I witness.
I photograph.
I hand it back.

“A wedding is the last ceremony most people will ever take part in. I photograph it as one.”

Something changed in how I see this work. For years I photographed weddings as events: a schedule, a set of locations, a list of frames a client would expect to receive. That produced good galleries and it produced nothing I would call necessary. What I make now is closer to a spiritual record. The vows are a vow. The walk down the aisle is a crossing. The moment a parent lets go of a hand is a transfer of something that has no other name. I photograph for that layer, and the pretty pictures come out of it rather than the other way around.

In practice this makes me quieter and slower to raise the camera. I will not interrupt a blessing to reposition someone. I will not ask you to walk back up the aisle for a better angle. I would rather lose a frame than break the thing the frame exists to hold. The cost of working this way is that I return fewer photographs than a photographer shooting on volume, and I would rather say that plainly than pretend a thousand images is a benefit.

The other half of the job is entirely practical. Light, timing, weather, a family group list that does not eat your cocktail hour, a backup plan that was scouted rather than improvised. Reverence without competence is just a mood. Both, or it is not worth booking me.

Canadian Wedding Photographer