Always the Photographer, Finally the Bride | Lessons I Learned Planning My Own Wedding After 13 Years Behind the Camera

Weddings

Feb 18

For 13 years, I photographed other people’s weddings.

I knew how timelines worked.
I knew which parts of the day ran late.
I knew what stressed couples out and what they remembered years later.

I had watched hundreds of first looks, hundreds of ceremonies, hundreds of dances with parents. I had also quietly observed what felt peaceful and what felt performative. Naturally, I assumed that when it was my turn, planning my own wedding would feel straightforward.

Instead, something unexpected happened.

I realized how easy it is to plan a wedding in your imagination — and how different it feels to plan one for your actual life.

Here are a few things becoming a bride taught me that photographing weddings alone never could.

1. The wedding you imagined may not be the wedding that fits your story

For years, I carried a very specific picture in my mind.

Late spring.
Barefoot in a field.
A big tree. Soft light. Warm air.

It felt like my wedding long before I ever met my husband.

But once we were actually engaged and planning together, we started making decisions based on real logistics, real families, real schedules, and real personalities. And slowly, the version of the day that made the most sense for us looked completely different.

We got married in the middle of February, inside a light-filled industrial warehouse in the heart of west Atlanta.

It wasn’t what I had pictured for years.
And it was exactly right.

We brought in small ways to reflect what I loved — greenery, natural textures, quiet spaces — but the structure of the day changed. The season changed. The environment changed. The timeline changed.

Letting go of the long-held picture wasn’t disappointing — it was freeing. Once I stopped trying to recreate a dream version of a wedding and started building a day around our real life together, the planning became peaceful, and everything fell into place.

2. Trends move quickly. Your relationship doesn’t.

One thing you notice after photographing weddings for over a decade is how clearly you can date a wedding by its trends.

The color palettes change.
The signage wording changes.
The reception formats change.

But the weddings that still feel timeless years later all share something in common: they were unmistakably personal.

My husband and I aren’t big party people. We love slow mornings. We love conversation. We love brunch food. Sunday mornings are meaningful to us because they center around church and rest and time together.

So we planned a Sunday brunch wedding — a midday ceremony, followed by a casual reception featuring pancakes, a coffee bar, and a jazz band to set the mood.

I knew this would have once been considered unconventional. But I also knew — from watching couples after their weddings — that people remember whether the day felt like them far more than whether it matched expectations.

A wedding doesn’t need to follow a format to be meaningful. It only needs to be honest.

Trends age. Personality doesn’t.

Our “Pancake Cake” that my husband made!

3. The day really does move faster than you think

I thought I would be different.

After all, I’ve spent years reminding couples to slow down, to breathe, to notice each other. I knew exactly when the day would speed up and when emotions would peak.

And still — it flew by.

Being the bride is not the same as observing the bride. You are constantly being hugged, spoken to, pulled into conversations, moved from place to place. Every moment is full, and because of that, the hours compress.

I’m incredibly thankful for our photographs and video. They gave me details back that I truly missed in real time — small expressions, interactions, reactions I never saw.

But I’m just as thankful for the few intentional pauses we planned.

Moments where we stepped away.
Moments where we sat down and ate.
Moments where we looked around the room together instead of moving through it.

You cannot slow the day down, but you can create small anchors inside it.

Those pauses became some of my clearest memories.

Photographing weddings taught me what weddings look like.
Having one taught me what a wedding feels like.

If there’s anything I’d gently tell couples now, it’s this: your wedding is not a production you’re hosting — it’s an experience you’re living through. Build it in a way that allows you to recognize your own life inside it.

Years later, you won’t remember every detail you chose.

You’ll remember whether you felt calm.
You’ll remember whether you had space to notice each other.
You’ll remember whether the day felt like home.

And if it did, you did it right.

- MC