The year is winding down, which means it’s time to celebrate the weddings and the photographers behind them that stood out the most. A great wedding photographer shapes what you’ll actually remember about your day: which glance, which laugh, which quiet second between the two of you gets frozen forever. Across the US, a handful of names keep showing up in feed after feed, tagged in weddings guests can’t stop reposting. Here’s our roundup of the wedding photographers in the US worth knowing before you book one for your own day.
Photo: Kayleigh Taylor, Abby Hart
Two wedding photographers on set means two entirely different views of the same room, and that’s exactly what makes Shannen Norman and Emily Blake so good at this. The LA duo has been shooting weddings together since 2017, after years apart in editorial work, and something about combining those instincts just clicked. Their most recent year alone included Finneas and Claudia Sulewski‘s wedding and Emma Roberts and Cody John‘s, both landing in Vogue. Today they document weddings across California, New York, and beyond, known for a softness in every frame and a timeless feel that never chases whatever’s trending that season.
Elle shoots almost everything on film, and it shows in the way her images feel unhurried, like something pulled from a box decades from now instead of scrolled past on a feed. She’s spent thirteen years photographing love stories on the East Coast, trained in photojournalism, with a fine art eye that keeps every frame from feeling posed. Zach, her husband, runs the parts nobody sees and still shows up on wedding days when it counts. Their work has a quiet, documentary pull to it, shaped by the coast’s changing seasons and its most familiar spots. Vogue keeps coming back to their work, and couples fly them in from well beyond New York for exactly that reason.
Kelly Brown calls the California desert home, but her calendar rarely keeps her there. She’s been documenting weddings for over fourteen years, trained in photojournalism, with a natural pull toward editorial work. She switches between film and digital depending on what a wedding calls for, which gives her a wider range than most single-format shooters. Her Instagram bio reads “for those entwined,” and that’s a fair summary of what she’s after: real, unscripted affection over anything staged for the camera.
Rachel Santos, known as Bushwhacked, started second-shooting weddings for her mother at thirteen, using whatever camera got handed to her. By eighteen, that camera was hers to keep. Now she is a luxury wedding photographer based in Nashville, shooting across the US and internationally. Recent work includes Shay Sullivan and Casey Johnson‘s stunning wedding weekend in Tuscany, which ran in Vogue, along with actors Candice King and Steven Krueger’s wedding. What her mother taught her stuck: photos live or die on emotion and organic interaction, not staging, and it shows in how deep her images go beyond the surface of a pretty frame.
Kristen Marie Parker started college on a nursing track before a few photography electives changed her plan entirely. Ten years later, she’s Seattle-based and flying out of the Pacific Northwest for destination weddings around the world, from Hawaii to upstate New York to the Kansas plains. Her work keeps turning up in top wedding publications and gets pinned and repinned across Pinterest boards long after the wedding itself is over. She never asks couples to re-enact a moment for the camera. What she wants is the version that happened once, unscripted, and her photojournalistic eye with an editorial polish tends to find exactly that.
Jose Villa is the name most brides already know, even before they’ve thought about hiring a photographer. He’s shot the weddings of Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas, Hailee Steinfeld and Josh Allen, and Justin Bieber and Hailey Baldwin, guest lists most of us will only ever see in a magazine spread. He’s widely considered one of the best wedding photographers working today, and it shows in every frame: soft, painterly, shot almost entirely on film. His most recent Vogue feature captured model Ming Xi’s private evening shoot on the fields near Mont-Saint-Michel, the night before her wedding became the first there in nearly a thousand years. If a magazine cover is the dream, Jose is the one who delivers it.
Clark Brewer has been shooting weddings out of Nashville since 2011, and his whole approach comes down to one idea: show up like a guest, not a vendor, and let the day tell its own story. He trained on medium format and 35mm before digital took over, and that grounding still shapes how he reads light today. He’s outspoken about refusing to rush a gallery out for the sake of a quick preview, believing something worth keeping is worth waiting for. He now leads a team of photographers trained under his eye, so that patience, and his signature look, holds even when he’s not the one behind the camera.
