It’s a big responsibility, shooting weddings. Not performing-emergency-surgery-big or save-the-world-from-aliens-big, but it feels pretty darn big.

Each couple’s wedding happens only once. There are no do-overs. The couple will never have that day with those whirlwind emotions ever again. And if the DJ accidentally plays a song from the do-not-play list or the flowers weren’t quite a right shade of red, that’s winds up being a blip on the radar — but if the couple doesn’t wind up with photographs they love, that’s a problem that will haunt them every time they revisit their wedding images.

So, no matter what, we have to create photographs our couples will cherish, no matter the conditions or constraints we have to work under.
Before most weddings, I get incredibly nervous. Incredibly. Unable-to-eat and feeling-rather-ill-nervous. Danny and I not only have to be responsible and on top of everything throughout the day, but we have to think fast and be creative, and frequently we have to do it in far less time than we really need in order to do our job well.

We have to make sure we don’t overlook any shots the bride and groom sent us on their shots list. We have to be in the right place at the right time, even when the timeline is being revised on the fly and plenty of things happen that we weren’t informed of ahead of time. We have to carefully check off capturing all the key moments of the wedding and capture them creatively. We have to create opportunities for incredible photographs and opportunities for incredible moments in the middle of a hectic schedule.

It’s an amazing job, and one we love. It’s also a job that zaps all our mental and physical energy once a wedding is over. Oftentimes, the day after a wedding, my brain is in a fog and my body is very stubborn about functioning properly. But you know what? That’s just a part of the job, too.

We get to be there for some of the most thrilling, intimate moments in our couples’ lives — and capture them so our couples can relive them again and again. We get to work at parties, surrounded by people having a wonderful time. We get to think outside the box and create beautiful art. We get to build relationships with wonderfully kind, interesting people.

So we don’t mind the level of responsibility that comes with wedding photography. Sure, it would be nice if it were a pressure-free job — but that pressure is what ensures we have a job; if everyone could do it effectively, no one would be hiring us for their weddings. And if no one hired us for their weddings, we wouldn’t get to enjoy all the wonderful aspects of this job. It’s like the cliche, “nothing good comes easy.” If being a wedding photographer were always easy, there wouldn’t be much reward at the end of each wedding. We could pat ourselves on the back and say, “Well, that was easy.” But could we say, “We’re really proud of how well we worked as a team to tell this couple’s beautiful story”?

I’m not sure about you, but I’d rather be proud of my work at the end of the day, not pleased by how little effort I had to expend. And I’m going to guess you feel the same way about your job, or your hobby, or your life’s calling. Easy isn’t fulfilling. Accomplishment is.

~ Laura