“Sarah, do you ever get bored with photographing weddings?”
This is one of the most popular questions I get asked.
And it comes in a variety of tones… Mostly inquisitive, sometimes empathic, and occasionally teasing. (The latter is usually hubs when he walks into the office and sees another wedding edit on my screen.)
The short answer: No.
The TL;DR answer: No, because the people are always different and it’s the people that make a wedding.
The grab-a-cuppa-and-a-packet-of-custard-creams answer:
Oh heck, where do I even start?
And I suppose that’s the answer in itself.
Because there’s so much to go at.
But I’ll try to be succinct.
Sure, there are things that happen at every wedding – like making vows, signing the register, and walking down the aisle – which can (that’s can, not always) be predictable.
That doesn’t mean I don’t care about capturing them. Quite the opposite. They’re milestone moments, and photos of them form the backbone of a wedding album.
But they’re not the things that really excite me.
So what keeps me going wedding after wedding after wedding after…?
Other than coconut water, Eat Natural bars, and the thought of Daisy and Poppy pelting down the path to greet me when I get home?
The small stuff.
Like the bride feeding her horses in the middle of getting ready, the couple’s cat peeking out from behind the TV during the morning preparations, a child playing hide and seek in the churchyard, a young wedding guest drinking from his dessert bowl to get the last of the cream, the best man rescuing the house-cat from the roof, or the newlyweds competing in an impromptu sack race.
I think of them as ‘in-between’ moments. They’re fleeting, but reveal so much about people’s personalities, characters and relationships.
It’s the unscripted, split-second, spontaneous moments that make every wedding different. It’s a strange feeling to set out on a wedding morning knowing what’s going to happen, but also with absolutely no idea what’s going to happen. And that keeps me excited, interested and on my toes (literally).
But most importantly, it means you’ll get photos that are unique, true to your day and totally you. They’ll be pictures you can look back on in years to come and remember not just what somebody looked like – but what they were like.
And that’s where we find the meaning – and love – that’s so precious to look back on.
Which is why I do this wedding photography thing… to put more love into the world.
Want to know what the most asked question is? Clickety-click quick.