Making The Moment

I think anyone that has ever shot a wedding or has been to one for that matter can agree on at least one thing about weddings....they are made up of moments. The defining factor, I believe, and what separates us as professionals from someone who just happens to be holding a camera is what we do with these moments. That being said the philosophy at Schrader Photography is to not wait for the moment but to make the moment. Some might say: "but Greg, you said that weddings are made up of moments...so what do you mean when you say that we have to make the moment?" What I mean is that natural magic might take you all day. Even with that you may only get a few different shots at capturing it. So why not make more magic? Making the moment can do one of three things...it can either enhance an already great moment, it can lead into a different spontaneous moment or it can save a moment that would have otherwise been missed. There are four really easy ways to help you make a moment and they are voice, words, body language and using what you have around you (your environment). Your voice and your words really go hand in hand. You can totally change the emotion of a situation just by what you say and how you say it. Let's use our recent bride and groom Holly and Brett. You could tell your bride in a normal voice "go ahead kiss your husband to be" and they might kiss... and it might be ok... and for some that might be good enough. But what about this...what if you got really close to the bride and groom (body language) and whispered to them (voice) and said (words) "guys, take a minute and just look at each other (now you pause for a minute)...now, do me a favor Holly...kiss Brett like you will never see him again". Can you feel the difference? You just made a moment! One of my favorite examples of making the moment happened to us recently. We had our bride and groom (Holly & Brett) and we were having a great time with them all day. Holly however had been having a bit of a headache most of the day. She took something for it both before and after the ceremony. Once the dinner had started at the reception she needed to take something else because that headache was just not going away. I knew that our bride had gone to the restroom after dinner and so I was waiting for her to come out so that we could start the party. About 20 minutes went by and I started to worry so I went to talk to some family members and found out that she was in the bathroom getting sick. She finally came out almost 45 minutes after she went in there. Even then all she did was go to a private room outside the actual reception room. I went to talk to her and she was not good at all. She was done for the night. She did not care about making it back to the reception or anything other than just trying to feel better. She sat down and even had her girls unzip her dress so that she could be more comfortable. She was upset however about not being able to do her first dance with Brett or her dance with her father. Everyone around her was supporting her and agreeing with her telling her to not worry about it...telling her that it would be ok to miss those things and that no one would care. So what would you do? Would you just take the moment at face value and agree with everyone else that no one would care? Would that be ok? Would that be good enough? Some might say, well lets have her husband sit down next to her and we could take that photo. We could also do the same thing with dad. Really? Is that really a moment? So what would you do using your voice, words, body language & environment? I'll tell you what we did...we made the moment. We asked her brother to grab one of the candelabras that was next to the head table and bring it in the room. We asked everyone in the room to back away and give the bride a private moment. We got Brett in the room...we had someone go and ask the DJ (we could hear the music) to play their song. Now we turned off all of the lights in the room. All except for the one can light that was right above Holly. We had her just stand and literally hang on her husband. We shot them with the candelabra in the background on the wall with the spot light on them. Voila...they just had their first dance! We just made a moment! Guess what...we did the same thing with dad. Needless to say they absolutely loved us and the shots. Later that night Holly said to us: "Thank you so much for not letting that moment of my day get away". And when it comes down to it...isn't that what our job is really all about?