Why I’m a Catholic Wedding Photographer

Why am I a Catholic wedding photographer? This is a question worth answering.

Honestly, sometimes it is hard to even write captions for Instagram because of how much this work means to me, attempting to showcase my art, and the importance of the sacrament I am capturing. 

Overall, I am a Catholic Wedding Photographer because I capture a sacrament- something much bigger than just a basic ceremony and party after. It is important that we are documenting and honoring the validity of the sacrament.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church 1603, 

“Marriage is not a purely human institution despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in different cultures, social structures, and spiritual attitudes…Although the dignity of this institution is not transparent everywhere with the same clarity, some sense of the greatness of the matrimonial union exists in all cultures.”

We know the dress, the flowers, the cake, and the dancing are all highlights of the day that are cross-cultural. Although, at a Catholic Wedding, we know we look beyond the components that simply make a cultural celebration.

At a Catholic Wedding, it is a sacrament:

“The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions.” CCC 1131

I work in Catholic Wedding Photography because it is a beautiful and complex sacrament that is worthy of art and documentation through photography.

“Sacred Scripture begins with the creation of man and woman in the image and likeness of God and concludes with a vision of “the wedding-feast of the Lamb.” Scripture speaks throughout of marriage and its “mystery,” its institution and the meaning God has given it, its origin and its end, its various realizations throughout the history of salvation, the difficulties arising from sin and its renewal “in the Lord” in the New Covenant of Christ and the Church.”  CCC 1602

As we ponder these mysteries, let us capture this beauty through photography.