In France, the town hall looms large. The one associated with your address, at whatever time it decides to receive you, in a setting chosen long before you arrived. A mandatory stop, often squeezed in between two other appointments, before the day has even really begun.
In Germany, I discovered a different itinerary.
Civil wedding, with no set route
Here, the civil ceremony can take place in a forest, a barn, or a castle. The Standesamt comes to you—not the other way around. The venue becomes a choice, not an administrative requirement. And most importantly: there’s no rule that this formality has to take place on the same day as the celebration.
Many of the couples I've followed had already legally tied the knot weeks—sometimes months—before their religious or civil ceremony. As a result, the day of the celebration no longer feels like two events rolled into one. What remains is the essence of the occasion—the promise, the guests, the emotion. No rushing between City Hall and the reception venue. No tight schedule. Just one full day, dedicated to what truly matters.
The Freie Trauung, or the ceremony with no set script
What struck me most was the Freie Trauung. A secular ceremony, but one tailored to each couple, led by an officiant who writes a unique text for each couple. No ready-made template. No interchangeable speech recycled from one wedding to the next.
I've photographed ceremonies where the vows told the story of a specific encounter, a shared journey, or an inside joke that only the couple understood. Nothing generic. Every ceremony became a one-of-a-kind moment—exactly what I strive to capture.
How this changed my perspective as a photographer
This freedom forced me to break out of my routine. There was no standard "town hall, reception, ceremony, party" template that I could follow blindly. Every German wedding had its own unique timeline, and I had to adapt to it.
There, I discovered—almost intact—the principle that guides my work: thorough preparation beforehand (scouting, timing, anticipating the light) is what makes total spontaneity possible in front of the lens on the day of the shoot. The less rigid the plan, the more truth there is in the images.
A lesson to take with you, no matter where you get married
There is no single format for a wedding. What Germany offers through administrative flexibility can be replicated elsewhere, simply by choice: separate protocol from emotion, choose ceremony words that reflect who you are, and reject the ready-made template.
Those are the weddings I love to photograph—the ones that follow paths they’ve charted for themselves.
