Phaedra & Jef
A Carolus Borromeus Wedding in Antwerp
Years from now, some of the people in these photographs will have changed. Some will be older. Some may no longer be sitting around the same tables. The children will grow. The stories will be told differently.
But there will still be this: A grandfather leaning towards his brother, the two of them absorbed in their own little world like they were boys again. An aunt looking at her niece with all the history between them. Italian songs carrying the memory of parents who were deeply missed. Jef watching Phaedra. Phaedra smiling without thinking about the camera.
This is why I photograph weddings the way I do. Not only to remember how everything looked…
To remember what it felt like to belong.
BELONGING
A love that feels like home
Some weddings are about two people beginning a family. Others make you realise that a family has been growing around them for years.
Phaedra and Jef's was the latter.
They have been together for more than a decade, and when I asked Jef before the wedding why they worked so well together, he didn't describe grand gestures.
He talked about comfort. About being able to spend an entire evening sitting together on the sofa, barely talking, and still being completely happy.
About how he brings calm when Phaedra starts to worry, while she gives him the little push he sometimes needs when perhaps he is being too calm. And on their wedding day, I could see it. Jef was always somewhere close. Looking at her. Checking on her. Taking care of her without making a performance of it.
And Phaedra?
Phaedra smiled.
All day.
Slideshow
A wedding surrounded by family
One of the first things I noticed when I arrived in Antwerp was how physically close this family is. They live close to one another, around the same building and square. People move in and out of each other's homes. Lives overlap. And somehow that physical closeness seemed to say something about their relationships too.
As a wedding photographer in Antwerp that day, I wasn't simply photographing two people getting married. I was stepping, for a few hours, inside an entire constellation of relationships. And one of the most beautiful things to witness was how completely Jef's family has embraced Phaedra. There didn't seem to be his side and her side in the way we sometimes imagine weddings.
There was simply family.
The people who were there, and the people who were still present
Phaedra's parents could not physically be there. But they were part of the wedding. Their photograph was there. Their memory was there. And throughout the day, Italy kept appearing. In the food. In the music. In the little pieces of the celebration chosen to carry her parents into a day they should have been able to witness themselves.
I loved that their presence wasn't confined to one formal memorial moment. Instead, memory was woven into the celebration. Life and absence existing at the same table. And perhaps some of that continuity could also be felt in Phaedra's relationship with her aunts. There are relationships that don't need explaining once you see them. A look, an embrace, the way someone watches another person when they don't know you're watching them — sometimes a photograph tells you everything you need to know.
Before the wedding, Phaedra had told me something important. She doesn't particularly enjoy being photographed. Like so many people, the moment she becomes aware of the camera, especially when someone starts directing her or asking her to smile, she becomes more conscious of herself. So I knew what I didn't want to do. I didn't want to spend her wedding day trying to make Phaedra look beautiful. I wanted to give her enough space to forget that she was being photographed. And she did.
She laughed. She talked. She hugged people. She moved through her wedding completely present in what was happening around her. And somewhere inside all of that, I could create portraits of her that feel artistic and beautiful without asking her to become someone else for my camera. Because sometimes the job isn't to make someone look beautiful. It's to give them enough space to be themselves, so the beauty the people who love them already see has room to appear.
From Antwerp to Italy, and back again
Their wedding moved through different spaces and different rhythms. From the morning preparations to the extraordinary Carolus Borromeus Church in Antwerp. From family and friends gathering after the ceremony to an evening filled with food, conversation, music and eventually a dance floor.
And threaded through it all were pieces of their history. The Sea Scouts, where their story first began. Their families. Their friends from different chapters of their lives. Belgium. Italy. Those who were standing beside them and those being carried there in memory.
By the time the evening guests arrived and Phaedra and Jef stepped onto the dance floor for their first dance to I Will by The Beatles, the room held far more than the story of two people getting married. It held more than a decade of their life together.
This is what I hope to preserve when I photograph a wedding. Of course I want the beautiful portrait. The extraordinary church. The light. The movement. The celebration. But twenty years from now, those may not be the photographs that stop you. It might be the way your grandfather looked at you. The expression on your aunt's face. Your brother laughing at a table. The way the person you love checked that you were okay without anybody else noticing. Or two brothers, decades into their lives, suddenly looking like children again. Perhaps that is what these photographs of Phaedra and Jef's wedding in Antwerp will eventually become. Not simply a record of one beautiful day. But another piece of a family story that began long before this wedding and will continue long after it. A place they can return to.
Together.
Planning a wedding in Antwerp or elsewhere in Belgium? I photograph weddings for couples who care deeply about people, connection and the moments that happen when nobody is performing for the camera. If you're looking for a wedding photographer in Antwerp or elsewhere in Europe, I'd love to hear about the people and stories that will make your celebration yours.
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I photograph destination weddings across Europe with a calm, documentary-led approach – focusing on real emotion, atmosphere and the feeling of being surrounded by your favourite people for an entire weekend, not just one day.
Whether you’re planning a celebration in Spain, Ibiza, Mallorca, Portugal, France, Belgium or Italy, tell me everything you can about your plans – how many days you’re celebrating, who’s coming, and what matters most to you. I reply personally within 24–48 hours.
I take on a limited number of wedding weekends each year so every couple receives the depth, time, emotional attention and care they deserve — before, during and after the wedding.
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Based in Spain – photographing weddings across Europe:
Spain · Ibiza · Mallorca · Portugal · France · Italy · Belgium · Netherlands
Tell me everything you can about your celebration — where you’re dreaming of getting married, how many days you’re planning, who’s coming, and what matters most to you. I reply personally within 24–48 hours.
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