I’ve been asked quite a few times, how do you approach weddings.  And after five years of shooting, I have to say I tend to fragment wedding photography into two very distinctive approaches.

Storytelling vs. Heirloom Photography

Sitting on my desk is rather neat carousel of photographs.  In it I have photos of my grandmother and grandfather in their early 20’s.  Pictures of my great grandfather, and my grandfather’s family from when he was in his teens from the early 1900’s.  I’ll hand these family heirlooms down to my own children and likewise, they’ll be handed down ot their children.

These are family heirlooms.  They are treasured artifacts that will be shared with generations to come.

If you think of “formal” photography as something “stuffy” you’re not taking the long view of things.  Yes, it may not be the most naturalistic setting to group all your aunt and uncles into a large group shot…but that large group shot will be added to the family archives and will be passed down for years to come.  The photograph of you and your grandmother or grandfather will be the photograph that you give to your own daughter to pass along to her children.

That’s our approach to “formal” wedding photography.  It’s not just a picture, it’s a vital piece of family history.

That’s Heierloom Photography.

But that’s not the whole picture.  Your wedding day is a day of thousand of micro events.  It’s the quite moments of anticipation as you get your hair done.  It’s the month’s of preparation hunting for wedding favors, decorations, bridesmaid shoes.

It’s the quite moments of reprieve just before the ceremony starts.  The temper tantrum your niece threw as she was walking down the aisle as a flower girl.  It’s tiny tear on that appears in your dads eye (your dad, who never cries, not even at the end of Old Yeller) as he gives you one last hug before his little girl takes the hand of her husband at the end of the aisle.

Your wedding is a story, written by two people and shared with all your friends and family.  And as a photographer, it’s our job to make certain we capture as much of that story as we possibly can, so you can share it with your friends, family, and future generations.  That’s storytelling.  It’s completely unscripted, it’s un-posed, it’s organic, and it happens instant to instant.

Our philosophy is you cant be a wedding photography and only do one or the other.  Storytelling is just as important as heirloom photography, and heirloom is just as important as storytelling, and as a photographer, it is vitally important to me that we execute both extremely well.  Because it’s not just our clients who will be appreciating our work, but our work will be hanging in the homes of their families for generations to come.