Posted by Julianne

So I’ve been working on a recent personal project where I’ve been scanning lots of old family photographs dating back to the early 1900s… that includes my mother’s wedding album from 1984. In 1984 my mother received about 190 total proofs from her entire wedding day. I remember looking through the album when I was a kid and remarking about how amazing my mother looked, and laughing at the trends of the day, but only when I went through it again recently as a photographer did I notice something different.

In the 80s photographers worked off shot lists. This is for a few reasons, one being because they had a limited number of exposures from film and needed to get each shot exactly right, and also because cameras back then had their limitations. This resulted in a lot of “pose this way and smile at the camera” type of photos. That’s fine, everyone wants pictures of how they look on their wedding day, and for the time period my parents honestly hired a damn good photographer, but don’t you also want photos of how you felt that day? Or what you saw that day? There are so many things going on during a full wedding day that sometimes its important for us to take our eyes off you and focus on what’s happening around you… what you’re SEEING happen around you. Don’t you want to remember that?

I looked through the album a few weeks ago and again remarked about how amazing my mother looked, and I again laughed at how funny my uncle’s looked in their purple tuxes… but I also thought “I wish I could see what was happening around my parents.” I will never know what their wedding day was actually like. All I can see are pictures of how everyone looked. I wonder what their first dance was actually like… all I see is a photo of them dancing and looking at the camera. I wonder how my mother actually interacted with her brides maids – my aunt and my cousin, that day… all I see is a photo of them crowded together next to a bed, smiling and looking at the camera.

That is what a shot list gets you, and this is why we don’t work from one. When you’re planning your wedding you get lots of good advice, and lots of bad advice. If you read a website telling you that you need to give your photographer a shot list, think about what that means. Do you want our minds constantly focused on just getting those smiling shots of how you look? Or your nieces jumping up and down on the hotel bed having a pillow fight? Of course there is time made for portraits on your wedding day, but if the entire day is centered around portraits, then there is no time for those great moments that are happening behind the scenes.

We’ll get your important shots, we’ll catch your moments and of course we’ll create your portraits…

Trust us to use our judgement and capture those moments for your children to see when they look through your wedding album in 25 years. They will probably remark about how amazing you look and how funny the bride’s maids dresses look, but they will also feel like they were there. It will be a story, a day full of moments for you to re-live over and over every time you look at your album.

All we ask is that you trust us…