Wedding photography is the form of photography related to weddings. It usually covers events a few hours (sometimes even few days) before the couple gets married and the ceremony itself, from the beginning until the very end.
The art of the wedding photography evolved since the invention of the first permanent photograph in 1826 by Joseph Nicephore Niepce. Actually, the first official wedding photograph in the world might be from the wedding of Prince Albert and Queen Victoria in 1840.
It is interesting to know that at first people didn’t pose for their weddings. On the contrary, they would rather pose in some nice clothes before and after the wedding and it was usual in the first part of the 19th century. In that old times it also wasn’t common to hire a photographer for the wedding. This tradition ended around 1860s, when more and more couples in love wanted a great memory of their big day and they started to hire professional wedding photographers. They would pose in the wedding clothes and photographers would also follow the whole ceremony.
But it was a hard work since the photography equipment was very heavy and had so many parts at first. That’s why the first wedding photographs were mainly studio made. In the 1880s the technology became lighter and wedding photographers would follow the couple, their guests and even take photographs of the wedding gifts.
And here we are at the beginning of the 20th century. This is the time when the color photography became available. But not to easy! The color photography was far too expensive and also very unreliable so the most wedding photographs were still made in black and white technique. After the Second World War the lightning and roll techniques became available and it was very common for photographers to come to the wedding, make photograph and sell them later, both to the married couple and the guests. It was still the time of the lowquality photographs, but the technology was growing really fast.
We can say that the real modern wedding photography as we know it today, started in the 1970s when the wedding photography developed intodocumentary style, meaningdocumenting everything before, during and after the wedding,making memorable albums that will bea great reminder of the wedding for the rest of our lives.