An Illustrative Essay on Observation, Restraint, and the Misunderstanding of Documentary Wedding Photography

Instagram called. It wants its buzzword back.

“Documentary-style wedding photography” has become one of the most frequently used—and easily least examined—phrases in the industry.

Somehow, somewhere, the Internet happened, diluting the phrase down to aesthetic shorthand for “unposed.” Like pointing a camera at humans and crossing your fingers is enough to capture a lifetime.

It isn’t.

A real documentary wedding photographer isn’t casual (I’ve accepted that I’ve never been described that way and probably most likely never will be). She’s not passive. She’s not crouched behind a rogue fern calling every accidental blur “art.”

She’s alert. She’s timing, restraining herself, bending to the moments that are actually happening, not the ones she wants to happen.

She’s doing more, not less— and then dedicating her entire Instagram grid to the payoff of doing more.

Rumor has it two super hot, cool, and impossibly funny people (I mean, their signature cocktail was called Hot Dog Water and they’re both professional comedians, like, c’mon) got married at Union Station in Nashville and somehow ended up as Exhibit A for what it looks like when your documentary wedding photographer actually gives a damn. 

Probably more damns than you probably thought one person could possibly give.

So, let’s break it down and set the record straight once and for all, shall we? 

Here’s what documentary wedding photography actually is—beyond the buzzwords, beyond Instagram aesthetics, beyond the “let’s hope this turns out” approach that passes for honesty online.

A good documentary wedding photographer doesn’t compete with a moment.

She depends on it.

At no point during Fiona and Matt’s day did the camera become the focal point. No one paused mid-conversation to hit their best Heidi Klum. No one un-slouched, braced, or worried I’d catch them taking a breather (oh, the horror!). Not a single moment was asked to wait for the sake of the shutter.

Documentary photography does not request access to your legacy moments. It earns it through proximity and patience. The images from this wedding feel real because they WERE. 

You can see it in Fiona’s laugh lines during her cinematic getting ready photos. In how the sunlight hit her sitting in her chair in a way that could only be described as cinematic sorcery. In the bridal party sprawled on the hotel floor with their curling irons, like they were auditioning for a modern art installation called The Calm Before the Ceremony. In the fact that Fiona’s just being a badass woman surrounded by other badass women, none the wiser that this badass woman is lurking behind a lampshade capturing it all.

Every single one of these frames reads as effortlessly human, because no one was told how to be. 

Documentary wedding photography isn’t minimal effort. It’s maximal attention.

The venue stays part of the story.

Union Station has gravity. Like, the kind of gravity where you almost trip over it if you’re not careful. So much that they should probably charge it as a line item on the invoice when you book the venue.

Arched ceilings, tiled floors, ornate ironwork, a sense of movement even when you’re standing still and gaping at the sheer size of it all. None of it needs flattening or manipulating to be “wedding-ready.”

The space where your ‘I do’s’ happen is part of the story, and a true documentary wedding photographer knows how to let it play its part. 

Some frames pull back to let the building dwarf the people within it. Others move in close, erasing the architecture entirely so the focus is only laughter, only hands held, only eyes meeting. 

Both are true. Both belong. Together, they tell the story of what it felt like to move through that space that day.

The light does (some of) the talking. 

I shot the entire ceremony without a flash. There, I said it.

Was it anxiety-inducing? You bet. But, was it worth it? More than anything.

The light on Fiona and Matt—low and moody—was part of the story just as much as the wood-framed windows it filtered through. Using flash would have robbed the moment Fiona came down the aisle of its atmosphere. It would have gotten in the way of the intimacy of Matt sitting to say his vows or the authenticity of guests trying (and failing) not to let their tears ruin their makeup. 

Light is pure narrative, when you let it be. 

When you shoot without flash, every frame is a negotiation between what the day provides and what the camera can capture. You can only wait, watch, and press the shutter at exactly the right millisecond.

The result? Photographs that feel like they existed before anyone ever thought to point a camera at them. 

Emotion is observed, not directed.

And in order to observe emotion, you need to be a student of it. (As a lifelong Feeler of Feelings, I take this role very seriously.)

Some people are big with it. Some are subtle. Some people feel everything at once and then try very hard to rein it in. 

Part of my job as a documentary wedding photographer is knowing my couples well enough to read those differences, so that when something real makes an appearance, my finger is already halfway down the shutter (and my brain chemistry is already being altered by how GOOD it all is).

With Fiona and Matt both having a successful career in comedy (yes, as in THE Fiona Cauley and THE Matt Taylor), they were no strangers to an expressive face.

Fiona made my job easy. Peering up through her long lashes at her husband. Laughing with every part of her body. Always a little bit on the brink of happy tears. Letting her joy take up as much space as it possibly could— zero chill, all delight.

And Matt matched her energy in his own way— sitting with her on a bench outside Union Station, eyes drifting to her lips while she talked, wearing that slightly-stunned look of someone realizing his life has just been rebooted in the best possible way.

Every little eyebrow raise. Every lopsided smile. Every split-second reaction that happens before someone remembers they’re being photographed. That’s the good stuff and nothing but the good stuff. 

A documentary wedding photographer is always paying close enough attention to catch it and being careful not to interrupt it.

A documentary wedding photographer knows the speeches matter just as much as the vows.

Some of the most honest moments of the entire day happen when someone picks up a microphone and immediately says, “Okay, I’m already crying.”

Speeches are an absolute jackpot for documentary photography because no one is trying to look good. They’re just reacting. Fully. With their whole faces. In public. A bold choice that I support with my whole being.

Hands over mouths. Heads thrown back in laughter. That panicked, rapid-fire blink thing that people do when they realize they are, in fact, about to sob in front of everyone they know.

Fiona’s face cycled through eight emotions in three seconds (as I knew it would), and she didn’t bother to hide a single one. And Matt? Locked in. Equal parts pride, disbelief, and “how did I get this lucky,” even though his friends were roasting him lovingly.

These are the moments people don’t realize they’ll want photographed until they see them later. A hand coming to a chest as the emotions swell. The shared looks across the table. The split second before laughter bubbles over. 

This is the part where people usually ask, “So what does a documentary wedding photographer actually do?”

Put simply? I pay an almost unreasonable amount of attention. Borderline concerning, honestly.

I’m clocking reactions during speeches. I’m watching who laughs first, who loses it halfway through, who makes a solid attempt at composure before realizing that ship has sailed I’m catching the looks that happen before people realize a camera caught it, the stuff that would disappear entirely if I stepped in and said, “Okay wait, do that again but slower.” (Absolutely never.)

Fiona and Matt didn’t need told how to show their love for each other. And neither do you.

All you need is space. Space to be exactly who you already are, together — funny, deeply in love, emotionally expressive in wildly different ways. 

When a documentary wedding photographer lets a room full of people relax to that degree, the moments don’t need helped along. They show up on their own, fully formed and usually at the most inconvenient (read: perfect) times.

That’s the job. That’s what your wedding photography budget should actually be paying for.

Not someone who meticulously curates a vibe. Not someone chasing perfection like it owes them money.

Someone who is present enough in your love story to recognize a good thing while it’s happening — and fast enough to catch it before it’s gone.

At the end of the day, weddings like Fiona and Matt’s have a simple ask: to be witnessed.

I was more than happy to oblige.