Almost every couple who writes to me says the same thing: we want natural photos, but we want them to look beautiful. That is not a contradiction.
What makes a wedding report feel like a photo session is not the camera: it is the lack of a plan.
“The wariness about posed photos almost always comes from the same thing: having seen the wedding stop for two hours. Directing isn't that. Directing is deciding beforehand so you never have to interrupt afterwards.”
The time of the ceremony decides the entire report. If it takes place at five in the afternoon in August, the sun is high and harsh, and no technique can fix that. Half an hour's difference changes the light of the whole day.
The second is where the portraits happen. If it is chosen in advance, it takes fifteen minutes and the couple goes back to their guests. If it is improvised, forty minutes go by looking for a wall.
The third is what stays out of frame. A wedding has cables, vans and crates of water. Knowing where they are lets me compose without asking anyone to move.
With those three things settled, the day never has to be stopped. And the photographs that come out don't look directed, even though they are.