The photographs taken at your wedding are the one thing that will last a lifetime. They tell the story of your wedding day. That may have been a blur to most brides, if you are anything like me. From the getting ready process, to walking down the aisle, to the reception and send off, your day is filled with so many unique moments and memorable events that you don’t want to miss one second of it.

Let’s walk through a wedding day as if we were fast forwarding through the day. You wake up and are enjoying a leisurely lunch with your bridesmaids, get your hair and make-up done, and enjoy some final moments with your closest friends before you walk down the aisle. Meanwhile, your future husband and his best friends are getting ready themselves, often having just as much fun as you and your girls are! But, there’s only one photographer, so which “getting ready” process is the photographer going to miss? The guys, or the girls?

Next you are at the church marrying your best friend. In between getting pictures of you walking down the aisle, photographing your entire wedding ceremony and getting all of those traditional “post wedding pictures,” of your family and friends, who is taking the photos of the details of your reception that is currently getting swamped by all of the guests that have arrived quite a while before you to the reception venue?

Did you get a picture of the cake before your nephew put his finger down the bottom tier to get a quick taste? Did you get a photo of the beautiful place setting you spent so long working on to make it perfect for your personal style? What about a photo of just the details of your reception venue that you don’t want obstructed by your Uncle Mike in the background?

So my question to you is, can one person really capture every aspect of a wedding successfully? My answer would be no, unless you have found a photographer that has developed a way to be in multiple places at once. Now with that being said, one photographer can be successful in taking great photos, there is no question of that, skill and artistry have nothing to do with the simple fact that two of anything will always be better than one.
So when you begin planning your big day, or if you have already started, consider hiring a photographer that that fits your wedding day best. If details and documentation of each part of your big day are important to you, you will want a photographer that uses a second shooter so that every aspect of your wedding day is captured in a memory to last a lifetime.