What's a Wedding's Most Important Photo?

What's the most important photo out of all the photos which can be taken at a wedding?

Some say it would be the couple's first kiss. Others contend it's got to be the moment the couple first see each other that day. And there are those who say it's probably their "official" portrait together that's the most important wedding photo out of the whole entire day.

But are any of these it?

Search the internet for suggested wedding photos and all sorts of ideas come up, covering from the time the couple's getting dressed to the last moment of their day, in multiple "must have" checklists of wedding shots suggested to strive for.

But a lot of those wouldn't make my list of "the most important wedding photo" -- and maybe not yours either.

Look at many wedding blogs and you'd come away with the idea that the most important wedding photos must be those which document the wedding's details, but we all know no one years later cracks open their wedding album to reminisce over their table settings.

So I think this is what it is:

Since we acquire wedding photos to remember our wedding day, start with the question, "what is it we wish to remember?" What would that be? I think it's pretty much everything from the tiniest details to the biggest moments.

But when do we wish to remember? And why? It's obviously when there's reason to.

So what is it which creates those reasons, as you go through your life, which have you look back at your wedding album yet again, one more time?

It's when something beckons you to look back. And that's usually when there's a memory tucked somewhere in that collection of wedding photos, a memory which at the moment you wish to retrieve and experience again.

Because that moment in time no longer exists. And its absence is felt. Because nothing in life is constant and remains forever. Things change. And it's missed.

It could be a photo from the wedding day of a beloved child who's now fully grown or gone away. A parent, grandparent or beloved relative no longer with us. A dear friend we miss. A longing to revisit a significant, meaningful time in our own life's history when everyone you loved came together to celebrate with you. It's when we yearn to feel that day's joy again, relive our laughter, our tears of sentiment and delight in the goodness of our life.

So I believe what any wedding couple views as the most important photo out of their entire wedding day at any moment in time changes in response to life changing around us as we journey through our years. And because we change. Which is all why what we believe to be the most important photo from our wedding day today may be different than what we feel is the most important photo from our wedding day tomorrow, if only for a moment of time until life changes things around on us again.

Which is why we can't narrow it down to the one most important photo.

Because many of them are important. If not today, then soon enough.