Documentary Wedding Photographer: Contests, Meaning and Indian Weddings with William Lambelet

He discovered photography by covering some friends' wedding, a month after buying his first digital camera, shooting entirely in auto mode. Twelve years later, William Lambelet is one of the leading names among documentary wedding photographers in France: WPJA Photographer of the Year in 2017, a speaker in Mexico, South Africa, Russia and Brazil, a trainer, and the author of a book on the rites and customs of Indian weddings.

Talking with Mathieu Vitrat, photographer and podcaster at Fotostudio, he explains how he prepares his weddings without a standard questionnaire, why he removed the couple portraits from his website, what around twenty weddings in India taught him, and why a world title nearly made him quit weddings altogether.

Who is William Lambelet?

William Lambelet has been a professional wedding photographer since 2009, based in the Hérault region of southern France, between Montpellier and Béziers. He works all over France and abroad, with a photojournalistic approach: he tells the story of the wedding without stepping in.

• WPJA Photographer of the Year (Wedding Photojournalist Association) in 2017, a title he would win again in 2021, a few months after this episode.
• Speaker abroad for two years: Mexico, South Africa, Russia, Brazil.
• Trainer for small groups in France, and leader of workshops at Indian weddings.
• Photojournalist: he also documents weddings for press projects.
• Author of 7, a photo book on the rites and customs of Indian weddings, the result of seven years of documentation.
• Co-organizer of Rise Up, an event offering masterclasses by international photographers, with interpreting.

Today, his website williamlambelet.fr features work in black and white and in color, described as “honest” and “human” photography, and highlights his awards: twice named the world's best wedding photojournalist by the WPJA, winner at the Photographies de l'année (Photographs of the Year) in 2016, and European Master Photographer with the FEP in 2025.

1. How do you become a documentary wedding photographer?

As a teenager, William didn't take photos, but he devoured the reportage in Géo magazine, which his father subscribed to. He was fascinated by those photojournalists, whom he saw as “storytellers passing history on”. Then came the digital era: he bought a camera, and a month later, some friends asked him to photograph their wedding. His technique was “close to zero”, and everything was on auto.

To him, that was actually a stroke of luck: he discovered photography through weddings, with his instinct and his own vision, without having been shaped by anything beforehand. He has never let go of that reporter's approach: photojournalism, talks and workshops all remain tied to this way of telling the story of a wedding.

Finding your place: neither vendor nor friend

To photograph a wedding “from the inside”, you need to get into the couple's inner circle. But too much closeness has a downside: the couple ends up getting you involved. His example is simple. If the bride asks him to take her dress off the hanger, he says no: what he wants is to photograph the maid of honor taking it down.

“I believe you should be neither a vendor nor their friend.”

William Lambelet

2. What are wedding photography contests good for?

William got interested in contests very early on, just as new competitions were emerging that showcased a new generation of wedding photography, closer to what he wanted to show. In his first years, he didn't win anything. And yet that's what made him improve.

The benefits, in order

• Precision: contests pushed him to refine his framing and to look for truer moments, the kind that happen “in a split second”.
• Recognition: once he started winning awards, couples contacted him directly through contest websites, and other photographers discovered his work.
• New activities: that visibility paved the way for workshops and talks.
• Clients abroad: it was through an English contest website that an Indian American couple contacted him in 2014 for his first wedding in India.

Choosing your contests

There are countless contests, and William has dropped some of them over the years. His advice: keep the ones that showcase your approach, what he prefers to call your “world” rather than your style. If he gives more weight to the WPJA, it's for two reasons. First, you can only enter photos from the past year: there's no dipping into a stock of images built up over the years, you have to be good every season. Second, the jury brings together journalists, photo editors and renowned photographers who don't come from the wedding world. An outside eye, closer to the couples' own, whereas in many contests it's “always the same judges”, and so always the same kind of images that come out on top.

For another take on the subject, photographer Thibault Chappe also shares what photo contests changed in his career as a wedding photographer.

3. Can winning a contest make you lose sight of why you do this?

Until 2017, William went into every wedding with one goal: to come back with images for contests. He wouldn't hesitate to spend fifteen or twenty minutes on a single photo. Then he won the award he wanted most, WPJA Photographer of the Year. The joy was immense, but in the weeks that followed, it gave way to “almost a trauma”.

“I was working for those images, not for my clients.”

William Lambelet

His couples were happy, his images were beautiful and highly crafted. But he had reached his “Holy Grail” and no longer knew what his work was for. He even wondered whether he should stop photographing weddings.

Telling the couple's story, not the day's

His answer was to put the couple's story back at the center. He's no longer primarily interested in how the day unfolds, but in who they are, and in their relationships with their guests. One groom told him he hadn't spoken to his father in ten years: “he'll be at the back of the church, you won't see him well”. At the cocktail hour, when the father came over and put his hand on his son's shoulder, William knew it was one of the most powerful moments of the wedding. To anyone else, an ordinary scene.

“Today, I see the wedding day as a tool for telling the couple's story.”

William Lambelet

4. How do you prepare a documentary wedding without being intrusive?

No hours of meetings. The first one is for presenting his approach: William often doesn't sign anything before it, and he finds it “a bit intrusive” to ask personal questions at that stage. Once the contract is signed, he plans one or two meetings, often by video call, since many of his clients live abroad.

No standard questions

He doesn't try to find out the brand of the dress or every detail of the schedule: if a detail matters in their story, the couple will bring it up on their own. He doesn't have a list of questions. He gets them talking about their relationships with their family and friends, presenting it as a way to avoid blunders on the big day. The good stories, and the trickiest ones, then come out naturally.

