In the world of wedding photography, many professionals gravitate toward an editorial style. This approach emphasizes creating visually stunning images, often by posing couples in carefully curated settings. While these photos are undeniably beautiful, they often feel more like staged moments than authentic memories. In fact, many portfolios showcase these couple-focused images, sometimes taken on the wedding day, but often created in separate sessions entirely. The result is stunning, yes—but are these images truly meaningful?
Early in my career, I embraced this editorial approach. I focused on crafting beautiful photos, but something always felt missing. The images that captured the actual flow of the wedding day often lacked the depth and emotion I was striving to convey. That’s when I discovered documentary photography, and everything changed.
Documentary photography reshaped not only my style but also how I viewed my role as a wedding photographer. I began to focus on the natural interactions between couples and their guests, capturing genuine, unposed moments as they unfolded. In this approach, there’s no control over the light, the setting, or the poses. I can’t move people or orchestrate scenes, nor can I rely on moments being repeated. This makes the process both challenging and demanding—I have to be hyper-aware of everything happening around me, ready to capture fleeting moments as they occur. But it’s precisely this unpredictability that I love.
What draws me to documentary photography is its timelessness. Iconic images taken by documentary photographers decades ago still feel relevant today. They aren’t bound by trends or styles—they tell stories, evoke emotions, and preserve moments as they were. For me, this is what wedding photography should be about: creating images that reflect the heart and soul of a day, rather than just its surface beauty.
Documentary photography allows me to deliver more than just beautiful pictures; it enables me to tell the real story of a wedding day—a story that couples can relive for generations to come. And that, to me, is the most meaningful kind of photography.
