You got engageed, CONGRATULATIONSI am the second photographer in my family to do this.

My father shot weddings when it was still film — when there were 36 frames on a roll, no screen to check, and the only insurance against missing the moment was knowing in your body exactly when it was about to happen. He taught me that before he taught me anything technical. It's still what I do today.

11 years later, here is what I know: the difference between a good wedding photograph and one you'll hang on a wall has almost nothing to do with the camera. It has to do with whether the two of you forgot I was in the room — or better, were glad that I wasn't a stranger in it.

So that's what I build first. We crack jokes, play your favorite tracks during our shoot, and assure you that you're days running great. I know your mother's name and your best man's sense of humour before the morning starts. I'm early. I send the reminders so you don't have to hold the schedule in your head. By the time we're actually shooting, you're not performing for someone you've never met — you're moving through your own wedding next to someone you like, who happens to have done this several hundred times!

Couples tell me the photographs look effortless. They aren't. The ease is the craft. It's just invisible, which is precisely the point.

I'm Sherif — shooting in Toronto and the GTA, and a handful of weddings a year well beyond them. I take on a limited number of events, I answer my own emails, and I have never once told a couple to "act natural"; with how I go about your big day, it's all real. Chat soon!