Johan and Isabelle’s wedding allowed me to make one of my most memorable and poignant documentary photographs I’ve ever taken on a wedding day. After their wedding ceremony there were canapés and drinks available to all the guests at the church. During this time the couple’s two remaining grandmothers sat down to rest while taking in the day’s excitement.

I noticed that they were sitting in a quiet area and wanted to document how this scene impacted me personally. Here were two ladies with a lifetime of experience, joy, sadness, taking in a beautiful wedding day with friends and family but without their partners.

I tried making a few frames to juxtapose their age with the youngsters bouncing around but that didn’t tell a story for me. I looked around and then it struck me, I spotted these empty chairs, stepped back, framed up and made the image below. Showing the two empty chairs made me think of their partners who weren’t there on this happy occasion. Were they perhaps thinking of them, perhaps remembering their own wedding days?

These are the moments and scenes and stories that I’m looking to tell when I document a wedding day. There is so much going on all the time that the bride and groom won’t see and that’s where I come in, telling the complete story of their wedding day.

True Documentary Wedding Photography. Candid. Natural. Beautiful. Please feel free to get in touch for more information here: timmoolmanphoto@gmail.com