Grooms Are People Too!

by: Andy Heller

Having photographed many weddings over the past 17 years I've come to the conclusion that the wedding day seems to be all about the bride. Not exactly shocking news you might think, but considering the groom is 50% of the union he's certainly an underrepresented minority.

As a wedding photographer my day starts at the bride's home where all the bridesmaids and flower girls have assembled. There's a madhouse of activity with telephones ringing, flowers and bouquets being delivered and the heavy scent of hairspray lingering in the air. There's absolutely no denying it. I'm at WEDDING HEADQUARTERS! I'm working at a rapid pace, photographing all the details of the wedding preparation. There are classic photographs that must be taken. Some of which include the bride with her bridesmaids, along with photos with her mom and dad and then.....the sleek limousine pulls into the driveway. Finally I'll photograph the bride leaving her parents home for the last time as their unmarried daughter, getting into the limousine and heading off for the ceremony.

I'm already breaking out in a sweat and I haven't even seen the groom yet. He's that poor, forgotten figure who mysteriously appears at the front of the church, awaiting his beautiful bride. Anyone will acknowledge that there's not going to be a wedding without him, but somehow he gets lost in the pre-wedding hysteria. Somehow that trip to the tuxedo rental shop doesn't hold the same mystique for him that the bride experiences while hunting down the perfect dress. Obviously there are going to be exceptions to these observations, but most of the excitement, fun, and yes, the WORK of wedding planning is handled by the bride. Maybe it's just traditional that the bride and her family plan for the wedding, and this may be particularly true when the two families live far from each other.

That being said, it's my job as a wedding photographer to treat everyone equally during the wedding day. I'm always sure to photograph the groom and his family along with any special family request from either side. Some of the most emotional moments from any wedding celebration occur during the mother/son dance. My camera has captured many a teary eye during these dances. (tears of joy of course!) Not long ago I was working on a wedding album with one of my bridal customers. She's a very nice young lady who was extremely low-key about the whole process. She had no unusual demands and never even approached a "bridezilla" moment. There was ONE thing she asked me to do when assembling her album. She told me that she didn't care if the photos were placed in perfect chronology coinciding with the wedding day. She INSISTED that the first page of the album be a photograph of she AND her husband. "The wedding was about both of us", she said. We then proceeded to select the perfect photograph to start the album.