A wedding is a living thing. Not a list of scenes to be performed, not a schedule to be got through, not a collection of expected moments to be ticked off and photographed. A day for two people to show the world who they are, how they live, and who they love.

The one where your father holds it together until, suddenly, he doesn't. Where the friends who haven't seen each other in two years can't stop talking. Where the naughty table does exactly what the naughty table always does, three feet from the speeches, completely unrepentant. Where the band makes the room and the champagne never quite runs out.

When a day is built around real choices: the venue that made you feel something, the evening you actually want, the people you'd choose again. Something happens. No space left for self-consciousness. Too much going on.

21 years of photojournalism taught me to read a room, find the story before it moves on, and be in exactly the right place without anyone noticing. And occasionally, when I can see something worth making more of, I'll offer a thought. Not an instruction. More like a recommendation from someone who can already see what the camera is about to do with this.

The result doesn't look like a wedding photograph. It looks like a still from the best film you never saw, shot at the party of the year.