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Ten years. Over 500 weddings, elopements and engagements. Hundreds of thousands of photos. A truly alarming number of uncrustables eaten in stairwells.

When you do anything for a decade, you learn what actually matters. But honestly? The bigger lesson is learning what doesn’t. Year-one Erin stressed about everything. Year-ten Erin has let a LOT of things go, and my couples get better photos because of it.

So in the spirit of starting the year with a clean slate, here’s everything I officially do not care about anymore.

1. Cell phones at your wedding

I know, I know. Every photographer on the internet has written the “unplugged ceremony” manifesto. And for years I was right there with them, quietly seething at every glowing screen.

Not anymore. Your guests love you. They want their own picture of you. Grandma wants that blurry photo on her phone because it’s HERS, and honestly, that’s kind of beautiful.

The one exception, and I will die on this hill: phones in the aisle during the ceremony. If you lean into the aisle to get your shot, you are now in MY shot, which means you are in the photo the couple paid for and will frame. Stay in your seat, shoot from your chest, and we’re all friends.

2. Guests asking me to take a photo on their phone

Year one, this felt like an insult. I’m holding thousands of dollars of camera gear and you want me to use… that?

Year ten? Hand it over. It takes eight seconds, it makes you happy, and you’re going to text it to twelve people before cocktail hour ends. That’s marketing I can’t buy. Also, I have taken so many phone photos at this point that I am probably the best iPhone photographer at your entire wedding, and I take a weird amount of pride in that.

3. The competition

There are hundreds of wedding photographers in Boston. Some of them are incredible. Some of them charge less than me, some charge more, and all of them are posting their best work on Instagram every single day. And I genuinely do not care, because I finally understand that we’re not actually selling the same thing. The couples who want what I do find me, and the couples who want something else find someone wonderful who does that. There’s enough love in this world for all of us.

4. Rain

Rain on your wedding day is not bad luck. It is moody skies, glowing skin, dramatic umbrella photos, and a couple who stops caring about perfection by 2 PM, which is honestly when the best photos start happening.

I keep clear umbrellas in my trunk year round. Some of my favorite portraits of the last decade happened in weather the forecast called “unfortunate.”

5. The timeline running late

The timeline WILL run late. Hair and makeup runs late. The party bus hits traffic on Storrow (it’s Boston, of course it does). Your Dad disappears right before family photos.

Ten years in, I build the buffer in before you ever see the schedule. When things slide, I’m not panicking behind my camera, I’m quietly reshuffling so you never even know there was a problem. That’s the job.

6. Getting “the list” of every shot

Early on, a 74-item shot list would keep me up at night. Now I know that the photos couples treasure ten years later are almost never on the list. They’re your Dad’s face during the first look he wasn’t supposed to watch. Your grandmother laughing during toasts.

I’ll always get your must-haves, especially family groupings. But I stopped treating weddings like a scavenger hunt, and the galleries got so much better.

7. Whether you’re “photogenic”

You’ve told me you’re awkward in photos. Everyone tells me they’re awkward in photos. After 10 years, I have never once met a couple who ruined their own gallery by being themselves. Being photogenic isn’t a trait. It’s the result of feeling comfortable, and making you comfortable is my actual skill set. The camera part I could almost do in my sleep at this point.

8. Perfect golden hour

Do I love golden hour? Obviously. Will I gently fight for ten minutes of sunset portraits? Always.

But if your ceremony ends after dark in December, or the clouds swallow the sun, we’re still going to make something gorgeous. Light is light. I’ve learned to love all of it, including the weird fluorescent glow of a Boston City Hall hallway.

9. Wind, kids, dogs, and other beautiful chaos

Your hair will blow into your face on the Harbor. A flower girl will melt down. Someone’s dog will absolutely not look at the camera.

These used to feel like problems. Now they’re my favorite frames in the gallery. Perfect is boring. Real is what you’ll cry over in ten years.

10. Doing things the way everyone else does them

Trends come and go. I’ve watched at least four editing styles rise and fall in a decade. What stays is honest photos of people who love each other, made by someone who’s genuinely happy to be in the room.

That’s the whole philosophy now. Ten years and 500 weddings, elopements and engagements taught me to hold my camera tightly and everything else loosely.

Erin of Boston is a wedding and elopement photographer (and ordained officiant!) based in Boston, photographing weddings across New England and beyond for over 10 years. Want a photographer who’s seen it all and stopped sweating the small stuff? [Let’s talk.]