5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Hire Me as Your Wedding Photographer

bride's mother inspecting collapsed wedding cake

What I am about to discuss below is a little reality check before we rush into initial wedding consultation. A handful of good reasons why you shouldn’t hire me as your wedding photographer.

Please do not feel offended if you fall into categories listed below. It’s just a set of personal opinions that I accumulated over the years while photographing weddings and observing wedding couples behavior.

I believe it is very important for both sides, couple and photographer, to have reasonable expectations for a wedding day.

Quickly hearing few of my thoughts below before contacting me, will prevent us from wasting limited time we all have.

Love you!

1. You expect your wedding day to be out of this world perfect fairy tale.

Your wedding day will be amazing. And one-of -a-kind. And magic.
But it won’t be fairy tale perfect. I can promise you that.

Maybe it will rain. Or your wedding cake will fall apart. Your dress will get dirty. Your spouse’s sibling might have a bit too much to drink and not make it to the reception. Your pet cat will go blind couple days before your wedding.

I witnessed all above. And more.

Having realistic expectations will help you to enjoy your day at its fullest.

If you can’t, I might not be the best choice for you.

Bride and groom dancing at the Hilltop Spring Green Wisconsin wedding

2. You’re looking for a wedding photographer just because your maid of honor told you to get one.

I am photographing weddings because I genuinely enjoy people, as well as all emotions, energy and drama of the wedding day. In other words, I love what I do.

But if you’re don’t appreciate photography and not excited about me being part of your wedding day, why have me there?

3. You will be handing me an extensive wedding photo checklist.

I get it. You just spent a lot of money on all the wedding details and décor and expect me to take lots of pictures of it all. But that would distract me from you most likely hiring me for- documentary wedding photography where I capture people in real moments.

And while sometimes I do snap some images of details/ venue, if I spot an interesting human interaction, I will abandon all my detail photography efforts without hesitation.

4. Picture of your wedding dress hanging in a willow tree near hotel’s parking lot is a must for you.

Sorry, but I am not your guy.

Same applies to you rings on a cactus plant. And your wedding shoes on a chimney in the hotel’s lobby. I might snap a casual picture of your wedding attire, but don’t expect anything more.

I specialize in capturing candid moments and interactions between people and all the loved ones that surround them that day. Not things.
When you’ll lose someone dear to you, what you want to remember: all the small beautiful moments with her/him or how beautiful your sparkly wedding shoes were?

5. You expect me to not to miss anything.

While I really would love to say I won’t miss a beat, I can only assure you that there will be moments that I will miss. I can’t be everywhere at the same time. And neither can two or three photographers (in case we decide you need more than one). And even if I am in a right spot at the right moment, I still can fuck up and miss it.

Same applies to capturing every wedding attendee. Please understand, that if I would set out to photograph every wedding guest, it would very quickly turn into a business headshot session.

Obviously, nobody wants that.

Hilltop Spring Green wedding photographer

If the reasons why you shouldn’t hire me as your wedding photographer mentioned above doesn’t apply to you- hooray! , double hooray if you’re looking for a documentary wedding photographer for your upcoming wedding!

I would love to be part of your wild adventure!
Madison, Wisconsin based, but available to travel if needed.

What your wedding day is really about (or) professional wedding photographer’s advice to bride and groom

Bride in dressing room of Overture Center is having a private moment before the first look with groom

 

// professional wedding photographer’s advice to bride and groom

So I am at the recent wedding. Doing, you know, my thing- wedding photojournalism and stuff. I’m hanging out with the bride and her friends. Ladies are about to be done with getting ready. Emily and I are about to head out for the first look with Andrew (her future husband to be).

At one moment Emily looks me in the eye and says “I’m very nervous. I’m really really  nervous.”

I pause for a second. I look at Emily. I know I need to respond. What do I say?

“Well Emily…” I begin slowly…

__________

I often ask myself what it’s all about. You know, what wedding day is about? How people see it? I mean technically it’s a ceremony where two people or a couple are united in marriage. But what else?
Timeline? Shoes? Dancing? Friends and family? Tears? Laughter? Beautiful weather? Princess dress? Helluva amazing party? All the love in the world? 5 tier wedding cake? Bartender that makes best Old Fashioned in Midwest?

A nice mix of everything?

Does anybody ever think about a wedding day as just a day? Like just another day in life? Expensive one, but just another day. Not a day filled sugarcoated with fairy tales and princesses, but a day filled ordinary people. Imperfect ordinary people.

Wedding dress will get dirty. Sparkly sandals won’t be nearly as comfortable as initially anticipated. DJ will get drunk. Wedding pictures outside won’t happen because of rain. Best man will get into fight at the after party. Food will be served cold. Mother of the groom will turn into momzilla. Stressed out maid of honor will take too much Valium. Limo driver will get lost in downtown after football game traffic Armageddon.

And when imperfect real people will look back into their wedding day 5 years from now, they, hopefully, will laugh at all those small things that went wrong. Because it’s just life. And life happens. And it’s happening right now. And we’re breathing it in.

And we often get so obsessed about the destination that we forget to enjoy the journey. We discard those small little imperfections that happen to us we find along the way as a bad thing. And yet these imperfections, these small bumps in the road is what the journey is about.

So here’s my professional wedding photographer’s advice to bride and groom: Live in the moment. Take it all. Enjoy every little bit of it.

__________

So I look at Emily and give most honest yet (hopefully) comforting advice that I can give as a true wedding photojournalist: “Emily, there’s nothing wrong with being nervous. It’s an intense moment you’re about to experience. So it’s OK to be nervous. Heck, it’s event OK to be REALLY nervous. Who wouldn’t be nervous in this situation? I know you’ll be fine. I know you’ll get married today. So, enjoy the being nervous part. Enjoy every little uncomfortable moment of your wedding day. Because that’s how life is- an exciting journey filled with lot’s of uncomfortable, and yet amazing, moments. Now let’s go find the man and let’s get you two married.”

And off we go to find her man.