Wedding Photography - Why it means so much to me

Maybe I’m getting softer in my old age but weddings are more emotional and meaningful to me now even after ten years. 

As of writing this, I’m 42 and I’m in that gap between the ages of the couples getting married and their parents so I have this balanced view of a wedding day. I’m far enough away from my own wedding to look back at how special it was but I’m close enough to see what it would look like watching your own child get married. 

After my own wedding in 2010, I probably didn’t appreciate how unlikely it is to have all the guests in one place again. Yeah, you see them again at things but not all together at one big party like that. Some of the guests at my wedding have moved away, some friends have drifted away altogether and unfortunately, I’m just not friends with some of them anymore. Even now that I’m divorced, the memory of my wedding day isn’t soured at all. It was an amazing day, we all had a ball. 

Now that I have two kids of my own, I can easily put myself in the shoes of parents on a wedding day and imagine what it’s going to be like for me if my boys ever get to experience such a big day. 

I quite often tear up during speeches, especially by the father of the groom. If I had to make a speech about my boys right now, I don’t think I’d get through it without crumbling. Fingers crossed that I harden up a bit over the next ten to fifteen years so I can get through it if that day comes. 

I also think weddings are meaning more to me because I’ve gone through an enormous amount of personal growth in the last four years. I’ve explored the reasons why I’m a wedding photographer and discovered so much about myself. 

Full disclosure, when I first started in 2010 it was purely a side hustle to make a bit of extra money on the weekends. At the time I had a printing business that paid all the bills so I didn’t have the focus required to become a great photographer.

As with most things in my life, I’ve needed something big to happen to really shift my focus. That came in the form of a failed marriage in 2016, a pretty major knee injury and some mental health issues to overcome. That all took the best part of 12 months to get out the other side and recover before it became clear that a career in wedding photography really was my thing. My printing business began to become an afterthought and shooting weddings was all I could think about.

In early 2018, I realised that the preceding 7 years shooting weddings meant very little. Sure, I’d learned how to take photos and work some camera gear but I hadn’t really paid attention to the important stuff. The bigger picture was the story of each couple, their family and friends that I get to meet and take photos of. Even just saying ‘take photos of’ isn’t enough. We’re creating memories. No matter where we get to in life, these images that we create on a wedding day will be cherished down the track by you, your kids, your loved ones. Divorced, still together, passed away, wherever this journey of life takes us, these memories are important. 

When I started out on this journey into wedding photography, I didn’t get it. I do now and I’m proud of what I’ve achieved since 2018. Call it reinvention, call it an epiphany, call it what you like. I feel like I’ve arrived at the point I needed to and I now get to truly hone my skills as a storyteller. It all starts with getting to know people and discovering what’s important to them. 

Maybe I’m just feeling nostalgic about approaching the ten-year mark of this career. Maybe it’s that I’m getting older and appreciating life a bit more. Maybe it’s the investment I’ve made in myself through education. Maybe it’s all of it coming together and the universe doing its thing as always. 

Love, 

Matt.