Nathan & Emma's Wedding at Middlesbrough Town Ha
Not every wedding needs to begin first thing in the morning and continue until the last person leaves the dance floor. Some weddings are much smaller and simpler, with the important part of the day concentrated into just a few hours, and Nathan and Emma's wedding at Middlesbrough Town Hall was a lovely example of exactly that.
I joined Nathan and Emma for two hours of wedding photography, which gave us time to photograph their ceremony, the congratulations afterwards and some relaxed photographs around Middlesbrough Town Hall before they headed off to continue their celebrations. It was shorter coverage than many of the weddings I photograph, but that doesn't change the way I approach the day. Whether I'm photographing a couple for two hours or spending the whole day with them, I'm still looking for the people, expressions and little moments that tell their story.
A wedding ceremony at Middlesbrough Town Hall
Middlesbrough Town Hall is somewhere I've photographed weddings before, and shorter coverage can work particularly well for ceremonies like this because everything is happening relatively close together. There's no need to try to turn a straightforward wedding into something more complicated than it needs to be, and that's very much how I approached Nathan and Emma's day.
The ceremony itself is obviously at the heart of a booking like this, but I'm never only concentrating on the couple standing at the front. I'm watching what's happening around them as well, particularly the reactions from the people who've come along to share the occasion. Those expressions and interactions are often the photographs that become more valuable as the years pass because they show far more than simply what somebody looked like on the day.
Once Nathan and Emma were officially married, there was time for those first congratulations and the natural photographs that happen as everybody begins to relax again. It's one of the parts of a wedding I always enjoy photographing because the formal reason everybody has gathered together is over and people's personalities begin to come through much more naturally.
Keeping the photography relaxed
One of the things I try to avoid with any wedding, but particularly with shorter coverage, is making the couple feel as though every minute needs to be filled with photographs. Two hours doesn't mean two hours of constantly standing Nathan and Emma somewhere and telling them what to do. My approach is still to allow the wedding to happen and photograph it as naturally as possible, stepping in with a little direction when it's useful and then getting out of the way again.
We had time for the family photographs they wanted as well as some photographs of Nathan and Emma together around the Town Hall. Couple photographs don't need to become a huge production either. I want people to recognise themselves when they look back at their wedding photographs rather than wonder who the two people are who suddenly became fashion models for twenty minutes.
That's particularly important to me because so many couples tell me they're uncomfortable in front of a camera. The answer isn't usually more posing or more instructions; it's giving them enough direction to stop them wondering what they're supposed to be doing and then allowing them to settle into it.
Two hours can still tell a story
Nathan and Emma's wedding is also a really good real-world example of something I've written about recently: deciding how many hours of wedding photography you actually need.
There isn't a magic number that works for every wedding. For one couple, two or three hours around a registry office ceremony might capture everything they genuinely want. Another couple may want preparations, several locations, a longer reception, speeches and the evening celebrations photographed, in which case considerably more coverage is obviously going to be needed.
The important thing is understanding the difference. Shorter wedding photography isn't about trying to cram an entire wedding day into two hours; it's about concentrating the photography around the part of the wedding that's most important to that particular couple.
For Nathan and Emma, that meant concentrating on their ceremony and the time immediately around it before they went off to continue celebrating. There was no reason to manufacture additional parts of the day simply for the sake of having more photographs, and I think that's something couples sometimes forget when they start comparing wedding packages. More hours aren't automatically better if you don't actually need them.
Wedding photography that fits the wedding
After 18 years of photographing weddings, I've learned that trying to make every couple's day look the same simply doesn't work. I've photographed large weddings, tiny weddings, church ceremonies, registry offices, hotels, barns and plenty of celebrations that didn't fit neatly into any particular category at all. That's part of what keeps wedding photography interesting.
What matters to me is that the photography fits the people and the wedding they've actually planned. Some couples want me around for most of the day because the entire story matters to them, while others want something much simpler. Nathan and Emma didn't need me following them around until midnight simply because that's what people sometimes imagine wedding photography is supposed to involve.
Their two hours gave us the opportunity to record the part of the day that mattered to them, photograph the people sharing it with them and create some relaxed photographs together before they headed off to carry on celebrating.
And ultimately that's what choosing wedding photography coverage should be about. It isn't about booking a particular number of hours because that's what somebody else had, and it certainly isn't about turning your wedding into a photoshoot. It's about deciding which parts of your day you'd like to remember through photographs and choosing coverage that gives us enough time to do that properly.
Congratulations again to Nathan and Emma, and all the very best for everything ahead.
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