“I hate having my photograph taken.” If I had a pound for every time somebody had said that to me during a wedding meeting, I could probably have retired from wedding photography by now. Sometimes it's both people, although quite often one half of the couple is perfectly happy about the whole thing while the other looks genuinely horrified at the thought of spending their wedding day in front of a camera. Then comes the usual explanation: “I'm really awkward in photographs,” “I never know what to do,” or one of my favourites, when somebody points at their partner and says, “You'll have your work cut out with this one.”

The funny thing is, after 18 years photographing weddings, I've realised that most people who tell me they're terrible in photographs aren't terrible in photographs at all. They're uncomfortable being photographed when they're thinking about being photographed, and those are two very different things.

I've been photographing weddings for 18 years now and, because I'm based in this part of the world, a huge number of those weddings have been across North Yorkshire. You get used to driving through the North York Moors on the way to work, heading towards the coast for a wedding in Whitby or Scarborough, or finding yourself halfway down a country lane looking for a wedding venue that you're absolutely certain didn't exist the last time you checked Google Maps.

Nearly every wedding photographer describes themselves as natural these days. It's become one of those words that's used so often that I'm not entirely sure anybody really knows what it's supposed to mean anymore.

Natural wedding photography, relaxed wedding photography, documentary wedding photography, candid wedding photography... you'll see all of them while you're looking for a photographer, usually accompanied by photographs of couples walking through fields looking suspiciously like somebody has just told them to walk through a field.

There's something incredibly special about weddings that completely reflect the couple, and Matt and Jo's wedding at the Mallyan Spout Hotel in Goathland was exactly that. It wasn't about following traditions for the sake of it. Instead, it was about celebrating who they are, surrounded by the people they love, in one of the most beautiful corners of the North York Moors National Park.

As a North Yorkshire wedding photographer, these are the kinds of weddings I absolutely love to photograph. Every part of the day felt authentic, relaxed and filled with laughter, which is exactly what documentary wedding photography is all about.