What is Documentary Style Wedding Photography?
Weddings are strange. You spend months planning a day that ends in a matter of hours. Yet, those hours become memories that you carry for the rest of your life, especially if you get to live in the moment. By definition, documentary style photography is capturing the day as it happens to retell the story of your big day. The way you choose to capture the day really shapes the story you’re telling and reliving. Personally, I am a documentary-style wedding photographer who incorporates some traditional photography elements like posed family portraits. So why should you care about this? Or the style of photography at all?
Lack of Posing
If we’re being honest, the process of getting you to your big day is full of rules and regulations and performances from vendors and family alike. That sounds… exhausting to say the least. Every wedding I have ever attended or photographed involved the couple being pulled in all kinds of directions and made to perform in some way. Now imagine if I came in and gave you a bunch of different directions on how to pose with people while your cousin is trying to direct you to look at her for her Instagram story photo. When I use this approach and focus on moments that happen naturally, you don’t get much posing.
A lack of posing is freedom from one more person trying to get you to perform during your beautiful day. You’ve already made sure, after many days, that everything was just the way you two like it. I don’t want you to be nervous. I want you to enjoy the day you’ve created. Documentary photography grants couples a sense of freedom. Freedom from constantly thinking about how you look or worrying whether every moment is happening correctly. Freedom to actually experience your wedding day while it's happening.
What Most Wedding Coverage Misses
Traditional wedding photography is excellent at focusing on things in a very valuable, classic way. A photo of the couple at the altar, exchanging vows, and structured family photos. I find that these things do have value in maintaining tradition and giving you some guaranteed formal photos with beloved family members. In fact, I utilize some traditional elements like structured family photos so that you get to have it all. But what is missing??
Documentary photography focuses on the space between the milestones. The unscheduled, unrehearsed moments that end up being the most meaningful. They give a sense of truly being seen, not viewed. Being viewed is common, unemotional. Anyone can view a wedding like a spectator sport. To truly see someone is to see what they value, feel, and experience from an outside point of view. This can look like an anxious bride instantly becoming comfortable the moment her father comes to walk her down the aisle. Your best friend is beaming in the background as if this were happening to them. This could be your mother dabbing tears away from her eyes or a set of grandparents lovingly looking at each other, reminiscing. The difference between these moments and traditional photos is that these cannot be manufactured. There is a certain level of magic involved in capturing a meaning. A photo of a groom crying isn’t emotional because of the tears. The emotion is in what the tear means. It’s in framing it against their bride or groom coming down the aisle to meet them, where the rest of their lives begin.
Documentary Photography Is Not About Avoiding Direction
“What if I don’t know what to do?” Then I have your back! A misconception about this style is that I don’t pose because I can’t. I am not abandoning you for the authenticity. It means I still step in when your jewelry is tangled up, I still pull you away from it all when it becomes too much. I just don’t manufacture the emotion. As unreal as it all can feel, it will not look fake. And hey, if I see a moment that can be posed, we might get a few of those as well if that’s what you’d like.
As a photographer, I’m far less concerned with creating absolutely perfect moments than I am in recognizing the perfection in the authentic ones. I gain a sense of joy in capturing your acts of devotion. The trust couples hand to me to really see them is unique, and I treasure it the way I want you to treasure your photos.
Final Thoughts
Years from now, table arrangements, invitation fonts, and florals will not mean nearly as much to you as they might now. I don’t think you’ll remember everything that happens off the top of your head. I do think you will remember the grip you had on your partner’s hand. You’ll remember what it felt like to be loved and celebrated by the people you love in this world. Documentary photography isn’t just about preserving what happened; it’s preserving how it felt and what that meant to you. It’s about preserving evidence of love.
