2025 - My Year in Documentary Wedding Photography
It’s January, which means every small business owner and their dog is doing a lot of reflecting. Turning a new sheet on a new calendar feels different this time though. 2025 felt like a bumper year in just about every way, and this year’s reflection is taking up so much space in my head I just have to write it all down to process it.
In 2025 I was busy. This post has a lot of words, and I suggest getting a brew on for it.
My Top Fifty Wedding Photos of 2025
A Deeper Dive into 2025
I travelled more than I ever have before. I shot 25 weddings, 1 commercial shoot, 4 preshoots, 3 family shoots and I second shot one wedding. I shot a destination wedding for the first time, which was a huge adventure. I spent a whole week photographing my daughter’s entire school during their forest school sessions, and raised about £600 for them in print sales. I entered and won some awards. I took time off for gigs and theatre trips. I didn’t climb any mountains this year, but I did learn all the lyrics to Florence and the Machine’s new album in their entirety within a week of release, and I learned a lot of history from podcasts on some epic journeys.
DocDay & Way Up North
I spent January rotting on my sofa, playing Stardew Valley, recovering from December 2024 (one of the busiest months I’ve ever had, with the added pressure of Being There for School Stuff). So January was not a productive month for me, and the new year really began in a dark room in Dublin. I finally bagged a ticket to DocDay after a few years of FOMO, and arrived ready to fall in love with the city, street photography, and losing myself in a sea of like minded people drunkenly singing Cranberries songs and having Feelings.
That conference blew my mind in ways that no other conference ever has.
Learning to see outside of my own ideas of what weddings can look like, how stories can be told, set me on a path I’m still treading now. If you’re a fellow photographer reading this and you’re in need of inspiration, get yourself a ticket. Come to DocDay. Have your mind opened.
A week after returning home a friend told me someone she knew had a ticket going spare for Way Up North, another conference happening at the end of March in Berlin. I’ve always wanted to go to Berlin. It’s been on my bucket list since I was old enough to know what a bucket list was. I love history. I wanted to keep opening my mind. While I was there, I made a little film of what I saw outside of the two day conference, which you can watch below. I hope I can take my family there sometime soon and share it with them.
Wedding Photography is Art
In 2023 I had the pleasure of hearing Patrick Mateer speak at Ninedots. In 2024, his wife Hollie spoke. Together they are The Mateers, and they’ve won just about every top wedding photography award out there. Their style is about capturing something honest and telling stories, so every couple receives a unique gallery rather than making each wedding a set flow of posed photos and tropes with a signature edit slapped on them. It should come as no surprise whatsoever that when they launched a workshop I was ready to bag my ticket immediately. After a day of hearing them speak and answer questions, along with the inimitable Chelsea Cannar and David Scholes, I finally found the direction I’d been seeking. I jumped at another opportunity too - six months of mentoring with Hollie and Patrick.
A lot of the photographers I’d been paying attention to had a lot of awards. And their photos always evoked an emotional response within me.
I wanted to do that. To evoke that response, and win those awards too, because then I would know I was doing it well.
I wanted to learn how to use layers to tell a story.
To evoke some response other ‘how lovely’ and focus on something deeper.
Because wedding photography really is art. Choosing what enters my frame, when I press that shutter, what I curate and how I compose a photo - these are artistic choices. This is what I decided to embrace on a sunny June afternoon in Leeds.
It’s changed everything, from how I feel about my work (I love it more) to what matters to me on a wedding day (I want to tell stories, not snapshots). I’ve always said weddings are made up of people, not things, and I believe that even more deeply now.
Everything feels clearer.
Awards
With the Mateers help, I started entering images into a few competitions.
I’m extremely proud to say that in the last 6 months I’ve won some stuff. I made it to 57th in the top 100 photographers on This Is Reportage, and I placed 9th in the top 10 of Photographers Keeping It Real. I share these lists with some incredibly talented documentary wedding photographers, and sometimes I can’t believe that’s my work getting these accolades.
Here’s a special mention to Penelope for her epic backflips down the wedding aisle. That’s the photo that started it all, and as you’ll see, it’s super popular. It’s won 3 awards all by itself!
An award winning story, from This Is Reportage
Puglia
In December 2024, Ellie asked me to photograph her and Joe’s wedding in London. I spent a few hours with them just before Christmas, and it was a lovely, intimate celebration with mostly family. Weeks later, before the photos were ready, she got in touch with some sad news that a close relative had suddenly passed after the wedding. I gave them every single photo I took of this person, and wanted to make sure they were as happy as possible with everything in the circumstances. Weeks later, Ellie messaged me asking if I knew anyone who worked like me, who’d be available in September to join them in Italy.
I leapt at the opportunity, which coincided with my husband’s 40th birthday, and created work I’m incredibly proud of for them, both in photo and video.
If you’re looking for a wedding photographer to capture your day with a sense of humour, some honesty and loads of emotion, and you like what you’ve seen here, please get in touch. And if you’ve just come to enjoy looking at the photos, thank you! Have a fab 2026.
