Editorial Blog Post

The Wedding Photography "Trend"

Stop and think for a moment. What does a wedding photography “trend” entail? A bunch of stock images pinned to a Pinterest Board? The current “Best of 2014” awardees on Junebug? Something that made the cover of this month’s print issue of The Knot? 

At it’s best, a wedding photography trend is a photograph one photographer staged or captured, that a lot more photographers or couples decided they wanted to reproduce for themselves. 

That, my friends, is the true heart of a wedding photography trend – imitation.

Tell me why, then, would you want to replicate someone else’s moments on a day you have strived to make so uniquely your own? 

A confession for you: I do not follow other wedding photographers’ blogs or websites or Instagram feeds. I don’t check out the featured weddings on The Knot or even Offbeat Bride. I use Pinterest to tag recipes I want to cook and to find inspiration to reorganize my apartment, but I don’t have a “wedding photo inspiration” board. 

Why should I follow other wedding photographer’s work? I don’t want to deliver to you a handful of moments cherry picked from other people’s weddings. I want to – and I relish in, actually – being wholly present on your wedding day; capturing it as it unfolds naturally; people watching and listening and being in the middle of all the going-ons, so that you get the most genuine portrayal of YOUR wedding day.

I try to keep my staging and directing to a minimum at weddings (past formal portraits, where I am a megaphone of commanding in a chaotic hour). For the most part, I just watch. And wait. You’re just as likely to get a photo of your bridesmaids doing a smell check before getting dressed as you are to get a pic of that cute flower girl sleeping on the couch, or your drunk uncle shaking it on the dance floor. 

I photograph your wedding for you. I have yet to submit an image to any contests or publications, and while I do blog on occasion, it’s less frequent than most. So, while I do curate a portfolio of work throughout the season to post, I really am not capturing your wedding moments for me – I’m capturing them for you. And – IMHO – aren’t those moments that you’ve created candidly, lived through, committed to memory (or not, depending on how much tequila is involved), so much more meaningful to you than those you just remember as staged for the sake of the shot?

So, tell me again, why are we following those wedding photography trends?