As a wedding photographer, your job is to capture the bride and groom in all their glory. Their vows, their first dance, the cake cutting—all of the magic.
However, you might be surprised that wedding photographers sometimes get harassed by guests. While they’re supposed to be the silent guest at a wedding—aka they typically dress in black and try to blend in while capturing all the moments—many people apparently still notice them. And not in the best way.
One UK wedding photographer and videographer named Kim Williams, recently turned to Instagram to vent about just some of the ways men have made her feel uncomfortable at some of her shoots. After holding the incidents in for so long—since she never wanted to shame her clients—she realized she had to share her stories.
One of the worst places for her is when she has to shoot people dancing on the dance floor. When the dance floor is packed at a wedding, guests are usually belligerent and having a grand old time, which can lead to some pretty unfortunate circumstances.
“I am friendly, smiley, approachable, chatty, and I get stuck into a dance floor. This is not an invitation for any of the above,” she prefaced her post.
She explained that she has two male videographers who usually shoot with her, and they couldn’t even believe the things she’d go through. For example, there was one wedding where a guest grabbed her by the neck on the dance floor.
Can you imagine someone doing that in the middle of your job? The problem with being a wedding photographer is that you can’t really just walk out. After all, it wasn’t the bride or groom—aka her clients—who caused the issue. So, she always has to handle the issues like a champ. In this case, she brushed it off.
“I ran outside, breathed through a panic attack, returning to shoot the rest of the night five mins later with a smile on my face and no one any the wiser…’what can I do?’”
At the end of her post, she tells men to “go away and talk to each other,” adding that it’s important to say something if you see something. “Listen. Engage actively. It’s not enough for you to be ‘one of the nice guys.’ If you aren’t actively helping to solve the problem, then you are part of it.”
Check out the whole post below.
Did you know wedding guests sometimes harass photographers at weddings? What do you think of this photographer’s words?