I sometimes wonder what expectations people have of their own wedding day.
As a couple planning a wedding, you’ll be presented with wedding magazines, wedding blogs, pinterest and so on. These will more often than not depict highly stylized weddings (or not even real weddings at all), often with a lot of $ spent, usually in extremely picturesque locations, with “pretty” people.
It seems like it puts a lot of completely unnatural and unnecessary pressure on brides-to-be. This doesn’t make me so comfortable.
But we can’t pretend like pressures don’t or can’t exist at all. There are things that we will care dearly about, things that are close to us, and how we show this will surface in different ways. I say things, we of course mean the people we love.
Sometimes people get a little choked up on a wedding day. There are many “first moments”, like realising you’re now actually married to the person you love. Making the first eye contact on the day, and reality sinking in. Your Dad showing you how much he cares, as he leads you down the aisle. The revelation of an outrageous story and the whole room bursting into laughter. With all this life happening around you, and with the people you care dearest about, it’s quite normal to show this emotion. In fact, it’s completely natural. But with all these outside influences pulling you this way and that, you need to know there is only one thing I expect of you.
For you to be yourself.
This is all I expect. Easy. No stress. No unrealistic or unnatural expectations. You won’t see all the other “stuff”, which the other sources might show you are “perfect”. You’ll have something far more valuable.
You’ll see all the reasons that brought you together in the first place and what you love about each other. To me, that’s far more worthy, and the very reason I pick up a camera and love photographing peoples lives.
