Your Wedding Isn't a Photoshoot... And That's Exactly Why Your Photographs Will Mean So Much
There's a sentence I hear at almost every wedding consultation, and after seventeen years as a wedding photographer, I can usually predict when it's coming.
"We're really awkward in front of the camera."
It almost always arrives with a nervous smile, usually followed by a glance between the two of them as if they're admitting some terrible secret. The funny thing is, they're convinced they're the only couple who feel that way, when in reality they're saying exactly what hundreds of couples before them have said.
Perhaps that's because we're all so used to seeing perfectly posed photographs online. Open Instagram or Pinterest and it's easy to believe that everyone else somehow knows what they're doing in front of a camera. The reality is very different. Most people aren't models, nor should they have to be. Your wedding day isn't about creating a catalogue of perfectly posed photographs. It's about marrying the person you love while surrounded by the people who matter most to you.
That's why I've never believed your wedding should feel like one long photoshoot.
As a documentary wedding photographer covering North Yorkshire, the North East and Yorkshire, my job has never been to take over your day. In fact, I think I've done my job well when, by the end of the wedding, people tell me they barely noticed I was there. Not because I wasn't working, but because I quietly became part of the day rather than directing every moment of it.
When I first started photographing weddings, I quickly realised something that has stayed with me ever since. The photographs couples return to year after year are rarely the ones they expected to become their favourites. Of course they love the portrait hanging on the wall or the beautiful image of the two of them standing together at sunset, but the photographs that often carry the greatest emotional weight are the ones that happened without anyone planning them.
It's the look on a dad's face as he catches sight of his daughter for the first time. It's a grandparent watching quietly from the back of the ceremony room. It's a bridesmaid trying to hold back tears during the speeches before eventually giving up and laughing at herself. It's children who have never met before suddenly becoming best friends on the dance floor, or a couple sharing a glance across a crowded room without saying a single word because they both know exactly what the other is thinking.
Those moments don't happen because a photographer asked for them.
They happen because people are simply living them.
That's why I never want photography to become the main event. Weddings move at their own pace. They have their own rhythm, their own little moments of chaos, their unexpected surprises and the tiny interactions that nobody notices until they see them later in a photograph. If I spent the entire day stopping those moments to organise another pose or move people into better light, many of those memories would simply disappear before they ever had the chance to happen.
People are often surprised by how little time we actually spend creating portraits together. We step away for a while, enjoy a quiet walk, have a chat and create some beautiful natural photographs without making it feel like a production. Before long, you're back with your guests, enjoying a drink, laughing with your friends and making memories instead of waiting for your wedding day to restart.
I genuinely believe that's how it should be.
After all, your guests haven't travelled across the country to watch you posing for photographs. They've come to celebrate with you. They've come to hug you, laugh with you, raise a glass to you and become part of one of the biggest days of your life. Those are the moments you'll remember, and they're the moments your photographs should preserve.
Every wedding I've photographed has taught me something different. I've stood on windswept clifftops overlooking the North Sea, wandered through quiet woodland paths, worked in elegant country houses, rustic barns and village halls filled with generations of the same family. The venues have changed, the weather has certainly changed, and every couple has brought something uniquely their own, but one thing has remained remarkably consistent.
Nobody has ever looked back and wished they'd spent less time with the people they love.
What they do say is that the day disappeared in the blink of an eye.
That's probably the most common sentence I hear once the confetti has settled and everyone is heading home. Couples are often amazed by how quickly everything passes. Months, sometimes years, of planning somehow become one incredible day that feels over almost as soon as it began. That's why photography matters so much. Not because it's there to create a version of your wedding that never existed, but because it quietly preserves the one that did.
Years from now, your photographs won't simply remind you what your wedding looked like. They'll remind you how it felt. You'll remember your mum fastening the final button on your dress. You'll remember your best friend laughing so hard during the speeches that everyone around them joined in. You'll notice expressions you completely missed because, quite rightly, you were busy living one of the happiest days of your life.
Those are the photographs that become family history.
Long after the flowers have faded and the cake has been eaten, they'll become the images your children and grandchildren look through one day. They'll see people they may never have had the chance to meet, hear stories that might otherwise have been forgotten and discover little moments that would have disappeared forever had someone not been there to quietly notice them.
Perhaps that's why I still love photographing weddings after all these years.
It's never really been about cameras, lenses or editing software. Those are simply the tools I use. What has always fascinated me are people. The relationships between them, the emotion they show without realising and the fleeting moments that exist for only a second before they're gone forever. My job is simply to recognise those moments as they happen and preserve them before they disappear.
So if you're planning your wedding and you're worried about feeling uncomfortable in front of the camera, I'd like you to know something.
You don't need to perform.
You don't need to spend your day pretending to be somebody you're not.
You don't need to worry about creating perfect moments because the most beautiful ones are already waiting to happen naturally.
Your wedding isn't a photoshoot.
It's your story.
My job is simply to make sure you never forget how it was written.
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