We hear it on almost every first call. Sometimes in the first sixty seconds. "Heads up — we're really awkward in photos." Said apologetically, like a confession, like it might change our minds about taking the booking.
Here's what a decade of photographing couples has taught us: nobody is photo people. The couples in the galleries you've been scrolling — the ones who look relaxed and golden and effortlessly in love — walked into their session saying the exact same thing you're saying now. What changed between their nervous arrival and their favourite photo isn't who they are. It's how they were directed.
Why your photos look stiff (it's not you)
Think about every bad photo ever taken of you. Odds are, the process went: someone pointed a camera, said "smile!", and you held a facial expression for four seconds too long while wondering what to do with your arms. Of course it looks stiff. You were performing "having a good time" instead of having one.
The wedding industry's traditional answer is posing — chin down, shoulders back, hand on hip, hold it. And posing works, in the sense that it produces technically flattering photos of two people who look vaguely like they're waiting for a bus together.
We think that's the wrong fix. The problem was never your face or your arms. The problem is that standing still while a stranger stares at you is an inherently weird thing to do, and no amount of chin placement makes it less weird.
What we do instead: prompts, not poses
A pose tells you where to put your body. A prompt gives you something to do — and bodies sort themselves out when they're busy.
Instead of "put your hand on her waist and look at the camera," you'll hear things like: walk toward that tree and don't let go of each other. Whisper the pettiest thing you did this week into his ear. Try to make her laugh without touching her. Fix his collar like his mother is watching.
None of these produce a predictable photo, which is exactly the point. They produce a reaction — a real laugh, an eye-roll, a squeeze — and we photograph the reaction. You stop being a subject holding a shape and go back to being two people who like each other, which is the thing we were hired to photograph in the first place.
The first ten minutes are always the worst
We'll tell you this at the start of every session, and it's always true: the first ten minutes are a warm-up, and we treat them that way. Nobody's best photo happens in minute three. You'll feel self-conscious, you'll laugh at how weird it feels, and that laugh — the nervous, real one — is usually where the good frames start.
By minute twenty, most couples have forgotten to perform. By minute forty, we're mostly invisible. The gallery you'll eventually receive is weighted heavily toward the back half of the session, and no one has ever noticed.
On a wedding day the same curve applies, with one advantage: you'll be too busy getting married to think about the camera at all. That's why documentary coverage works so well for self-described awkward people — the day generates the moments, and our job is to be standing in the right place when they happen.
Practical things that genuinely help
Move. Walking, twirling, racing to the water — motion kills stiffness faster than any direction we can give. If you don't know what to do, walk somewhere. We'll handle the rest.
Talk to each other, not to us. The camera is not part of your conversation. The couples who look most natural spend most of the session ignoring us entirely.
Book an engagement session. This is the honest reason we include one in most packages. It's a rehearsal — sixty low-stakes minutes to discover the camera isn't going to hurt you, so that on the wedding day you don't spend the portraits re-learning that lesson.
Say the quiet fear out loud. Hate your side profile? Self-conscious about your smile? Tell us. We'd rather work with it than have you spend the session guarding it.
The photos you'll actually frame
Here's the contrarian bit: the "awkward" couples often end up with our favourite galleries. People who feel unnatural posing don't half-perform — they laugh at the whole situation, and genuine laughter photographs better than any practiced smile ever will. The couples who worry most about being bad at this are usually the most present, and presence is the entire game.
You don't need to be photogenic. You need a photographer whose plan doesn't depend on you being photogenic.
Nervous? Good. Come anyway.
SimplyWed Studio photographs weddings and elopements across Vancouver — candid first, posed only when it earns its place. Tell us you're not photo people. We'll take it from there.
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