STORYTELLING IN PRE-WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY: WHY YOUR PHOTOS SHOULD FEEL LIKE YOU
Updated: 1 day ago
There are two ways to approach a pre-wedding shoot.
The first is straightforward: pick a location, pick an outfit, show up and make nice photos. Clean, efficient, done. There's nothing wrong with this. A lot of couples want exactly that — good photos before the wedding, without too much complexity.
The second is different. It starts with a question: what is actually true about the two of you? What do you do together when no one's watching? And how do we build a shoot around that instead of around a backdrop?
That second approach takes longer to plan. But the photos look completely different. You can tell, immediately, which couples were performing for the camera — and which ones were just being themselves.
THIEM AND NGOC — HANOI, WHERE THEY STARTED
When Thiem and Ngoc first reached out, Ngoc told me she didn't know what to shoot. She didn't have a concept, didn't know what she wanted — just that she wanted photos that felt like them.
So I did what I always do in that situation. I went through their Instagram.
What I found: coffee, every morning. Cycling together on weekends. Camping trips. A quiet, consistent life built around simple things done together.
That became the shoot.
You can see Thiem and Ngoc's full prewedding gallery here.
MORNING IN THE OLD STREETS — ONE OUTFIT, ONE PACE
Thiem and Ngoc had spent time living abroad, and when they came back to Vietnam to get married, they wanted something that connected them to where they came from. Both were born in Hanoi. So we started there.
I chose traditional áo dài for this set — not as a costume, but because it made sense for the streets we were walking through. The old quarter in the morning, before the city gets loud. Narrow lanes, old walls, the kind of light that only exists for about an hour before it disappears.
One outfit. One location. No rushing.
I planned it deliberately slow — a morning that felt like a normal walk through the city, not a photoshoot. When couples start the day with low pressure, something relaxes in them. By the time we finished the first set, they'd already forgotten to be nervous. Which is exactly what I needed for what came next.
BA VI — CYCLING, COFFEE, AND EVERYTHING THEY ALREADY DO
The second concept came directly from what I'd seen on their Instagram.
We chose Melia Ba Vi Mountain Retreat for this — a resort set in the hills outside Hanoi, wide grounds, quiet roads through the property, the kind of landscape that doesn't need much help to look beautiful.
They cycled through the estate the same way they cycle on weekends — unhurried, stopping when something caught their eye, no one telling them where to go. We stopped for coffee. They sat the way they always sit together. Talked the way they always talk.
I photographed it all.
The shoot worked because nothing about it was invented. The dynamic between them was real because it was a dynamic they'd built over years — not something they were performing for the camera. My job was just to be there when it happened, and to not get in the way.
If you're wondering what to wear for a shoot like this, here's how we think about prewedding outfits.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOUR SHOOT
Most couples come to a pre-wedding shoot not knowing what they want. That's completely normal.
What I've found, consistently, is that the answer is already there — in how you spend your time together, in the small habits you've built, in the things you do without thinking about them.
A pre-wedding shoot built around those things produces photos that look like no one else's. Because no one else has your Sunday mornings, your coffee order, your specific way of being together.
That's what storytelling in pre-wedding photography actually means. Not a themed concept or a mood board. Just paying close enough attention to who you are — and building the shoot around that.
If you're not sure what your shoot should look like, that's a good place to start the conversation.
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