That is why I scout here too, just as I do on the wall. I arrive early, walk the venue, work out where the light enters the church or the hall, where the small circles of guests will form during the aperitif, which door the couple will use to leave. The day then runs its own course, as it should: but if I know the ground, a few metres are enough to already be there when something begins.
Discretion is a technique, not a personality trait
Staying out of the way does not mean staying far away. It means choosing positions where my presence does not change what is happening: beside the group rather than in front of it, behind a friendly shoulder, seated among the guests during the speeches. After the first half hour the camera stops being news, and from that moment on people go back to behaving the way they actually behave.
I do not ask for poses, and when a portrait of the couple is needed I steal it from the dead moments: five minutes between the ceremony and the aperitif, the light lower by then, two people finally breathing. The photographs that stay on the walls of a home, over the years, are almost always these.
“We didn’t notice you until the cake. Then we saw the photos and the whole day was there.”