When the cab pulled away from the Kimpton Fitzroy and turned toward Marylebone, Elizabeth called her mum. Her mum was in America. She held the phone up so she could see London through the window — the streets, the buildings, the two of them in matching cream on their way to get married. That phone screen, held up to the glass of a black cab, is the frame I keep coming back to from this day. Elizabeth and John got married at Marylebone Town Hall on a quiet morning — two witne

By 2:30pm it was over. Forty-four guests had filed out of the Orangery at Braxted Park, the afternoon tea in the Knott Garden had been cleared, and Shaz and Pete had two hours to themselves before the second half of their day began. In those two hours, everything changed — and that is the most efficient summary I can give of what it meant to photograph this wedding. The morning Shaz got ready in the bridal changing room with her bridesmaids — Serena Thakar on hair and makeup

The groom prep at Seckford Hall happened in the bar. This doesn't sound unusual until you see the bar — dark navy walls, art deco gold light fittings, shelves of bottles floor to ceiling behind a counter that looks like it belongs in a 1920s hotel rather than a Tudor manor in Suffolk. Chris and his groomsmen got ready in grey suits in a room that was doing most of the visual heavy lifting before anyone had touched a buttonhole. It made for some of the most atmospheric prep fr

Before the ceremony, before the guests arrived, before anything had officially begun, Michael sat at a round table in one of Château Barthélemy's ornate reception rooms with his rabbi and the witnesses gathered around him, signing the ketubah — the marriage contract that has been central to Jewish weddings for over two thousand years. The room was hung with oil portraits and red drapes, a crystal chandelier overhead, the fireplace behind them. We shaped the light carefully in

Dan cried three times before the day was even half over. Once that morning, reading the letter Chloe had written him with his groomsmen gathered round; once at the ceremony, the moment he first saw her; and again through the speeches — though by then he was in good company, because her father and the best man were going the same way. Some weddings you photograph for the details. This one you photographed for the faces. Chloe and Dan married at Vaulty Manor, near Maldon — a c

Great Lodge sits in the Essex countryside outside Great Bardfield. This 16th-century estate boasts a Grade I listed barn, a working vineyard, and grounds that make any photographer pause in awe. Here, architecture, landscape, and light unite to create a perfect backdrop. Thomas and Michael's spring wedding showcased all of this beauty. Getting Ready at the Lodge Both Thomas and Michael prepared for their big day at the venue. They arrived at 9 AM, and the morning unfolded at

Some couples plan a wedding. Sian and Caitlin planned a series of moments. The first look with their own fathers. Then the bridal party. Then the ceremony itself — by which point everyone in that barn had already witnessed something private and irreplaceable, and the room held it. That kind of intentionality doesn't happen by accident. It requires two people who know exactly what they want their wedding day to feel like — not just look like — and who have thought carefully a

There is a particular kind of wedding where every element has been considered — not for appearance, but for meaning. Abbie and Ryan's summer wedding at Braxted Park was that kind of wedding. The clues were everywhere. In the custom cake toppers — two miniature police officers, standing together on a white three-tier cake, referencing the career that brought them both to the same place. In the surprise Abbie had arranged for Ryan: singing waiters appearing between courses whi

Some weddings are simple in the best possible way. One venue, one ceremony, one language. And then there are weddings like Carolina and Anthony's — where the day spans two locations, two languages, and centrepieces that ended up in a magazine. Their August wedding at Leez Priory began not at the venue, but at Brentwood Cathedral. Carolina — born in Portugal — and Anthony got ready separately at home that morning before a full Catholic ceremony, his grey tartan kilt the first

There are weddings where the venue does the talking. And then there are weddings where everything — the light, the people, the ceremony itself — comes together into something that feels completely and specifically theirs. Sumayyah and Keiron's February wedding at Gosfield Hall was the second kind. A Ceremony That Meant Something Before the dancing, before the portraits against that illuminated Georgian facade, before the evening drew in and Gosfield Hall began to glow agains

Some venues ask you to photograph a wedding. Hedingham Castle asks you to photograph nine hundred years of history, and then find the two people getting married somewhere inside it. The Norman Keep at Castle Hedingham is the best-preserved Norman keep in England. Standing in it before a ceremony begins — stone walls three feet thick, light from narrow windows high above, the whole weight of the building pressing down with a quiet authority — you understand immediately that t

Some venues you photograph. St Osyth Priory you negotiate with — fourteen centuries of history, 350 acres of parkland, and a low winter sun that, on the right afternoon at the end of November, turns a gravel drive into something out of a painting. When Harriet and Filipe married here on the 30th of November, they gave me one of my favourite kinds of day to shoot: a historic manor, a hard winter light that arrives early and leaves fast, and two people entirely at ease in front

Dawei and Grace's Chinese-Malaysian wedding at Friern Manor, Essex — a tea ceremony by the fountain, a pianist for the ceremony, and a Malay toasting game that brought the whole room together.