’s wife, even as a kid. So I think it’s a surprise to everyone (and to nobody more than myself!) that I discovered a special kind of love for photographing weddings. Especially the kind of weddings full of character that represents the goofy, funny, nerdy, passionate people I have the pleasure of working with.
Now, it’s fairly difficult to be the kind of person who prides herself in being multi-faceted, DIY-loving, punk-rock ethos at heart when you are a part of the Wedding Industrial Complex (WIC, dun-dun-DUUUUUN!) But I realized that what I get to do and be apart of on your wedding day (weekend, week) is utterly unrelated to the money-grubbing, glossy-paged, ‘perfection’ striving nightmare that is the WIC.
So why am I so adamant about you getting a good photographer? Because, not to be overly-dramatic, but truly photography is the only thing that will remain of this celebration. This one time that everyone will be together in one place. My own wedding, just 7 months ago, is full of things I have already forgotten. A dozen years from now I won’t be able to remember what kind of food we had or exactly how the table decorations looked even though we spent countless hours making paper flowers that were awesome. And I already can’t remember who played kickball and who stood on the sidelines cheering while double fisting our homebrew. But I WANT to remember these things! And I’m sure there were dozens of cell phone photos that were posted online throughout the day but I could find exactly 9 photos that I was actually tagged in. So in half a year those images are already lost somewhere deep in the social media timelines or on people’s old phones that took a swim in the toilet or are really cute but just not high enough quality to print large and hang on the wall.
With the same lighting and same background the difference is pretty big. Not to mention this is the only guest photo I could find of us 2 together for the first half of the day in the forest.
I came across an article by photographer Anne Almasy last year that hit the nail on the head so perfectly it brought tears to my eyes…
…But those photos… they’re gonna be there forever. You’ll have them when your own kids are born, when you have the biggest fight ever with your partner and need to be reminded of how much you really love each other, when your parents pass away and you realize the last time you danced with them was at your wedding…
So when people ask me “hey, I’m on a tight budget, where should I focus my money” ? The answer is always “the photographs”. A great photographer will make even the most meager wedding look pretty amazing by capturing the love and emotion your friends and family bring to the day. And THAT, my friends, is priceless.
