As a wedding photographer, I’ve learned so many things. About weddings and photography and running a photography business, of course. Also about life, and people, and families.

Here are a few of the things I’ve learned in this wonderfully fun, crazy, exhausting, sometimes stressful and always exciting job.

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1.) Relaxed photographers beget relaxed photography subjects. The opposite is also true.

2.) On the dance floor, it’s inevitable that eventually wedding photographers’ feet will get stomped/noses will get slapped/backs will get punched.

3.) It’s imperative to build buffer time into the wedding day timeline, because . . .

4.) . . . on the wedding day, everything takes longer than it would on any other day ever.

5.) Having one bridesmaid and groomsman who act as a go-between for the bride and groom and everyone else is absolutely golden.

6.) Wedding photographers’ brains will probably have to work much harder and faster during a wedding day than they ever did during any college exam.

7.) Wedding photographers should always show up with a simple hanger for the gown, because a stunning gown deserves something more elegant than plastic.8.) As with any small business owners, wedding photographers generally take home 50% of their gross income — or less. So while wedding photography prices might seem high to some clients, the money photographers actually get to put into their own bank accounts is much, much less.

9.) Brides and grooms don’t need to know about the little things that go wrong behind the scenes — ever. 

10.) Weddings with lots children are so much fun!

11.) People skills are just as much of a must for wedding photographers as the ability to work a camera.

12.) In the whole wide world, there are few feelings better than getting hugged by the couple’s entire family and bridal party at the end of the night.

13.) Wedding photographers must be fed dinner in order to have the energy to finish capturing the festivities. Must.

14.) Wedding photographers should take their full arsenal of equipment to every wedding, because you never know when you’ll suddenly need that one item you haven’t brought out of your bag in months.

15.) There is no wedding photographer, no matter how famous or sought-after, who is immune to self-doubt and the dreaded comparison monster.

16.) Parents deeply, passionately want to feel intimately involved on such a momentous day for their children.17.) Pretty, clever details are a lot of fun to photograph — but people are what will be important to the couple in thirty years.

18.) Wedding photographers don’t get time off unless they schedule time off . . . because photographers shoot weddings on weekends, then spend weekdays working on editing, marketing, meeting with clients, shooting portrait sessions, and handling all the everyday tasks of running a small business.

19.) The day after a wedding, wedding photographers pretty much feel as if they’ve been hit by a truck.

20.) If a couple doesn’t seem convinced that they want a certain wedding photographer to shoot their wedding, wedding photographers aren’t doing that couple or themselves any favors if they sign a contract anyway.

21.) Every bride wants to remember her wedding day as the most beautiful of her life — and wedding photographers have the opportunity to give brides those memories, even if her budget meant she couldn’t pull off a wedding exactly as she had dreamed.

22.) Wedding photographers double as brides’ and grooms’ personal cheering squads not only on the wedding day, but leading up to it, too.

23.) The quality of a wedding photographer’s gear makes a huge difference in the quality of the images the photographer creates, but the quality of the photographer’s knowledge, skills, and instincts matters even more.

24.) Creating beautiful pictures is an amazing part of every wedding photographer’s job. Building beautiful relationships with clients/new friends is just as exciting.

25.) In the grand scheme of things, wedding photography itself isn’t a big deal. It just isn’t. Publications, awards, industry recognition — none of that will matter in the long run, not to photographers’ clients or to photographers themselves. But what wedding photographers do and create for couples will endure. Wedding photographers preserve each couple’s love. And that might just mean everything.

~ Laura