Why Choose Documentary style Wedding Photos?
The day is finally here! You’ve decided you’re going to build a life with one very special person and today is the day it’s gonna happen. You’ve made all your plans and preparations to have the party of your lives and you’re going to celebrate like there’s no tomorrow, but you’re faced with a dilemma. You know more than anything, you want this day to be a special day spent with your soon to be spouse, and your most beloved friends and family, but you can’t help but feel there’s pressure to perform. You’ve seen a million weddings on Instagram and Tiktok, and a part of you wants your wedding to measure up in a way. This pressure can start to pull you away from the things that matter most to you. To top it all off, you have a camera (or many cameras) in your face all day, which could increase that feeling of needing to perform. So what are you to do?
First off, one thing I tell my couples before we start on anything, this day is 100% about YOU. It doesn’t matter what anyone else’s wedding looked like and it doesn’t matter what other people may expect of your day. What matters at the end of the day is that you felt celebrated and surrounded by love, however that looks like for you; so prioritize that when you step into your wedding day.
Secondly, I give them permission to feel stress…during the planning period. That’s when you get to feel the pressure to get things done and get every detail in place but once you get to the wedding day, your one job is to enjoy the fruit of your labor. You hired a bunch of vendors that you trust. Let us stress the details! It’s your party so go enjoy it. We’ve got your back :)
So how does all of this play into your wedding photography?
Documentary wedding photography is the art of capturing a wedding day exactly how it happened, organically. It rejects the pressure to make couples perform and make their wedding look like a carefully choreographed event for the sake of meeting people’s expectations online. It leaves room for, and encourages, couples and wedding parties to be natural throughout the whole day and party like no one is watching. And more than anything, it emphasizes this one thing.
I could never create something that is more beautiful than your organic joy on a wedding day!
I gravitated towards documentary style wedding photography as the way I’d serve couples for a few reasons. One, it gives couples the room to breathe and really live out their wedding day. It makes it so couples don’t feel like they’re getting pulled away from their loved ones all day just for endless posed photo ops. Two, I think that the emotions that come out of couples when they feel like they can just BE together is the most beautiful thing that I could express through my images. Vogue magazine shoots are pretty, but you’re going to look at that picture of your groom bawling to you coming down the aisle for the rest of your life. And you’re going to feel like you can step right back into that memory, because it wasn’t choreographed, you actually lived it out. So what does the process look like when you’re working with me?
I’m going to work to get to know you before your wedding! Like many other photographers, I got my start shooting weddings for my best friends, which was such a gift! It was a privilege to get to tell the stories of people I loved so dearly, mostly because I already knew their stories and were so inspired by them. So what do I do with couples I don’t know? Well I put in the work to get to know them! In my intake questionnaire, I’ll ask your normal detail questions about the wedding day, but also things that bring out your personality as a couple and let me observe how you interact with each other. I ask questions about your story, how you met, what you like to do together, etc. But I also ask random personality questions that get couples to have fun together during the conversation. One conversation that I had that was really memorable, I asked the question, “If you could describe your partner as a smell what would it be?” and without the slightest hesitation the groom shouted OLD SPICE PURE SPORT, which turned into an uproar between the three of us and actually a long discussion between the couple. This gave me a window into how spontaneous and fun this couple was together and that gave me an idea of how they’d be on the wedding day and how I’d tell their story.
I’m going to be your advocate on your wedding day. Another thing I get out of the questionnaire is an idea of what you’re nervous about as a couple. For many couples it’s that the details all go right so I’m definitely on the lookout for signs that either of you are getting sucked into the stress of the moment. That gives me the cue to slow things down and ask how you’re doing and remind you that everything is beautiful and that it’s going to be more than ok! As your wedding photographer, I know that more than any other vendor, I’m interacting with you the most throughout the day so as much as it’s my job to take pictures, it’s also my job to be your ambassador of joy! After all, if I’m not going to spend the day posing you, I’m going to get my best images if I know you’re having a great time!
Direction takes precedence over posing. Sure there’s always going to be a moment where I ask you to turn your head a little or to brush hair out of your face, but my priority is always that during our photo sessions, you’re experiencing a real moment rather than canned poses. The thing is, you’re not always going to know exactly what to do, and I don’t want to just default to worn out poses because a moment isn’t “happening”. For example, I had a couple last year who wanted energy and motion out of their wedding but didn’t have a strong idea of what that would look like. For the wedding party, I had them play a game of tag surrounding the couple and got amazing blurry images of them, and for the couple’s session I had them play keep away with the bride’s bouquet. Both gave them direction but didn’t lock them into poses that felt unnatural! If you want to see the instructions I gave the wedding party the day before, check out my story time here!
The wedding featured in this blog was Joey and Mack! They got married at The Wildflower Barn. If you want to see a little more behind the scenes from their wedding you can check it out on my Instagram here
So what do you think? Is documentary style wedding photography right for you?
About the Author
Hey Y’all! I’m Thomas, a New Jersey native turned Texas transplant. I’m a third-generation photographer and a deep extrovert. You’ll usually find me with the people I love, putting them in front of my camera so I can capture the incredible stories unfolding around me. It’s this drive that sent me down the road of bringing visual storytelling to people’s wedding days.
The best part of my job is getting to capture the unique story that unfolds during your wedding day so you can look back on it for a lifetime.