One of the things I make a real point of explaining to couples at their pre-wedding meeting is how I actually work on the wedding day. In fact, I probably exaggerate the point slightly because I want couples to know exactly what they're booking me for. I'm not going to spend the day constantly posing you, moving your hands around, tilting your head into exactly the right position or repeatedly telling you where to look. That's never been how I photograph weddings, and for the vast majority of couples I meet, the response when I explain it is usually something along the lines of, “Good, that's exactly what we want.”

Weddings aren't cheap, and with the cost of pretty much everything having increased over the last few years, it's completely understandable that couples are looking carefully at where they can save money. There are dozens of things to pay for, some of them considerably more exciting than others, and eventually most couples have to decide what's important to them and where they're prepared to compromise.

One of the things I tell couples all the time is that your wedding isn't a photoshoot. You haven't invited all your favourite people, spent months planning everything and probably spent a frightening amount of money just so I can drag you around for three hours taking photographs. I want you to enjoy your wedding, enjoying it with everybody else, not spending half of it wondering when the photographer is finally going to leave you alone.

Wedding group photographs can either be one of the quickest parts of a wedding day or one of the longest. I know that from experience because my personal record for getting through them is somewhere around ten minutes, while at the other end of the scale I've had group photographs take almost three hours.

That's quite a difference, and it wasn't because I suddenly forgot how to use a camera on the three-hour one. 😂

A huge amount comes down to what happens before the wedding, how organised we are on the day and, perhaps most importantly, whether everybody works together when it's time to take the photographs. That's exactly why I've developed my own way of handling wedding group photographs over the years.

When couples first start looking at wedding photography packages, one of the first decisions they have to make is how long they actually want their photographer there. Three hours might cover the ceremony and a few photographs afterwards. Five hours sounds like plenty. Then there’s eight hours, ten hours or full-day wedding photography, and suddenly you’re wondering whether you really need somebody wandering around with a camera for quite that long.

It’s a perfectly reasonable question, particularly when you’re trying to keep control of a wedding budget. But after photographing weddings for almost two decades, I think there’s another question worth asking at the same time: which parts of your wedding story are you happy not to have photographs of?

When couples first get in touch, the conversation usually starts with photographs. They'll tell me they've been looking through my portfolio, they'll mention a particular wedding they've seen on the website or they'll explain that they're looking for someone who captures the day naturally rather than filling it with awkward poses. It's exactly the conversation I'd expect, because photographs are ultimately the reason people book a wedding photographer.

What often surprises them, though, is something they haven't really considered.

There's a sentence I hear at almost every wedding consultation, and after seventeen years as a wedding photographer, I can usually predict when it's coming.

"We're really awkward in front of the camera."

It almost always arrives with a nervous smile, usually followed by a glance between the two of them as if they're admitting some terrible secret. The funny thing is, they're convinced they're the only couple who feel that way, when in reality they're saying exactly what hundreds of couples before them have said.

There’s something I find myself doing almost without thinking these days. Whether I’m booking a hotel for a weekend away, ordering something online or looking for a new café to try, I always end up doing exactly the same thing before making a decision.

I read the reviews.

Not because I expect every business to be perfect, but because I want to know what it's really like once the sales pitch has finished. Photographs can look amazing, websites can be beautifully designed and social media is often full of highlight reels, but reviews are where real people tell real stories. They’re honest, they're personal and, more often than not, they answer the questions we didn't even realise we were asking.

If you're planning your wedding, you've probably already imagined the photographs you'll treasure forever. Perhaps it's walking back down the aisle as newlyweds, confetti filling the air around you, or that beautiful portrait together as the sun begins to disappear behind the trees. They're the photographs we all expect to love because they're the moments we see on social media, in wedding magazines and on venue websites.

They're important, of course, and I make sure every couple has those photographs. But after photographing weddings across North Yorkshire, the North East and beyond for more than seventeen years, I've realised something that genuinely surprised me.