I am anti-perfection when it comes to wedding photos.
These days, weddings are not only expensive but they can be stressful, overwhelming and force us to feel guilty if we don’t conform to the “norm.”
I can’t tell you how many weddings I’ve been to where people go through the day, just checking boxes.
They need to take getting ready pictures.
“Oh wait.. everyone put your robes back on we have to get this shot before we can get dressed!”
They need to give each party person a gift, wedding party people, wedding favors, parents, each other. Cha-Ching, cha-ching, cha-ching. Y’all, if they’re showing up to be in your wedding, you can thank them with a gift if you want. That’s fine. The real gift of life is getting to share meaningful experiences with people that we love. If it’s not in the budget to buy a ton of gifts, write them a heartfelt note with your favorite photo of them from the wedding and mail it to them after.
They need to take every possible combination of family photos under the sun. Now this one, I’m on the fence about because I really do love making memories, and if you genuinely need a bunch of little groups of people, then by all means lets do it! Most of the time however, people only take so many family photos because they’re pressured by family / society to think they need to, or because they just want to “do what’s right” and not miss out on ANY standard photo opportunity.
I get it.
In my experience, the stories you tell from your wedding day are never how perfect everything was, how so-and-so’s speech or dress, or hair were just absolutely perfect!
No. You remember the funny things that got messed up.
You remember that your cake was lopsided because it was 1000º outside that day. You remember that you spilled a Diet Coke on your veil. Your dog weaved all over the place going down the isle. Remember when Jack busted his ass dancing and dropped that glass? Oh my gosh so funny.
Guess what. WEDDINGS ARE NOT PERFECT DAYS. They just aren’t! They’re days like any other where people forget stuff, schedules fall behind and things don’t go as planned.
Some of my FAVORITE photos ever are ones that were totally spontaneous or faces people made when something unexpected happened.
I love it when a couple deviates from the schedule and decides, you know what we’d way rather go to cocktail hour and actually be a part of our wedding than spend 45 minutes taking photos with family or friends that we’ll honestly never look at again.
And when you go to cocktail hour, those people that you forwent taking pics with, they’ll be there. And I’ll still be taking pictures, except these won’t be forced or staged. You will be talking with a group of ACTUAL organic friends, and you’ll see me hovering in the wings, ready for you to throw your hand up and wave me over for a group photo.
Perfection is always the enemy of enjoyment and experiencing the moment you’re in RIGHT NOW.
Weddings only last one day. Spend that time making memories, dancing like a fool & not worrying about whether your dress is dirty or not. To me, a dirty dress is a sign of a wedding well spent.
Who cares if the bouquet doesn’t look exactly like you imagined it? It’s great to have expectations and to plan out a beautiful event, but if the day comes and things aren’t exactly as you’d hoped they’d be, it’s FINE. It’s totally fine!
Your wedding day will be memorable because of the community that you have created to share it with you, and the unplanned things that happen when you have everyone together.
I recently did a wedding where all of the guests put their names in to a hat, and the couple drew two names out and let THOSE PEOPLE BE THEIR WITNESSES on their marriage license. It was awesome. Everyone wanted to win, and it was both hilarious, memorable and special when the two winners were called up to sign.
Nobody, and I mean NOBODY is utterly perfect in real life. When I take couples portraits, I never specifically pose or direct people. I place you together in a general pose and then usually just tell awful, sarcastic tales to get you laughing. This method means that you are in control of your own bodies within a pose, and you can just be who the two of you normally are together. If you look really awkward, I’ll tell you! I’ll reposition you and we’ll start again. I often say that the good ones will be amazing and the bad ones will be horrible and you’ll get them all to look through!
There are two reasons why I deliver ALL of the photos now.
The first is that, I can’t know which photos YOU will feel like you look your best in. If you were to take 100 photos of me, I promise you that your favorite and my favorite would be completely different images. The way that I see people, and the way that we all see ourselves is always different. YOU should get to decide which ones are your favorite, not me.
The second reason is that I am not trying to hide my “bad” images. I don’t think there really are bad images. Sure, if the flash doesn’t go off and the thing is just black, I’ll delete that one, but my favorite pics of my own family are definitely the “blooper” ones. Someone is blinking, someone is being wild. In all honesty, after I make my blog post of your wedding, I’m going to load the images on to a RAID drive and never look at them again.
Your weddings pics are YOURS. Their your friends, your family. You are going to know about these people and their dynamics infinitely more than I ever will, and who am I to deprive you of potential gems because I don’t know all of the history and stories of your tribe? You are the one that will be looking at these for your lifetime, and then your kids and grandkids, or your dog sitter that you bequeath your millions of dollars to.
Am I’m afraid that you’ll judge me for taking photos that aren’t technically “perfect?” No. I’m not. Judge away, and have a good laugh while you’re at it. I’d much rather give you everything and let you decide than try to maintain the total facade of perfection. Nobody is perfect, that what makes life memorable and hilarious.
It’s okay to not be perfect. It’s okay to not seek perfection on your wedding day.
Strive for enjoyment, strive to be present and don’t let the little things (or the big things!) get you down if and when they come up.
These are just a few of the imperfectly perfect photos I’ve taken recently. They help tell the whole story.
Guests randomly try to pet this duck. Great story.
Chivalry isn’t dead.
Sweet man attempts to properly secure a flower crown. That’s true love right there.
This behind the scenes moment helps them to remember that the love wasn’t just in the perfect moments, it was in all of it.
Spontaneous joy after winning the Easter egg battle, featuring the trash bin. Hilarious.
Guests who aren’t required to sit for a million group pics decide they want to stage a photo like a MTV cast. Amazing.
This group of friends knew that the couple would laugh at this photo when they saw it, instead of glossing over it had it been “perfect.”
In in-between taking nice portraits moment of real emotions.
When bros gotta bro.
Not cute faces make for very cute memories.
Denied. This was followed by an actually nice portrait, but this helps tell the whole story.
This couple has a new baby which means that their life is full of tiny, beautiful imperfections right now. Their mutual sarcasm was absolutely gorgeous to behold.
Right after I made a joke about straddling. So good.
Robbi can’t take a bad photo. Models are so used to being perfect, it brings me joy to share moments of genuine emotion.
If we omit the imperfect moments from our lives and our memories, what we’re left with is a watered down, falsely curated version of what actually happened.
Don’t cheat yourself out of the good memories because we as a society are told that anything less than perfection isn’t good enough.
That’s a lie. Imperfection is what MAKES life beautiful. Embrace the “bad” photos of yourself and choose to remember things as they were, which is more than good enough.
