I don't have many photos of my grandmother.
I grew up beside her. She was always there. But when she passed, I couldn't find more than a handful of pictures — a few blurry shots, nothing that really captured her. That absence stayed with me.
Later, at family funerals, I started noticing something. The portrait placed at the front of the room — that one photo becomes everything. The way people remember the person. The image that gets carried forward. I understood then how much a single photograph can hold, and how easily that moment gets missed.
That's when I started paying closer attention to the elders at weddings.
What I see at the reception
When I'm photographing a reception and I notice the grandparents, I slow down and shoot more.
These are the people who have known the bride or groom the longest. Who were there before the wedding, before the relationship, before everything. A grandmother who watched this person grow up. A grandfather who made the trip despite everything.
I'll say it plainly: big family gatherings like this don't happen every year. And for some of the older guests, this may be one of the last times the whole family is together like this. That's not a sad thought — it's just true. And it's exactly why I don't rush past these moments.
The photo someone finds years later
Wedding albums get put away. Life moves on.
Then one day, years later, someone opens the album and stops. "Look — grandma was there." A face that's no longer here, caught laughing at the reception. Happy, present, surrounded by family.
That's the photo I'm trying to make. Not because it's dramatic or technically interesting — but because it's the one that will matter most when the day itself is a distant memory.
That's why I always photograph the grandparents.
