When Leah Hartman, 32, and Titouan Chapouly, 30, were married on Oct. 29 at the city clerk’s office in Manhattan, their friend, Sydney Kipen, played the role of stylist, guest, witness … and wedding photographer.
Ms. Kipen’s were not the only iPhone photos taken that day: After saying “I do,” other friends of Ms. Hartman, who works for a conceptual artist, and Mr. Chapouly, who is an architect, were waiting outside the marriage bureau to congratulate and photograph the newlyweds.
About 150 pictures totally were snapped throughout the celebration, which included a dinner at Blue Hill in Greenwich Village and drinks at the Beekman Hotel. Afterwards, everyone uploaded their shots to a shared Google Drive folder.
While some couples simply can’t find photographers available to shoot their nuptials because of this year’s wedding boom, others are purposely forgoing hiring them for reasons having to do with anything from budgets to Covid restrictions to a desire for more intimacy and a photographer who knows them well.
There are other technologies, in addition to shared Google Drives, that instantly gather crowdsourced wedding images, including iCloud shared photo albums, social media platforms (via designated hashtags) and apps explicitly created for use at events, such as the Ceremony, the WeddingMix, The Guest and Quickshare.
“The photographer is really only capturing the wedding,” said Lee Hoffman, a creator of the Guest, who explained that the app is meant to complement professional wedding photography and tell the whole story of the celebration — bachelor and bachelorette parties; rehearsal dinners; the next day brunch and all.
Though some couples have multiple attendees capturing images at their weddings, others have appointed a single guest as the sole photographer. Because of the uncertainty of Covid restrictions, Michelle Gramstad, 38, a first-grade teacher in Seattle, married Joss Gramstad, 38, a civil engineer, before only seven guests at Mr. Gramstad’s parents’ house on Bainbridge Island in Washington on Aug. 1, 2020.
With little time to plan and book vendors — they had only chosen their date and location two months prior — Bob Schaffer, Ms. Gramstad’s sister’s boyfriend and one of their guests, who is not a photographer by trade, volunteered to take photos with a traditional digital camera.
“We made it work with what we had available,” said Ms. Gramstad, adding that she was thrilled with the outcome and “will cherish” their wedding photos forever.
Chloe Ifergan, 32, the director of programming at a synagogue in Cincinnati, married Igal Ifergan, 43, on Sept. 17, 2020 at Eden Park in Cincinnati. Aside from the officiant they had hired, only the bride’s parents were in attendance. (The groom’s family lives in Montreal, and the Canadian border was closed at the time.) Her mother took fewer than 10 photos with a traditional camera.
The photos Ms. Ifergan loves the most, however, are “the ones that the two of us took together — selfies,” using her iPhone, at a picnic that the two had after the ceremony at Washington Park in Cincinnati.
“I’m a typical millennial in a lot of ways,” Ms. Ifergan said, which include an obsession “with taking pictures.” That “one of the cornerstone events of my life — my wedding — didn’t have a photographer,” she added, felt “quite strange,” but she was surprisingly unbothered by it.
Credit…Chloe Ifergan
There are also couples who have commissioned friends in addition to hiring a professional.
For their wedding on June 26, 2021, Grace Lenke, 25, a day care teacher in Melbourne, Fla., and Zach Lenke, 25, a phlebotomist, booked a photographer, but they also wanted to have images printed instantly that day.
Ahead of their 75-person reception, Ms. Lenke equipped her maid of honor, Shelby Sharp, with a Polaroid camera and a shot list. (Ms. Lenke later returned the favor and took Polaroid photos at Ms. Sharp’s wedding.)
So how do the professionals feel about (sometimes) being replaced?
“At the end of the day, it really does come down to priorities and some people need to pick and choose,” said Caroline Lee, a wedding photographer and the founder of Woodnote Photography in Los Angeles. “For some of them, they’d rather have an open bar for their entire wedding than have a photographer that costs $7,000.”
Ms. Lee, who shoots about 50 weddings each year and whose rates begin at $4,000, not only welcomes alternative ways of documenting celebrations, but encourages them by offering photo booths to some clients. Though she said that professional wedding photography is in a different category (read: fine art) than the images captured on cellphones.
“I don’t worry about it as a threat to my career in any sort of way,” Ms. Lee said. “The people who value the type of photos wedding photographers take are forever going to hire us.”
Cody Barry, a wedding photographer in Portland, Maine, understands the appeal of crowdsourced photography, but believes that some brides and grooms may regret not having a professional photographer in attendance.
“After your wedding day, the most important thing that you have is pictures. As great as cellphone photos and all that shared stuff is, you want something timeless and lasting that you can show your grandkids,” said Mr. Barry, who typically charges clients $4,000 to $6,000 per package. “They’ll just be in awe of that day.”
And yet some couples feel they are creating that awe just fine with amateurs. When Jason Mitchell, 40, a firefighter, and Maria Mitchell, 40, a project manager, married on Oct. 20, 2020, in Martinsburg, W.Va., they asked her 17-year-old daughter, Ella, to shoot the pictures with a Nikon D3200. Ms. Mitchell’s two other children, ages 10 and 12, took additional pictures with their iPhones.
“They’re not perfect photos” in the professional sense, said Ms. Mitchell, but they’re “a memory that my kids will always have and we’ll always have as a family.”