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.

One of the questions every wedding photographer gets sooner or later is, “When will our photographs be ready?”

And honestly, I completely understand it.

You've spent months, sometimes years, planning your wedding. The day itself seems to disappear in about five minutes, I've seen a few preview photographs on social media and suddenly you want to see everything else. I would be exactly the same. Once you've had that little glimpse of your wedding photographs, waiting for the rest probably feels even longer.

But something I've realised over the years is that most couples understandably have absolutely no idea what happens at my end once their wedding is over.

From your side, I've photographed your wedding, I've gone to the office and now I'm editing it. It sounds pretty straightforward.

Unfortunately, it isn't quite like that.

Your wedding doesn't finish when I put the cameras away

Photographing the actual wedding is only one part of the job

One of the decisions couples make fairly early when planning a wedding is where they're actually going to get married. For some, there isn't really a decision at all. They've always imagined walking down the aisle of a church. For others, having the ceremony and reception at the same hotel or wedding venue makes far more sense.

Having photographed weddings across North Yorkshire, Teesside and the North East for many years, I've covered plenty of both, and although the end result is exactly the same — two people getting married — the way the wedding day unfolds can feel surprisingly different.