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Every bride has their "Thing" - that element that is so important to them and their vision of their wedding day that they will sacrifice other wants in pursuit of this one "need" on their day. Mine? Photography. It is the single most important [material, tangible, non-human] Thing to me on our wedding day. Why? Because it is the one Thing, after the champagne stops flowing, we get to keep.

The venue? Not ours.

The band? Will play for someone else the next week.

The church? Will celebrate other momentous occasions that have no bearing on our lives together.

The dress? Will never be worn again.

The flowers? No one will remember.

The invitations? Will be quickly and haphazardly discarded.

But the pictures? Are the one Thing we will have to show our children of the afternoon we thought about our future with them before they ever arrived, the one Thing that we can pull out to remind ourselves about what it felt like to be in each and every little moment as it unfolded.

That's why, in all the wedding porn I scan on an all-too-frequent basis, the stuff that really makes my throat close, my eyes smart, and my stomach clench, aren't flowers or dresses or pretty centerpieces [though I will continue to pour over them, all the same...]. They are photographs like this one, of a wedding in Scotland, where I don't even see what the bride is wearing or the flowers she's holding. I just see the way she's smiling. And the way the priest is grasping her groom's hand, with the light invading the space behind him. And there's the realization that in this photo, You can see the first moment of a marriage.

source: http://www.lillianandleonard.com/ (A breathtakingly beautiful site...)