On the big day: follow along, and ask for almost nothing

• A few group photos: his couples often don't want them, but he encourages them to do a few, for their parents and grandparents, who care about them.
• A short couple session, often at the end of the cocktail hour, presented as a break to catch their breath. It's the only time he asks anything of them.
• A constant presence: he follows them all day, travels with them when possible, and tells them not to hesitate to ask him to step out, during getting ready, for example.
• No engagement shoot: his couples don't care for it, and that type of photo doesn't match what he shows.

5. How do you attract couples who are the right fit for you?

For William, the mistake many wedding photographers make is being a “jack of all trades”: they can do everything, fairly well, but they don't highlight what makes them unique.

Budget isn't the right criterion

In 2021, his average sale was between 3,000 and 4,000 euros. Not all of his couples have deep pockets: some spend 20 to 25% of their wedding budget on photography, because it matters to them, while some very wealthy couples sometimes negotiate harder. What matters, in his view, is finding clients you feel comfortable with, and who let you develop what makes you unique. To position your own prices against your costs and your time, the photography price calculator is a good starting point.

A website that shows less

William removed all the couple and engagement photos from his website. He lost clients, but gained couples who trust him and who often have powerful stories, because they felt it in his images. He did it in stages, since he also has to make a living, and he plans to keep removing more photos than he adds. If you rethink your portfolio in that spirit, a pared-back photography website, with few pages and a tight selection, says more clearly what you offer.

“By removing couple photos from my website, I inevitably lost clients. But I gained in quality.”

William Lambelet

6. Photographing an Indian wedding: what to expect?

William's first Indian wedding, in 2014, lasted four and a half days. The family offered to let him sleep in the family home rather than at a hotel: he crashed on a corner of the couch, with a few cockroaches for company, but he could follow the couple from 5 a.m., all the way to the prayers on the banks of the Ganges to collect water for the evening ceremony. He has photographed around twenty since.

“That wedding in India, like every wedding in India, there are zero reference points.”

William Lambelet

What India taught him

• Let your instinct do the work: without reference points, you don't anticipate what you think you'll see, and your reflexes get sharper.
• Be wary of the obvious: local photographers sometimes all stop shooting at the very moment that, to him, carries the most meaning, simply because it isn't an important part of the ceremony.
• Accept that you're still discovering: some rites are shared across India, others change depending on the family, the caste or the region. He still discovers new customs at every wedding.
• Understand who decides: in India, the couple chooses almost nothing about their wedding. Marriages today are “semi-arranged”: the parents introduce a match, the future spouses can say no, but not ten times.

One image that sums it all up

His favorite photo isn't the strongest in terms of composition: a groom carried on dancers' shoulders in the middle of the crowd, and in the background, four Russian musicians suspended on chairs several meters up a green wall. One of them, a violinist, clings to the wall, terrified. An image that, in his view, sums up the grandeur and excess of Indian weddings, where everything is about opulence.

7. Why a photo book about Indian weddings?

In 2021, William published 7, a photo book organized into chapters by rites and customs, with a substantial written section. Seven years of documentation, in photos and in writing, in a country with hundreds of dialects, and so just as many ways of naming the same custom. It's aimed first at a French-speaking audience, which talks a lot about India without knowing how it works, starting with the caste system.

Why “7”

The title doesn't come from the seven years of work, even if he liked the coincidence. The number seven is central to Hindu culture: during the religious ceremony, the bride's veil is tied to the groom's scarf with seven knots, then the couple walks seven times around the fire and makes seven vows.

Weddings, a marker of their time

William sees weddings as a temporal, social and societal marker. In India, society is changing very fast, and he fears some customs will have disappeared in 20 or 30 years. He also continues to document weddings for the press, on subjects such as the condition of women, who leave their family at the end of the wedding, or the working conditions of the behind-the-scenes workers at big weddings. And it's true in France too: photos of couples in face masks in 2020 and 2021 will remain the marker of an era.

“We photographers and reporters are the ones who pass stories on.”

William Lambelet

Along the way, he raises a practical question: for his projects in India, he had asked for permission to use the images in advance. For your own weddings, including that usage permission in your wedding photography contract will save you plenty of questions, today and twenty years from now.

Print, again and again

For several years now, William has considered it essential for his couples to leave with something printed. Digital guarantees nothing, he points out: “not long ago, we put everything on VHS”. The book strengthened that conviction, and opened doors for him in the Indian community in France, as well as at photo festivals interested in an exhibition.

8. How do you learn wedding photojournalism?

Teaching came with time. William distinguishes between two formats. Talks are short and meant to open minds and present an approach; they also let him discover the work of photographers from other continents. Workshops, on the other hand, are held in small groups, fewer than ten people, always with a hands-on part followed by feedback.

Three areas of focus

• Composition: managing to “fit everything in just right” in the frame, one of his strengths.
• The photojournalistic approach: giving meaning to every image.
• Finding your own world: one-on-one mentoring to help each person “push doors open” and stop being a jack of all trades.

He warns his students from the start: he can teach them how to make his black and white images, but that's not the goal. Every two years, he also runs a workshop at Indian weddings, in January or February, during peak season: one day you shoot, the next day you debrief, over three to four days.

Rise Up, to draw inspiration from elsewhere

With a friend, he created Rise Up: three days of interpreted masterclasses with great international photographers who have a strong personal world, plus a final session with a photographer who doesn't shoot weddings. The idea wasn't to put on “yet another event” about weddings, but to give French photographers what they were missing to move forward.

This episode was recorded in spring 2021, as the pandemic was winding down. William mentions a season with fewer weddings, more small daytime weddings, and workshops and events whose dates applied to that period. His current work and awards are presented on his website.

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