Every Wedding Deserves Storytelling, Not Just Beautiful Pictures: Anand Rathi

In the heart of Mumbai’s Nariman Point, Reels and Frames sits on the eighth floor of Bajaj Bhavan, a creative space dedicated to capturing your wedding story perfectly. Step into the office and you’re immediately drawn to a world map painted across one wall, marking the many destinations where Anand Rathi and his team have transformed wedding moments into lasting memories. Each Polaroid photograph tells the story of a couple, a celebration, and a journey—all beautifully documented. When his wife, Garima, urged him to pursue his passion, Rathi’s leap of faith soon evolved into a thriving enterprise. As the founder of Reels and Frames, Rathi has turned his love for storytelling and visual artistry into one of the most respected wedding photography and filmmaking brands in the industry.

Rathi takes us behind the scenes of the business, walking us through the art of wedding photography and sharing how he and his team of self-described misfits are living out their shared passion of creating meaningful wedding stories.

Manifest: What has this profession taught you as a photographer as well as a businessman?

Anand Rathi: The business of photography is very different from the art of photography. You can photograph something as simple as a teacup on your balcony and be completely fulfilled by the image. But if you want to build a sustainable business, employ 30 or 40 people, and do that consistently over the years, you have to rationalise and compartmentalise certain aspects of the work.

By compartmentalise, I mean learning to detach yourself emotionally from certain creative desires. For instance, photographers often get fixated on getting the perfect sunset shot of a bride. For the bride, that sunset photo may not matter nearly as much as a photograph with her father. You have to make choices and learn what deserves priority.

There is always a tension between being an artist who creates without constraints and being a professional who has a responsibility to a paying client. Once you truly understand what commissioned work means, you begin to navigate that balance.

M: Having shot high-profile celebrity weddings, how do you draw the line when it comes to social media posting?

AR: The productisation of the Indian wedding and the rise of Instagram are eerily similar in timing—and that shift is taking away some of the essence, making things unnecessarily complicated.

Imagine you’re a bride. You’re worried about the photos your make-up artist is taking because her 2,00,000 followers will see them before you do. You’re conscious of how you look because you might be featured on a designer’s page. Then there are hundreds of other cameras pointed at you, and people will remember you as “that bride from that venue.” That’s an enormous amount of pressure.

So, one rule: Nothing goes on Instagram until the wedding is over—not the bride, not the makeup artist, not the friends, not us.

M: What’s the most unforgettable moment from a wedding you captured?

AR: I remember there was a client whose dad was battling cancer, and we did an express delivery of the photograph of the two hugging at the wedding, and the father got to view it when he was in the hospital. It was one of the special moments that stayed with me. The son has had the image as his display picture for seven years now. Recently, at a wedding in Udaipur, it suddenly started raining heavily during the varmala. The electronic equipment, the DJ console, and the light circuits started malfunctioning. The groom was being covered with umbrellas, and the bride was under the jharokha. Slowly, the guests too started joining in, and we somehow managed to shoot in the rain in spite of the challenges. It was kind of an out-of-body experience, and this is a story they will tell their grandkids.

M: How do you balance the various factors involved in logistics planning within a business?

AR: Like any other business, there is a P&L—gross margin, net margin. You have to be disciplined; you can’t go buying five new cameras and 10 new lenses just because they looked nice on an Instagram video.

The highest cost for us isn’t equipment, it’s human resources. You’ve got to be prudent about who you’re hiring, why, how much you’re paying them, and whether you’re getting the best value out of them—these are things I actively manage now.

M: A company’s backbone is its employees. Tell us about the people who shaped Reels and Frames?

AR: Our team is the backbone, heart, and soul in everything we do and create. Interestingly, very few of us actually come from a formal photography or filmmaking background. Our team is made up of people from incredibly diverse professions, including engineers, lawyers, and business graduates. What brought us together is a shared obsession with storytelling, human emotions, and a love for travel. More than colleagues, we’ve become a family of passionate individuals who travel the world together, celebrate together, solve challenges together, and while at it, preserve memories for our clients, together.

M: If Reels and Frames were launching in 2026, what would you do differently?

AR: As a businessman, I think I would have made certain decisions from a commercial angle because, as an artist, I still can’t come to terms with putting out a twirling bride picture. However, as a businessman, it seems like the right thing to do. A hundred twirling brides increase your following on Instagram, gets more business. As an artist, you feel guilty because you may have made some compromises along the way. So, if I were to start now, I would experiment unapologetically, bring fresher ideas, make a side income for safety, and succumb less to trends that I have in the past.