Meet Your Photographer

Maria DeForrest

I am drawn to the moments that exist just before and just after everything important happens.

The quiet exchange between people who know one another well. The way a room settles once everyone arrives. The pauses that carry more meaning than the spectacle around them.

My work is rooted in observation. I photograph with an awareness of pace, relationship, and restraint, knowing when to step back and when to move closer so moments can unfold without interruption. Rather than directing a day into place, I pay attention to how it is already moving.

Weddings are layered by nature. They carry history, expectation, and emotion all at once. What matters most often lives beneath the surface, in familiar gestures, shared glances, and the ease between people who do not need to perform for one another. My role is to notice those moments as they happen and preserve them with care.

I approach each wedding with steadiness and intention. Presence over production. Meaning over momentum. The goal is not to capture everything, but to recognize what will matter years from now, the moments that quietly hold the day together.

Much of my work takes place in spaces with history. Private estates, coastal venues, family homes, and locations chosen for what they already hold. I photograph weddings throughout Delaware, the Eastern Shore, the Main Line, and in destination settings where couples gather with intention, often returning to places that carry personal or familial meaning. Location supports the story, but it never defines it.

I work with couples who value ease, depth, and discretion. People who care less about being seen and more about remembering. People who trust the process and understand that the most enduring photographs are rarely the loudest ones.

My background in photography is rooted in formal training and years of experience across a wide range of environments. That experience allows me to move through a wedding day with calm confidence, adapting as needed, anticipating moments before they fully emerge, and holding space when things shift. Nothing needs to be forced. Nothing needs to be over explained.

While my work is quiet by design, it is never passive. It is guided by intention, awareness, and respect for the people and relationships at the center of the day. I believe the best photographs come from trust. Trust in the process, in one another, and in the knowledge that what matters most will reveal itself without being asked. This is work created to be returned to. Images that settle into family history. Photographs that age alongside the people in them.

For couples who recognize themselves in this way of seeing, it often feels less like choosing a photographer and more like being understood.