Camille Delaune grew up in Louisiana and now works out of New York, shooting almost entirely on a 1960s film camera, 35mm and 120. She calls herself photojournalistic more than editorial: no posed lineups, just the quiet stuff, a bride lacing her shoes, someone crying before the ceremony even starts. Her work has traveled well beyond New York, from New Orleans to Portland to weddings in Pisa, Italy. “My goal for every wedding album is to have a museum of the day you can walk through,” she’s said, and her frames genuinely read that way — warm, saturated with color, and carrying that vintage, nostalgic feel only film really gives you.
Lauren Fair shoots warm, editorial images full of natural light, moving between film and digital with an approach she calls relaxed-meets-editorial. Home base is the Northeast, but her work regularly takes her to California, Colorado, Hawaii, and destinations across Europe. Off the clock, she’s usually restoring an old farmhouse or chasing sunsets somewhere with her husband, Tim, and their two boys, and that same warmth follows her into every wedding she shoots. She wants every couple to feel like the most beautiful version of themselves in front of her camera, and it shows in the work.
Kayleigh Taylor picked up a camera at sixteen, and by now, a decade-plus later, she’s built a career on film and a certain cinematic softness that’s hard to fake. Based in Jacksonville but shooting destination weddings across the US and Europe, she works in 35mm, 120, and even Super 8 when a moment calls for it. Her frames come out rich and saturated, the kind you find yourself lingering on rather than scrolling past. What she’s after isn’t just what a wedding looked like, but what it felt like from the inside.
Nicole Plett is Canadian-born but works out of New York now, and shoots most weddings alongside her husband, moving together through a day or splitting off when the shots need it. As a wedding photographer in the US and beyond, she’s built her name on film, sometimes five cameras deep in a single shoot, chasing an editorial mood without losing the documentary instinct underneath it. She’s been named among top wedding photographers many times, and her calendar now reads more like a passport stamp collection.
Trent Bailey grew up in Texas and Louisiana before landing in New York. He now runs his studio alongside his wife, Dara, who shoots exclusively on 35mm while he moves between film and digital, including a hand-wound Rolleiflex. As a wedding photographer working out of NYC and the Hamptons for close to two decades, he calls what they’re after “future nostalgia,” images built to still hit you years down the line, not just the week after the wedding. Their photos come out sweet and full of feeling, a little dreamy, the kind that make you tear up scrolling through the gallery months later.
Married couples photographing married couples tend to read a room differently, and that’s exactly what Joel and Justyna Bedford bring to a wedding. They’ve been shooting together since 2012, married each other two years later, and by now have covered more than 400 events, working in both 35mm film and digital.
Joel grew up around photography, assisting his father, who once photographed Queen Elizabeth II, before spending years modeling for names like Karl Lagerfeld and Christian Dior. Justyna studied art history and brings a romantic, painterly eye to every couple she shoots. Based between Ottawa and Los Angeles, they now travel worldwide for weddings, working with what they call a soft footprint, quiet and barely noticeable until the gallery comes back.
Laura Gordon works out of Virginia but shoots weddings and fashion editorials on nearly every continent, and it’s her painterly, nostalgic style that keeps clients coming back for both. She’s the photographer behind Brigette Pheloung and Mitch McHale‘s waterfront Newport wedding — one of this year’s most-talked-about celebrity weddings. Over a decade in, she describes her process as observation-first, catching the small stuff before it disappears. That patience is what her couples mention most, an at-ease presence that gets people to forget she’s even there. It’s a soft, romantic look with an editorial edge, and it’s made her one of the more distinctive names in destination wedding photography.
