How to find wedding photos in your family album? Start with your family tree.
Make a list of all the marriages, including the information of when and where they were contracted, starting with the emerging of the photography in 1839. Then try to match these names with the images in your collection. If your situation is just like the majority, some photos will lack the names. The same identification of the image dates will help you to visually define the wedding history of your family. Before coming to some conclusions, make sure there’s a signature on the back which indicates that it is a wedding photo, like a name or a date. If the print remains unidentified try this:
Look at these unknown images and define if there is some visible hint like the photographic method or the photographer’s name. For example is it glazed or paper print? The photographic method may point to the period of this image. But don’t you fully rely on only one date. The photo identification depends on all the evidences but not the sole detail. If an image holds the name of the photographer, try to find out when he or she worked, using city guide or web-cites.
Take these unknown prints with you, when visiting your relatives. You never know when uncle Jorge or cousin Sarah may recognize the faces from the pictures or share a couple of wedding photos from their own collection. They must have two or three stories about the visited parties, so have a tape recorder at hand to make records of these memories.
If you haven’t done that yet, find the official records of the marriage, like for example, notes of the intentions, licenses, certificates, church records. The names of the witnesses may help to identify the participants of the wedding on the collective portrait. The photo gains more importance for the family history if there are names, stories and documents.
Clothing - is one of the exactest ways of telling the time of a photo. Pay the special attention to the details such as the form of a sleeve of a female dress, bodice, skirt or width of the flap on a man's jacket, tie, form of a jacket. The identification of a wedding portrait in your collection can finally depend on small details, so it can help to learn about a history of wedding costumes and traditions.
