Wedding Photography-To Pose or Not?

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh! Right, that’s out of my system now.

So, At my most recent wedding I got thinking, should wedding photos be posed or not? Now this wedding in particular raised this question as the venue, The Arches in Brotton, had some very interesting exterior props. A seated area with a pagoda type affair, an old cart, telephone box etc. And as much as I pride myself on capturing the day naturally, even I couldn’t resist plonking the couple in front of one or two of these props and capturing a shot or six. 

As I say, largely, I’m a very natural Wedding photographer. Unobtrusive, staying out of the way with my trusty Canon 70-200mm lens capturing the moments as they happen, telling a story of the wedding day. But, the couple and I had some fun using these props, and I did yet another posed line out. What is it with me and Rugby playing Brides and Grooms? And that for me, is the crux of the matter. The posed shots took up a very small part of the day, and the Bride and Groom had fun. Smiles were wielded freely and that comes across in the rest of the day’s photos, I believe. So why not?

A lot of photographers box themselves in when it comes to wedding photography, and I don’t want to do that. For me, the most important thing is that the Bride, Groom and their guests are happy. So if some posed shots do that, I’m all for it. Because it means the rest of the day is absolutely joyful for them and the subsequent images are better for it. The one thing with posed shots, especially big group ones outdoors, the poor guests if its cold, which it was at this wedding. So things had to be rapid, because I didn’t want to be photographing blocks of ice for the rest of the day. Wish I could operate my camera with gloves on! Fingerless? Perhaps I’ll give them a try.