Fifteen years living in India shaped the way Anni Graham reads a wedding long before she ever picks up her camera. She works from a place of empathy, taking time to understand a couple before shooting a single frame, and it’s earned her a spot among the top wedding photographers in the country. Her portfolio ranges from Tuscan villas to elopements on actual mountain hikes, chasing the shot wherever the terrain takes her. Nothing about her images feels staged. It’s real laughing, real crying, and a golden, unguarded warmth running through nearly every frame.
Painting came before photography for Abby Hart, and that layer still shows in how she uses color and shadow today. Based in Washington, D.C., she shoots with a fashion-forward, editorial eye, more interested in creative composition than any classic wedding look. Working across both digital and film, her portfolio ranges from a historic Chicago wedding to an elegant celebration in upstate New York, along with weddings across the country and beyond. Her images carry a rich, saturated glow with real beauty-shoot polish, sharp and deliberate down to the last detail.
“Artful, editorial, and authentic” — that’s how Kristin Piteo sums up her own style in three words, and it holds up across a decade of work spanning the US, Europe, South Africa, and beyond. She shoots both film and digital, letting a wedding unfold at its own pace rather than pushing couples into anything staged. By the time the day arrives, she says, she’s less photographer than friend in the room, which is exactly the reputation that keeps her booked stateside and abroad. Her images balance cinematic wide shots with the tiny, in-between moments most people miss entirely.
His name means “quiet” in Sanskrit, and it’s fitting in a way he couldn’t have planned: Nirav Patel has spent his career chasing the small, unposed moments most photographers rush past. Based near San Francisco but shooting weddings worldwide, he blends fine art, photojournalism, and editorial into something cinematic and warm. He’s especially gifted with big family weddings, catching every glance and gesture between generations without ever making it feel staged. His work has run in Vogue and Tatler, and he’s been named one of the top wedding photographers in the US more than once. Nirav treats every couple’s story as its own, never forced into a template, which is exactly why his galleries read less like a wedding record and more like an heirloom.
Idaho isn’t the first place most brides think to look for a photographer, but that’s exactly where Jenny Losee built her career before taking it worldwide. Over 15 years, she’s leaned into a romantic, documentary-style approach with an editorial edge, shot across film, digital, and video. Vogue has featured her work, and clients often mention the same thing: how prepared she is, walking couples through the day’s timeline well before the wedding itself. That planning leaves room for the shots that actually matter — the fast, unrepeatable ones only a camera in the right hands can catch.
Jillian Blanc grew up with flight attendant parents, spending her early years traveling the world with her dad’s old film camera and a little blue point-and-shoot in hand. She bought her first DSLR in 2015 simply to take better travel photos, and the hobby quietly turned into a career. Today the Minneapolis-based wedding photographer has spent nearly a decade documenting weddings around the world, working across digital and film, including Super 8. Her approach is documentary with an editorial eye. Rather than staging moments, she stays calm and observant, watching for the quiet glances and bursts of laughter that happen in between. “A wedding is not a performance,” she says. “It is a reflection of who you are.” The result is imagery that feels honest and timeless, made to bring back how the day actually felt.
“I used to say I would never photograph weddings,” Esther Canon has admitted, and now it’s her favorite thing to shoot. Based in Southern California, her images are grainy and cinematic, almost like stills pulled from an old film. Nothing about her work looks like anyone else’s. It’s warm, romantic, and a little windswept, with a golden, sunset-soaked glow running through nearly every frame. She started young, still in her early twenties when a lifestyle site first singled her out for photos unlike anything else in the space, and she’s kept that signature ever since.
Samm Blake is a New York-based wedding photographer, originally from Australia, with over twenty years of experience shaped by fine art, journalism, and a lasting love of film. She’s the photographer behind Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco‘s wedding. Her focus stays on the in-between moments, the softness, the sincerity, the parts of a day that would otherwise slip by unnoticed. Samm shoots weddings across the globe, from multi-day celebrations in Iceland to intimate gatherings in the UAE, and her images are known less for how a wedding looked than for how it actually felt.
