Lately I have noticed the story is the same. Boy meets girl, girl develops a crush that makes her giddy, boy and girl fall in love and boy proposes.  Eager to plan a wedding that will mark the start of their lives together, girl looks to magazines, wedding blogs, and Pintrest, for inspiration and they all tell her one thing: finding the perfect husband is not enough, you have to represent your love with the perfect and unique wedding.

It’s all so very overwhelming and somewhere the purpose of the wedding gets lost in the details.

I got married before I was very involved in the wedding industry. I wasn’t a regular wedding blog reader and I didn’t have Pintrest to look to. Sometimes I wish I could redo my wedding day. Not the man I married, not the emotions, not the guests, just the details. This feeling that my wedding wasn’t enough, that it didn’t properly represent my style specifically as an artist, this feeling makes me cringe.

I had people come from all over for my wedding. My husband’s friends road-tripped from Illinois. My college roommate flew in from Tennessee. Michael’s 80 year old grandparents who had never flown, got on a plane from Indiana. My Uncle and his family flew in from China so he could marry us and my  cousins could be a part of the celebration.

On the morning of my wedding day I decided to go to the venue and see some of the set up. Cars lined the driveway at 8am with precious friends and family who were there to help in any way they could. The amount of people who gave up days to help put on the perfect wedding brought me to tears on numerous occasions. Seeing everyone there helping on my wedding day was one of those times. I was overwhelmed with the feeling of love and the pure blessing of being a part of such a wonderful community of people. All those people who would later change out of their work jeans and put on beautiful dresses they had bought specifically for this occasion, to celebrate with Michael and I.

On July 9th I walked down the aisle and I committed my life to my very best friend in front of all our friends and family. It was the perfect day and I won’t let wedding blogs and magazines tell me otherwise. The roses came in the wrong color, and the details were not worthy of publication, but I do not care.

When did society start envying a girl’s wedding and not her marriage?

Where are the stories of emotion and commitment in a sea of flowers, cakes and dresses?

I am going to switch gears now from a bride to a wedding photographer and be completely honest with you. I dream of shooting the detail drenched weddings. I love having my work featured and the excitement will never get old. I throughly enjoy planning styled shoots to inspire brides with new ideas and lovely details. But the thing is, styles and trends change quicker than the season, but I pray your marriage lasts much much longer.

Details are fun and can make your day unique and enjoyable. I absolutely love when my clients get creative with the planning and I am not trying to discourage this. I really only say all of that to say this: your marriage is what matters. Your friends and family that come together to support your union, matter.

I can guarantee you one thing: your wedding day will come and go much quicker than you could imagine and soon the day will just be a blur. My job is to freeze the emotion filled  moments and I believe this job is of the utmost importance.

Wedding publications tell me that I have to have 80% detail and only 20% of everything else (portraits, guests, and other sentimental pictures) to have a chance at being featured. Today I want to make a promise to my clients that shooting the details of your wedding will never be my first priority. Your dad seeing you in your dress for the first time, your groom’s expression as he watches you walk down the aisle, your guest’s reaction to the exchanging of vows, your grandfather sharing a dance with your niece: these moments will be my emphasis. I could care less if these emotion filled photos get rejected time and again from wedding blogs, those are the photographs that I want to hand over to all of my clients. I will happily photograph the details you worked so hard to bring together, but documenting invaluable memories and giving you family heirlooms is my priority.  Celebrating along side of you is a privilege.