Catholic Wedding Photography Etiquette | Photography and Catholic Weddings

You’ve started planning your beautiful Catholic wedding, you’ve booked your reception, we’re designing your portraits, and then, you get an email. It’s from your church coordinator outlining the rules of wedding photography in their church. You don’t panic! First, because you read this, and second, because your Catholic wedding photography team is well-versed in Wedding Mass Photography Etiquette.

This is not a one-size-fits-all list. Here are a few of the church rules and guidelines we consistently see as Nashville Catholic Wedding Photographers and how we handle them so that you are prepared and confident when you see that email.

Flash

To a lot of photographers, this is the scary one. Catholic churches generally never allow the use of flash during weddings or other liturgical celebrations. Flash is distracting for the celebrant, the couple, and the guests when they are supposed to be focusing on the Sacrament(s) that are taking place in front of them. This can be intimidating for photographers who are not used to working in low light situations, or who are expecting to be able to use flash, so it’s a good thing to know before everyone walks in.

Instead of leaning on flash during dimly lit ceremonies, we rely on any ambient lighting and our cameras’ high sensitivity to capture beautiful photographs during your wedding Mass. The no-flash rule will not surprise us, and in fact, we support it! We certainly want everyone’s focus to remain on what is most important during wedding days (which is not our cameras.)

Photographer Placement

Church guidelines about where photographers can stand can also be surprising if you aren’t expecting it. For non-religious ceremonies right now, it is very common for photographers to stand wherever they would like. This too often comes at the cost of guests’ views and, like a camera flash, can be distracting. Every Catholic church has their own preferences, but we often see things such as:

• Don’t go further towards the front than the last row of guests
• Don’t go past the third row
• Don’t leave the back of the church
• Don’t go up on the balcony
• Don’t let your second photographer leave the balcony

You get the idea.

The good news? We’ve optimized our entire gear kit and work flows in anticipation of these requests. We work with lenses with great zoom ability and know exactly where to stand to get the best angles of each portion of the wedding Mas. We don’t crowd the front or become a distraction. One of the highest compliments we receive are when guests come up to us and let us know they didn’t even realize we were there at Mass.

Dress Code

Catholic church dress codes vary by church. Some expect everyone, vendors included, to have their shoulders covered, some don’t care. Some churches request that skirts and shorts go past knees, some don’t say anything. We stick to the general rule of thumb: keep it classy.

If you are having or photographing a Traditional Latin Mass (here in Nashville we do this at Assumption and St. Martha’s), the above are rules rather than guidelines. It is also likely that all women will be requested to cover their heads also for the practice of veiling. Churches that require this will often provide something to borrow, but bandanas or longer hair wraps work as a quick solution, too.

Bonus: The Consecration

During a Catholic Mass, when the priest holds up the wafer, we as Catholics believe that it transforms into the Body and Blood of Christ. This is the ultimate event of a full wedding Mass (even above the exchanging of the vows.) For many couples, is the photograph to get. I’ve even had priests make sure that I knew to get that photograph of the couple with the physical presence of Jesus.

It is very important to stay within the church’s guidelines on placement and to keep a reverent presence during that moment. When I was a bride, I didn’t even know that there was allowed to be photography during the Consecration (and in my experience with Eastern churches, this is the case). So we get the photograph, but stay quiet and respectful while doing so.

To Wrap up

This isn’t an all inclusive list, each church will have their own guidelines so what you receive may be different. You may receive nothing at all! Our goal is to prepare our couples (and maybe even other photographers) so that they walk into their wedding Masses with confidence in their photographer’s ability to handle wedding Mass etiquette.

If you are getting married in the Nashville area, Tennessee, or the greater Southeast region, we’d love to chat! We are a Nashville-based Catholic photography team who specializes in Catholic weddings with a documentary approach and an editorial style, and we’d love to hear more about your wedding.

Catholic photographers: anything you’d like to add?