If you take a look through popular wedding photographer blogs, any online wedding magazine or through many wedding photographers’ Instagram feeds, you’ll see lots of pretty events. You’ll be able to look through sweet photographs of engagement rings, beautifully styled wedding bands surrounded by flowers and spools of ribbon, and photograph after photograph of wedding couples strolling through sun-drenched fields. While these beautiful images are absolutely part of the wedding day, where are the relationships? Save the images of the wedding couple together, and perhaps a few images of bridesmaids and groomsmen, it can be hard to find families represented in wedding photographer portfolios.
As a wedding photographer in business who has to market photography to potential clients, I understand. Family formal portraits generally do look similar : lovely, well-dressed folks in a line, smiling at the camera. When you’re trying to show off your best work to potential clients, these aren’t the images that you might naturally be inclined to reach for. However, knowing how much my clients love their families, these images are among the most important that I take on a wedding day. While they might not be marketing gold, these are the images that people run back into burning houses to save. When was the last time someone ran back into a house aflame to save a shot of an engagement ring?