What an incredible privilege it is to get an all encompassing pass; to get real close, to be in every aspect of the day; from the anticipation in the room hiding away, to the very last song. The ability to roam the aisle during the ceremony, witness it from every angle. The dream and strive that is to photograph in so many different ways within one wedding day; photographing the home that you have chosen for your wedding day, photographing its exterior, its rolling hills that surrounding it, the environment and something as simple as the weather that too, is a guest on your wedding day. Photographing the scenery in which your wedding resides.
Photographing the many people in a documentary mold; them mid laugh, mid hugging embrace, mid swoon that is all over the entire face. Searching for moments where these people are at their most relaxed, most themselves, I strive to search for it until I capture it. Documenting to induce nostalgia and memorialize these humans so that you can show your kids the many deeply loved ones that made you the person you are.
Even a simple and strong portrait of you on your wedding day that will only be more and more loved as you grow older. All the photographs in a collection, from portraits to moments, the notion we strive for is to have all the aspects of a wedding day flow in a story being told, one that takes anyone right back to what it felt like to live through that day.
There are photographs that will only grow more meaning with time, ones that you oversaw the first time you viewed your gallery of photographs, and have come to cherish even more the 30th time you’ve taken a look through. There are photographs that you feel proud of immediately, seeing your creativity of planning come to fruition. There are ones that you don’t even know how beautiful you are and you only see it when you look back and youth feels reminiscent and are so glad that you preserved that youth in a single photograph. There are ones you can only appreciate in many years time, not noticing the smallest joys or meaning until much later. Not realizing how important some of the documentation is until many years later. How gratefulness floods for the photographs being captured at all. Different photographs will be cherished in different chapters in your life. Some photographs that might have been easily overlooked, are now newly favorited as you begin to see the many different perspectives of your wedding day in new ways as your own self shifts and grows with new perspective.
I am filled with joy and humbleness to get to put this journal post together year after year. I look forward to it all year. I truly enjoy going through each gallery all over again and finding moments that to me, that are not deemed as grand or special or ones that you would hang on your walls, but ones that truly bring the entire collection of photographs together. These photographs are all what make up a gallery, if not is the gallery in my opinion. The aspects of life that last, the human nature of those we love that won’t always be. The fleeting moments of the in between grand moments. Moments of long awaited affection, joy radiating, and the quiet moments too. These are the types of photographs I endlessly search for on wedding days, ones that often are overlooked, and only grow meaning with time. Ones that need to be looked at a little longer. Ones that need to be grown into. Ones that I need to carefully be there for, with wide eyes, finger on the shutter, ready to press before the moment is gone. Ones that I treat as if they were my own.
If it wasn’t for the incredible, down to earth, so warm and thoughtful couples that I had the gift to document and create with this year, none of these photographs would have been made possible! Thank you to all of those who trusted me and gave me this gift, I do not take this privilege lightly.
