Annika & Miri: A lakeside wedding in Brandenburg
There are days that feel like memories almost before they're over. Annika and Miri's wedding was one of them.
It was a warm summer day in Brandenburg, an hour or so outside Berlin, at a setting right on the edge of a lake. Still water, soft light, the kind of afternoon where everything seems to slow down a little. The conditions were close to perfect – the sort of start every photographer quietly hopes for.
This was the wedding location - impeccable vibes.
The ceremony was full: speeches, laughter, stories passed between people who clearly loved this couple. And then the moment I always look for – the congratulations. That long, warm blur of hugs and held hands and faces caught mid-sentence. These are never the posed frames, but they're often the ones people keep.
We'd planned a portrait session next, just the two of them by the water. And then the storm had its own ideas. Grey rolled in over the lake and the light changed completely. But weather like that isn't a wedding ruined – it's a wedding with character. Some of the day's most atmospheric frames came out of those few dramatic minutes, and there's something honest about a couple laughing their way through a bit of rain.
Once the sky settled, we worked through the shot list – the group photos, families gathered and rearranged, the familiar happy chaos of getting everyone to look the same direction at the same time.
Then the party. More speeches, each one better than the last – including one brother who stood up, introduced himself as "Annika's brother, twenty-four, single," and brought the whole room down. Those are the moments you can't plan for and wouldn't want to. You just have to be ready when they happen.
I stayed through to the first dance, and left as the evening was really beginning. It was, from start to finish, a genuinely wonderful day to photograph – the kind that reminds you why weddings are worth building a whole practice around.
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I photograph weddings in a documentary, film-inspired style - the real moments, the light, the in-between. I'm based in the UK and available worldwide.
