4 Things to Look Out For in Wedding Photography This Year

As the tastes and traditions of wedding couples evolve, so too do your preferences and styles in wedding imagery.

Photo © Chellise Michael Photography

End-of-the-Night Coverage

Last year was one of our best years yet, and the birth of a CMP [Chellise Michael Photography] tradition. Oddly, it’s become a request by our couples, and I’m finding that other photographers keep asking me about it, too. It’s the end-of-the-night shot.

When packing up our gear after spending a full day shooting a wedding, we used to grab a drink, go straight to the dance floor and hug-dance our sweet couples goodbye. Well, we still do that, but now we drag their boozed butts off to a nearby location for one last sloppy, fun shot of them. We get these shots using a wide lens, like a 28mm, and direct flash from our speed light with a honeycomb grid attachment.

It has become our favorite part of the night. They get rowdy and become putty. Even our most reserved, well-to-do, proper brides let loose—that’s the tops. After that, then we put our cameras away. And DANCE.

— Chellise Michael

30 Rising Star Ed Peers was able to capture meaningful moments between everyone at this backyard wedding of fellow Rising Stars Jennifer Moher and Hugh Whitaker. Photo © Ed Peers.

The Rising Popularity of Intimate Ceremonies

Increasingly, we are seeing couples trading large wedding parties and 300-person guest lists in giant convention centers for a handful of their closest friends and family in a simple location. With this come many different opportunities for a photographer, namely capturing quieter, intimate moments that big weddings cannot always offer.

Often, the location choices end up being more meaningful to the couple (their own home or backyard, a family cottage or favorite restaurant), which tend to be much more visually inspiring. Without a wedding party, the couple is essentially each other’s companions for the entire day, giving even more opportunity to document their close relationship. I try to arrange to be at an intimate wedding early, to watch the preparation and get to know family and friends in order to gain trust in having me as part of the celebration. Small guest lists also afford the opportunity for a destination wedding. You can join them for the rehearsal the night before and even meals leading up to the event, helping you understand dynamics and relationships between guests that will result in much more truthful and personalized imagery.

The best way to attract any type of client is to show what you want to shoot. We recommend planning a styled backyard shoot. Grab ten of your friends and create an “intimate wedding“ shoot, or while on vacation scout out couples who may be interested in a free session! Blog the images and be sure to tag them with keywords like “destination wedding photographer,“ “intimate wedding,“ etc. The more you tell the world you are interested in intimate weddings, the more you will get. I would even go so far as to write a blog post about why you love the idea of photographing an intimate wedding—the more you can associate your name with the keyword, the better!

—Jennifer Moher

Photo © Tomasz Wagner

Shooting Film for Real

With film emulation software saturating photography, more digital shooters are picking up 35mm or medium-format film as a way of experimenting and refining their styles—Ben Sasso, Si Moore of Bayly & Moore, Jai Long, Benj Haisch, Dylan Howell and Sachin Khona, as well as many others, have made the switch. These photographers know their digital images are starting to look and feel like everyone else’s, so differentiating themselves becomes more important than ever, whether this involves new ways of observing, shifts in storytelling or changes in their relationship to tones, light and subjects.

I’m normally a digital shooter, but learning to adapt to the natural limits and conditions of film has affected all aspects of my image-making. From the number of exposures and type of film stock to the delayed gratification, I take extra care with film because I have to. More than anything, it’s the slowness of film that has shifted my storytelling. When the moment presents itself in combination with the right light and subject, I feel I’m creating images with a special kind of honesty, as if the story behind the subject matter were there all along and I simply uncovered it or made sense of the tension between all of the parts. I scan my own film, and this allows me to understand the way it naturally presents grain, contrast and colors, and how this can inform the feel of my digital work. It’s all very intentional, and I think that’s central to shooting film.
—Tomasz Wagner

Photo © SV Photo.

Honeymoon Hop-On

Once we discovered Kristi Odom had recently photographed her first honeymoon couple we started finding more and more shooters who are incorporating this fun upsell into their packaging. And the good news is you don’t always need to travel far for it. Samuel and Virginie (of SV Photograph in French Polynesia) are already based in paradise, where many couples travel to for their honeymoons.

“Our focus is on shooting honeymoon couples in several places in Moorea and other islands nearby, like Tahiti, Bora Bora, etc. Not just to stay in one place,“ Samuel explains. “We love shooting in some wild places and often mix lagoon and beach shots with mountain and jungle scenes (as this part is sometimes forgotten here). We love when our honeymooners discover the island for the first time with us during the shoot. They are so in love, it’s a pleasure to shoot in that condition!“

The husband-and-wife team uses several cameras and different lenses for these shoots—depending on places chosen and what they want to focus on (portrait, couple in scenery or even in the ocean)—often with underwater casing. “We work with Canon 5D Mark IIIs and four different lenses from Canon and Tamron—everything from the 35mm to the 210mm,“ Samuel says.

Compared to weddings, he says, honeymoon shoots are completely different. “Our honeymooners are relaxed, happy, in love—they want the perfect souvenir of their once-a-lifetime trip! And we are honored to do it.”

—Jacqueline Tobin

Related: Inside Wedding Photography 2016: Current Trends and Future Splurges

Three Things We Learned from the Knot About the State of Weddings Today