How I Became a Wedding Photographer

I never thought that I’d be a wedding photographer. In fact, I had bad associations with wedding photography — hazy, glowing images of red roses and album templates with cartoons of clinking champagne glasses. All of that changed a year ago when a friend encouraged me to answer an online ad for an “un-wedding photographer.” I loved photographing people, but my friends were getting a little tired of me coming after them with my camera. I thought “well, here’s a way that I could photograph people who really want to be photographed, and I could also make a little money to help pay for all this ridiculous camera equipmpent I’ve been collecting.” So I answered the ad.

For my first clients, Shawn and Lani, it was no problem that I only had photos of people, concerts, and landscapes in my portfolio. I think it actually worked in my favor that I’d never photographed a wedding. They also hated pictures of hazy, glowing red roses and wanted something different.

Then came the day of their wedding. I was pretty comfortable around weddings since I’d worked for a caterer and had worked at literally over 100 weddings. But I didn’t realize how I would feel being so close to something so personal and meaningful. The fact that they’d let me into their lives, to document something that was so important to them, touched me. Unlike a caterer or florist, a photographer is often with the couple behind the scenes in those moments leading up to the ceremony, during the vows, and follows them closely afterward. A photographer gets to see almost the entire wedding day, and may spend more time with the couple than the couple’s own family. And a photographer isn’t only documenting everything they see, but they’ve also been given the privilege of telling someone else’s story — someone who may not know them very well — through their eyes. The responsibility I’d been given hit me. I remember driving home that day and feeling so great. It was probably a few days later when I said: “this is what I want to do.”

Maybe I should back up a bit. For a long, long time I had wanted to be an artist. I thought I was becoming one when I graduated from U Mass Dartmouth with a BFA in Printmaking, and then went on to study Art History at Brown. But this was just before the internet and the digital age and I couldn’t figure out how to make it work as a job. So I went back to school for something a bit more “sensible” and utilitarian: a master’s degree in Professional Writing. I spent years in communications and marketing for non-profits and Fortune 500 companies. I could never really figure out how those pieces of my life fit together. “Let’s see I have a degree in the visual fine arts, I write, I do communications and marketing and branding and blogging for big and small companies, I’ve worked for a wedding caterer, I am obsessed with photography… Oh and did I mention that I’m a total sap who loves romance and anything emotional?” So when I found wedding photography it just hit me. This was the amalgamation of all my passions and experiences that I’d never pieced together.

So I started the research. I got a website. I took more photos. I advertised. I joined professional organizations and talked with wedding photographers who shared what they knew. I was up front with potential clients that I was just starting out, and to my surprise, found them cheering for me. And before I knew it I had booked 28 weddings (and counting) during my first year in business.

Maybe I should have titled this post “How I’m Becoming A Wedding Photographer”. Because in many ways I feel like I’m still very much in the process of learning and becoming and realizing my dream. And it really has been a dream come true.