Lizzy Mae got into photography because of her own family’s old photos, her great-great-grandparents traveling the world, her grandparents young and in love at their wedding. Based in Southern California but rarely home for long, she specializes in intimate weddings and elopements in a documentary style, shooting worldwide.
What sets her apart is how she balances the couple against the landscape around them: nothing competes for attention, and everything reads like a composition an old master would have painted. She says she’s after the shots where nobody was thinking about the camera, staying quietly out of the way until a real moment simply happens on its own.
Kristina Adams graduated from Harvard and spent years in management consulting and brand strategy before trading it all for a camera. Based in California, Kristina shoots part editorial, part photojournalistic, capturing the excitement and joy of a day alongside the carefully planned details couples spent months on. She’s photographed weddings all over the country, from Santa Barbara to Palm Springs to well beyond California’s borders. Her dream shoot, if she could pick one from history, would be JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette‘s wedding, which says a lot about the kind of romance she’s drawn to.
Rooted in Alabama and now embraced by New Orleans, Mo Davis shoots with a sense of heritage woven into nearly every frame: southern warmth, second lines, and the kind of soul that only comes from growing up around it. Her dedication runs deep enough that distance and short timelines rarely factor into her decision to take a job, and it shows in how personally she treats every wedding she shoots. She’s built a portfolio spanning weddings across the US and destinations well beyond it, working almost entirely on film, the medium she trusts most. She’s been recognized as one of the best wedding photographers in the world, and every frame she delivers feels timeless without losing an ounce of emotion.
He was studying business, marketing strategy specifically, when a photography elective he took purely for an easy grade rerouted his whole future. Erich McVey shot a friend’s engagement session on a borrowed camera, got a few surprised compliments, and never really looked back.
Based in Oregon, he now takes on only a limited number of weddings each year, shooting almost entirely on film, mostly a Contax 645, so every celebration gets his full attention. His portfolio stretches from Bali to New Zealand, Norway to Colombia, and his images keep true-to-life colors and tones for a polished look. Erich’s philosophy stays simple: photography should enrich a wedding, never compete with it.
John and Joseph run their studio out of Los Angeles, brothers by blood and photographers by trade, with Yana now standing beside them as a third principal shooter. Their client list reads like a red carpet: Sarah Hyland and Wells Adams, Chris Pratt and Katherine Schwarzenegger, Patrick Mahomes and Brittany Matthews. They’ve shot well over a thousand weddings by now, refined and detail-rich from the first consultation to the final album. Their style has stayed remarkably consistent even as the team around them has grown, which says a lot about how deliberately they built it in the first place.
Astrophysics was Emily Magers’ major before she felt pulled, almost like a calling, toward photography instead. Emily is based in Los Angeles now, though roughly half her weddings each year take her somewhere else in the country or abroad. Her style sits between documentary and editorial, shot on a blend of digital and analog film. What she’s really after is what a wedding actually felt like, not just how it looked. She’s said no two weddings should ever look the same, and over twelve years in, that philosophy still shapes every gallery she delivers — warm, human, and never quite predictable.
Cinema and history are where Anya Kernes says most of her inspiration comes from, and it shows in how deliberately composed her weddings feel. Anya is based in Los Angeles but works across California and destinations abroad, including France, Italy, and the UK, shooting a mix of film and digital. Her approach blends photojournalism with a light touch of editorial direction, always chasing images that feel unforced and lived-in. She’s been named one of the top wedding photographers in the US, and her galleries tend to hold up years later.
If classic isn’t your thing, Cara Mia might be exactly who you’re looking for. Based in Utah, she shoots weddings on a mix of film and digital, chasing blur, grain, light leaks, trippy prisms, anything that breaks away from cookie-cutter pretty. She’s drawn to the beauty of imperfection, what the Japanese call wabi-sabi, and it shows in every off-script, unposed moment she catches. She even offers astrophotography as an add-on, timing shoots around the darkest, starriest nights for couples who want something genuinely out of this world. Her whole style feels like nothing else out there, built for couples who’d rather have something real than something flawless.
