Here’s what I really love about my job but have never really said or found a way to actually express in an eloquent way. Let me first say, this might not be eloquent, but it’s the truth, from the pit of my stomach this post is being word vomited while I am sitting on a plane next to a gentlemen sipping the vodka coke that the flight attendant slipped me when no one was looking. I apologize if it’s the vodka speaking but let’s get down to it, I get asked this all the time and it’s finally time for me to remove the curtain on what it’s really like to be a wedding photographer and why I don’t just feel lucky to call it my job, I feel freaking pumped. Maybe I should start with what wedding photography isn’t: it isn’t easy, it isn’t champagne toasts, and late nights dancing drunkily. It isn’t making thousands of dollars in a matter of hours, it isn’t relaxing, it isn’t anything that resembles the word glamour, and it isn’t a cheap industry to be in. Wedding photography isn’t just a profession, it doesn’t end on the wedding day, and it certainly doesn’t begin when we I show up to a wedding day with a camera in hand. While it isn’t all of these things, it is a hell of a lot of things that people have probably never considered.
If you’re waiting for the part where I get all whimsy on you and tell you how telling love stories every weekend is the best, you should just head back to Facebook now and save yourself a few minutes. Of course telling love stories is fun, hello? It would be a shame if this was my job and I didn’t actually like love, right? I’m done with the whimsy that people keep throwing out there. Wedding photography is hard, it’s challenging, it’s a piece of our heart but it is oh, so worth it. Wedding photography to me is sacred, it’s sentimental, it’s stressful, emotional, and a living, breathing phenomenon. It keeps me up at night, it wakes me up in a cold sweat with nightmares, it can make me dance like Beyonce after too much rum punch and it is something that leaves me crying emotionally on the way home when I am sweaty, tired, blistered, and feeling drunk on emotion.
Wedding photography is more than just images of a day that happened. It is moments that will never be recreated or duplicated, once in a lifetime things that happen that will never, ever happen again. It’s one of the most joyous days for many but it is also a day where expectations are high and anxiety is even higher. While everyone tiptoes on eggshells making sure every centerpiece is perfect and every favor is perfectly aligned, I am the one catching the nervous laughter, the shaking hands, the pure and consuming joy that one can only encounter on a day where sacred vows will be whispered. Weddings are an event where true colors show, anxiety can be crippling, and everyone is just doing their best to not let anyone else down. It’s living up to being the best day of someone’s life and to me, that’s a tall order to fill.
The truth is, on a wedding day I live in the in between. I wait for the moments where the desperation of waiting has ended, where the joy has overcome, where the expectations are dropped with sheer glee. I live in that limbo of excitement and anxiety in order to tell a truthful story, not one of whimsy but one of actual emotion, regardless of what that can look like. As the years have gone on and the events have unfolded, I have learned that living in the in between is where I belong. Just when they have let their guard down, when they forget about the camera, when they aren’t imagining their pinterest board filled with other people’s moments, that is when those moments happen that make your heart beat fast, the ones that take you right back to that anxious/exciting/can’t believe it’s really her, back to that sacred wedding day. Living in the in between is risky, scary, and stressful but it is worth it every single time.
The truth about wedding photography? We are a piece of the stressful, exciting, love filled story of two imperfect people planning to spend their imperfect lives in the company of one another. I’ll be the first to tell you the harsh truth that your day isn’t going to be perfect (please don’t hate me) but it will be an imperfect reflection of the road you will walk as a married couple. Yes there is cake (yum) and beautiful dresses and flowers but I’m done with photographers only showing that stuff. We’ve learned to style the hell out of Jimmy Choo’s over the years but my job isn’t making expensive shoes look pretty, my job is to live in the in between no matter how uncomfortable it might be. My job is to fill in those gaps that allude you whilst you are floating through such a day, my job is to be that last dose of assurance that you are exactly where God intended you to be on this day, my duty is to be by your side with a grin and a wink as you promise your beautiful life to another human, and most of all my job is to provide you with the moments that you will want to live in, remember, and pass down for forever.
The cake? The dancing? The cascading blooms? Yeah, they are all pretty and I do like those things but for me the moments that only you and I will recollect, that ones that give us goose bumps, the images that others will pass up for more perfect portraits, those are the secrets we will have, the moments we will live in when life gets hard or you question your decisions from that day. Those are the moments I want to capture, the life of a wedding photographer is capture the in between and I will proudly tell you that I will happily live in that limbo for you if it means that you will fully trust me to tell your story just as it happens, just as it unfolds, with the promise that you will cling to each and every image for the rest of your days. The life of a wedding photographer may not be glamorous but it is damn wonderful. These words are words I have been dying to say forever, today I am happy to share the truth about my job, the way I choose to live, and the fact that I get to be a bridesmaid with a camera every weekend promising to capture the in between.
Great post!!! Wedding photography is so hard and people think it’s so easy. Thanks for posting this!
This brilliant piece on the state of weddings in western society, where we’ve lost so much of our ancient traditions and have created new ones to match and nourish our nerve led lives, was tarnished for me by you putting other people down, please don’t be rude about other people not being as brilliant and arty and cool as you, it doesn’t suit you and makes cutting edge art un enticing for lesser mortals.
Preach