Is the civil ceremony worth photographing?

"It's only the civil ceremony, we sign and that's it." We hear it often, and it's almost always said by someone who later asks whether we have any photographs from that day.

It's the day you actually get married

The party is the celebration. The civil ceremony is the wedding. It's the exact moment you stop being two people and become married, with a document that says so and someone reading it out loud.

Many couples do it months before the party, midweek, with four people present. And that's precisely why it has something the party doesn't.

At the civil ceremony there aren't two hundred guests watching. Only the people who really matter are there, and it shows on their faces.

It's short, and that works in your favour

A civil ceremony is over in under an hour. There's no need for long coverage or a big production: it can be covered end to end for a fraction of what a wedding takes.

It is by far the most affordable way to have professional photographs of the day you got married.

The room is small and plain. We work anyway

Let's be honest: registry offices aren't beautiful. Curtains, office furniture, strip lighting. It isn't Fernando de Noronha.

What we do is work close and look elsewhere:

• The documents, the rings and the flowers on the table. Those are yours.
• The witnesses' faces. Usually a mother, a brother, a best friend. That's where the emotion of the day lives.
• The hands. Signing, shaking, held together.
• Outside. Once the paperwork is done, you step into the street newly married. That short walk is worth the whole session.

And if there's a party later, is it still worth it?

Yes, and they're different things. At the party you'll be surrounded by people, on a schedule, following a running order. At the civil ceremony it's the two of you and four others.

They're two different days of the same story. Having both isn't repeating anything.

How we do it

You tell us the time and the place, we arrive early, and we cover it from the moment you walk in until you walk out. No posing session, no interrupting the registrar, no asking you to sign again for the camera.

We photographed Patricia and Luis's civil ceremony exactly like that. You can see precisely what we mean.