Dearborn Inn Wedding, St. Anne de Detroit Wedding Ceremony and Eagle Tavern at Greenfield Village Wedding Reception…

Meet “A” and “A” (they’d prefer to remain anonymous). From here on out, I’ll just call them A&A. “A” comes from a really big family, while “A”‘s family is quite small. It’s always a dilemma about who will stand up with you at the wedding and having no wedding party can make that process a lot easier.

I’m not sure why they choose to have no wedding party, but 6 out of 8 of my May, 2019 weddings did not have a wedding party at all. Gotta say, it really means I have an extraordinary amount of time to play with my couple that I don’t normally have. That’s not to say that “A”‘s siblings didn’t all take turns with “A”‘s dress and that we didn’t get a ton of fun family photos, because we did.

But if you’re wondering why there are so many photos of the bride and groom? Well, look at them! They’re gorgeous. And they were the main event. And did I mention they’re gorgeous?

I started my day at the Dearborn Inn for wedding preparations and lots of outdoor shots. I love that “A”‘s personality came shining through in these photos.

Ironically, one of the main reasons A & A hired me was because they love that I not only photograph the bride and groom, but I spend a fair amount of time documenting their friends and family too, but you’d never know that from these posted “sneak peeks”!

So at this point,”A”‘s lovely sister went back to the reception and A & A & I took one last little venture out into Greenfield Village. Honestly, we were chasing the smell of horse poop since “A” really wanted a photo with a horse. We missed that, but their locomotive was cooling down at the end of the evening and it created the most amazing back lot scene I’ve seen in a long time, so yeah, we played there while they practiced their first dance.

Why couples are having smaller or no wedding parties in 2019

Simplicity. Because I’ve seen so many weddings this spring with little to no wedding parties, I think more and more wedding clients are getting down the essentials when they’re planning their weddings. Most of my clients are a bit older and many of them have been in a ton of weddings and they’re sort of over the whole wedding party thing. I promise to ask my clients tomorrow about their thoughts of having little to no wedding parties.

I have had an incredible run of fun, appreciative, receptive and chill wedding clients this year. Sort of “hey, Marci… do your magic”. If you follow my work at all, you’ll see that I’ve gotten really into creating super epic wedding couple portraiture.

Why I’m getting better photos of the couple with no wedding parties. Eureka!

A big light bulb just went off in my head. Usually I get about 10 – 15 minutes maximum with a couple on their wedding day because time is very limited and with a wedding party in tow, there is just a teeny bit of performance anxiety. I think there’s also a bit of a feeling that you don’t want your wedding party waiting for you and standing around while you’re having photos taken. Totally understandable. But I do think because I’ve covered so many weddings these past few years with tiny or no wedding party that I’m able to play a bit more with my clients and work to create these epic shots.

Really hoping this trend sticks around! Thanks for letting me play with you A & A!