I love my job. Wedding photography is not something that I ever thought I would be interested in , but here I am & I love it so much. It never fails that when I tell someone (usually another photographer) that I love shooting weddings, I get a look of horror…and I understand their concerns. I’m not gonna lie, weddings are a LOT of work. They’re super stressful, fast-paced, a million things can go wrong & my feet hate my guts at the end of the day, but I just can’t help myself. I love every second of it all!
Today, I started thinking about this. WHY do I love torturing my feet & my sanity shooting weddings? After some soul searching, I finally realized the answer.
Emotion.
When I look through photographs, my favorites are always the ones that show the emotions that were being experienced at that time. I love capturing those emotions {sounds cheesy, I know} & a wedding is full of them. I’m completely drawn to that. At the end of a wedding, when I’m on my way home, completely exhausted & my feet are screaming at me, I sometimes wonder if I can do it again…if this is what I want to do…surely, I must be completely out of my mind?! But then, I unload my memory cards onto my computer & I start flipping through the images from the day & I remember. I remember why I love it so much…why I torture myself for 10+ hours on a Saturday, when I could be laying by the pool with a good book. I see the emotions…the love, the excitement, the giddiness, the joy, the bittersweet tears as a daddy gives away his baby girl & I know that I absolutely, 100% HAVE GOT to do this again…and again…and again.
It gives me a secret thrill knowing that 10, 20, 50 years from now, this couple will look at the images that I created & remember the happiest day of their lives…remember why they fell in love. It blows me away to think that one day a little girl will flip through her mother’s (or grandmother’s) wedding album & begin daydreaming of her own wedding day…knowing that I had a hand in that. Whoa. That’s why I love photographing weddings. That’s why I’ll put on my ugly, supportive shoes on a Saturday & spend my day doing everything in my power to get the shot that will one day make every single happy memory from your day come flooding back to you.
Some people may think it’s crazy, but I think it’s AMAZING!
