Small Weddings and Why They Rock

Planning a wedding can be stressful. This is particularly true here in New England where most people get married during the summer and fall. Add in the need to adhere to pandemic regulations and the phrase “stressful AF,” might be an understatement. This is one of the reasons why the popularity of smaller weddings like elopements, backyard weddings, intimate weddings, and micro-weddings have become immensely popular. If you are reading this, then there’s a good chance that you are thinking about celebrating your love with a smaller wedding. Now, this might be something that you have always known you wanted but it could also be something that the pandemic has forced on you. Either way, there are some huge benefits to having a smaller wedding celebration - pandemic or no pandemic.

• Less planning means significantly less stress

  Weddings are heavy in logistics that take a lot of time to figure out. You could definitely (and probably should) hire a wedding planner to help you out but regardless, there is a lot to plan. And you know what? There is still a lot to plan with a small wedding - it just won’t have quite as many moving parts that have to be balanced against other moving parts. It is a lot easier to have the people who mean the most to you in your backyard under the stars, in a park pavilion, or at your favorite restaurant after a city hall wedding ceremony than it is to try to factor in the driving time between a ceremony location and the reception. Planning on a smaller scale helps keep that overwhelming wave that comes with big weddings at bay. It makes everything from space concerns to seating charts a little more doable which makes the whole wedding process a lot more fun for you.

• Less of a financial gut punch

Weddings are not cheap. Like, at all. If you think of them from a logical financial point of view they are actually terrible investments- and this is coming from somebody in the industry. It just doesn’t make a ton of sense to spend such a large amount of money on something that is over in a few hours- especially for a young couple just starting out in life. Of course we don’t look at weddings from the eyes of an investor, we look at them through the eyes of the in-love, their families and friends. They are the splurges of our lives and we all deserve to splurge sometimes. Smaller weddings are also a splurge but they will give you less of a spending hangover (possibly more of a real hangover-depending on your friends and the bonfire situation). Take a backyard wedding. With sites like Pinterest and DIY being huge now, it is absolutely possible to pull off a dream wedding with a little bit of space and a lot of motivation. Some of the coolest weddings I have been to involve a brick oven pizza food truck, string lights, and a big tent full of friends in the back of somebody’s house.

• You will be more present

This one is huge. In fact, if money isn’t an issue and even if you love the idea of planning a huge event, this might still be enough to bring you around to the idea of a smaller wedding. I shoot weddings all over New England. Each season I have weddings of all sizes- from small elopements at Worcester City Hall to huge events at the resorts in Vermont. I love them all but there is a huge difference between them that is super apparent in the time between the wedding ceremony and the reception. After the ceremony is typically the time where the couple stands in one spot for a while and family and friends gather around them for formal group portraits. These are important but in all of my years I have never heard anybody say “Wow, Tom. This is just great. Definitely the highlight of the day.” It’s something that is necessary but rarely anybody’s favorite part of a wedding. This almost always takes place at the same time as cocktail hour and is usually followed by formal couple portraits. This usually culminates with missing the entirety of cocktail hour and then arriving just in time to be announced into the room and into first dances, parent dances, toasts and everything else. Before and after dinner is when most couples make their rounds to all of the tables to say hellos and thank their guests for coming - possible with a photo at each table. I’ve seen people pass out before they even got to dinner.

This isn’t really a thing at intimate weddings because you all are really just together for most of - if not all of - the time. There are formal group photos but there are fewer of them and they tend to be more casual because you are more comfortable with them and there are fewer people looking at you. There are still couple photos but there is usually less of a rush because the timeline is more relaxed. Table photos - which are my least favorite part of a wedding- are usually not necessary because you will be up close with everyone while you dance, party and celebrate. You will be able to spend real, authentic time with the people present. I mean, isn’t that ideal?

This brings me to photography

Photographers come in a lot of flavors. Some have their personalities cranked to 11 and say things like “I’ll be busting moves with you on the dancefloor by the end of the night,” while others (like me) are a cool 7 and barely busted a move at their own wedding. At our core, though, we are all just storytellers. Photographing weddings brings me satisfaction because each one is a story I get to see and bring out into one very long photo-essay. The thing about smaller weddings is that the stories are closer to the surface. There is less formality to cut through and more genuine interaction. Being with a tighter knit group of people brings the belly laughs and tears of joy out a lot easier. Having a smaller cast allows me to capture a much more authentic experience and for couples who gravitate towards documentary photography styles that is really important.

If you are planning on eloping or having a backyard wedding, intimate wedding, micro-wedding in New England and are looking for candid-heavy documentary wedding photography then I would love to hear from you. I am based in Worcester, MA but provide wedding photography all over New England. Click here to see photography from smaller / DIY weddings. If you want to receive more info, including pricing, then fill out the form below and I will send you my FREE PDF GUIDE to intimate wedding celebrations.

Catherine and Tim: A Wedding at the Farmstead at Appleton Farms in Ipswich

One of the cool things about being a wedding photographer is having couples that are friends with your other couples. It’s almost like tracing lineage. This is extra cool because people tend to hang out with likeminded people. By the time Catherine and Tim’s wedding finally rolled around I had already spent some time with them at Brianna and Zach’s wedding and Jane and Aline’s wedding in addition to their engagement session.

Fun fact: I always offer couples the option of a sunrise engagement session and nobody ever goes for it. It’s almost a bluff at this point but Catherine, Tim, and I were definitely at Moore State Park in Paxton before the crack of dawn. If I remember correctly we basically had to wait a bit before there was even enough light to shoot.

Anyway, like a lot of couples their original plans were hit pretty hard by Corona and they were forced to adapt. They were actually my first couple that had to drastically change their plans and essentially plan another wedding. They did well though. They ended up getting married in a quiet space at the Farmstead at Appleton Farms in Ipswich, MA.

Appleton Farms was a cool place. We basically followed an access road to a secluded corner next to a field. It was scenic to say the least. The ceremony in the clearing was awesome and we were free to explore a bit for our couple photos.

Here’s a behind the scenes story. While we were shooting at a really pretty part of the forest we put the bouquet down, immediately forgot about it and moved on to the next spot. We were close to the exit so I told Catherine and Tim to head out to the reception house while I got the bouquet. Well, I got all turned around on the dirt access roads and stuck behind a tractor at one point. Once I realized my mistake and headed to the right part of the farm I was driving about as fast as I was willing to and hit a dip and nearly went airborne. Imagine a very lame episode of the Dukes of Hazard but with an old Pt Cruiser.

The reception was at Tim’s parents’ house. They did a fantastic job setting it up for a small wedding reception- complete with space for a first dance. They also had the single most professional table setting that I have ever seen outside of a restaurant. Serious props. Their dinner table was set up on the back deck and was surrounded by string lights and lowers- a definite oasis in a crazy world.

Check out Appleton Farms by clicking here.