In my opinion, every wedding should have two photographers, full stop. But couples still have to make the call: hire one photographer who does it all, or hire someone backed by a real team. We’ve done both, and the difference shows up in ways you don’t expect until the day is actually happening.

A solo shooter is with you every second — that’s the appeal, and it’s real. But a wedding doesn’t happen in one place. The groom’s getting ready in one room, the bride’s in another, and cocktail hour is starting while the sunset portraits still need to happen. One person can’t be three places at once, no matter how good they are.

Jack and I built WTA Photo on that premise. We didn’t want to be two photographers promising a backup we couldn’t actually deliver — we wanted an entire bench of photographers who already trust each other’s work. So if I’m already booked on a Saturday you need coverage for, you’re not getting a stranger. You’re getting Ricardo, or Susan Supko, or David, José, Alison, Nick, or Howard — photographers we brought onto this team ourselves, because we already knew their work and trusted them with the big moments. Couples get the same standard of coverage whether it’s me behind the camera or someone else on our roster.

Here’s the part most studios won’t say out loud: a lot of well-reviewed photographers promise a second shooter and don’t actually keep one on the roster. The week of the wedding, they’re posting in a Facebook group looking for anyone with a camera who’s free that Saturday, and hiring whoever answers first — someone they’ve never shot beside, never seen edit, never trusted with a real moment. You’re paying for a second shooter and getting a stranger. Every photographer on the WTA team has actually worked alongside each other, been vetted, been trusted with the big moments — not scrambled together five days out.

With a second shooter in the room, you get the wide shot of the whole ceremony and the tight shot of your mom’s face at the same moment — not one or the other. Ring exchange, first kiss, the split second someone starts crying: those happen once, and a team means someone always has a camera on it even when the lead is repositioning.

It also just moves faster. Two of us can run formal portraits in half the time it takes one person to wrangle twelve family groupings alone, which means more of your cocktail hour actually happens at your cocktail hour instead of in front of a camera.

A solo photographer can absolutely deliver a beautiful gallery, and for a smaller, simpler day that might be all you need. But once your wedding has more than one location, more than sixty guests, or a timeline tighter than an hour per moment, a team — not just a backup plan, but a bench of photographers who already know each other’s work — is what actually gets you photos you can’t get any other way.