Why We Do Weddings

The off-season always gives us time to reflect on our business. It gives us the opportunity to invest in our education and really dig deep while there's less on our plate. To answer the questions of how to improve, we have to first consider our foundation. For this reason, I've been spending time lately exploring about why we do weddings. No, I'm not suffering a quarter life crisis, and I'm not planning to do anything but grow, but thinking about our why helps me as photographer and entrepreneur.

I've been photographing weddings since 2011. While I enjoyed what I was doing back then, I never gave it much thought into why I was doing it. I certainly did not envision my business going this far, either. It wasn't until 2016 that I felt the strong urge to relax my brain, take a minute to unwind, and figure out my photographic drive. Shawn posted an article about a Groom's role in his wedding a few months ago, and I felt a fire light underneath me. I realized after reading the post and having more discussions that we've always focused on not just the bride but both people in the relationship.

We strive to make both sides feel important because they both are. We have been in their shoes, and know what it's like going through the wedding process. It's natural for us to be empathetic to all the love, concerns, stress, and gratitude that goes into such an important event. Feeling us slip into a particular niche made my search for our philosophy and what it means to us that much more important.

My Childhood Experience with Wedding Photography

Growing up, I cannot say I had a strong understanding of what weddings were about. My family encouraged and supported raising children more than fostering loving partnerships, so there was never a lot of attention for weddings. My parents never even displayed their wedding photos around the house. For this reason, I honesty had no idea that wedding photographers were even a thing until I was 12 at my brother's wedding. Obviously, things have changed a lot with my knowledge and experience, but that didn't come until later in life.

My mom and dad were married at the courthouse in jeans and t-shirts. The photos they have are about 3x3 in size and consist mostly of them sitting on steps and waving. The photos are not fancy or romantic in any sense. But they still speak so much about who my parents are. When I look at the photos, I see the people who raised me. I see their personality in the photos, and I see the way they loved each other in their own way. Their wedding images are what I latch onto when I think about how to do wedding photos and how to capture the realness of a couple.

What We Capture for Our Couples

Of course, I don't expect our couples to be in bell bottoms and paisley tops, but it's the personality that I want to bring out. We want to capture all the beauty and love, but we really want there to be an everlasting feeling of who the people in the photos are. It's not enough for us to just grab some easy portraits. We want laughter, goofy faces, romantic gazes, and to catch the couple being themselves.

Your great-grandchildren should one day see your wedding photos and understand who you both were in this life. While we absolutely love the gorgeous model shots we take, we want to see you both being yourselves. The connection between you two is incredibly important to us, and we want to make it's well represented. It's impossible for us to not have fun during our sessions. Both of you are unique individuals, but also fantastic together. Our goal with our wedding photography is to show this to everyone who sees your images.

Why Wedding Photography?

Back to the big question: "Why?" There are a lot of smaller reasons that we do weddings. I have a very deep passion for photography and couldn't imagine doing anything else. We both look forward to talking to new people, especially couples excited for one of the most happiness moments of their life. We enjoy being there to cheer them on while partaking in the genuine mix of thrill and anxiety. Not to mention, we also work well under pressure, and there's certainly a lot of it during a hectic wedding.

Most importantly, we believe every couple deserves to have the authentic emotion and a bit of their character saved forever. Photography is much more than just displaying images of what you looked like to show future generations. It's critical in showing how you behaved and felt, also. I find it to be an interesting concept that pictures can carry so much impact, it's something very special that we know means a lot to our couples. Like a silent romantic film, there aren't any distractions from showing your pure love. There's nothing we are more enthusiastic about than couples ready to relish the memories and sentiment of their big day.

We welcome every single couple we have into our circle of friends, and we hope that they show us what their love looks like.