Matt and Lauren had known each other since school. I first photographed them for their engagement shoot, so by the wedding they already knew how I worked. More importantly, they knew I wasn’t going to make them spend half the day posing.
Their wedding at High Grosvenor House started with two very different mornings. Matt was at home with his best man. Lauren was at the venue with six or seven bridesmaids and activity everywhere.
By the evening, March had remembered it was March and the rain arrived properly.
Matt’s morning at home stayed fairly quiet. Lauren’s preparation at High Grosvenor House did not. Six or seven bridesmaids will do that.
They had also exchanged letters and presents. Lauren bought Matt pants. Matt, who works as a welder and engineer, had made her a rose by hand.
The first present he had ever given Lauren was a rose. His letter explained that the last present he gave her with her maiden name would be one too.
That has always stayed with me. Mostly because it was genuinely thoughtful, and partly because it is difficult for a pair of pants to compete with a handcrafted rose.
High Grosvenor House lights an indoor ceremony extremely well. The large windows gave the room soft, even light, probably helped by a March sky doing one useful thing.
It meant I could photograph the ceremony without introducing lights or making a fuss. Sometimes the venue just gives you what you need.
Matt waited at the front, Lauren came in with her dad and they got married. The photographs can handle the rest.
At this point I had only recently bought a drone. I can fly one almost with my eyes closed now. Back then, every flight still felt like a test.
I had never tried photographing confetti from directly above. Matt and Lauren were the first.
It worked far better than I had any right to expect on attempt one, and it became an idea I have kept refining ever since. This photograph is where that particular part of my work started.
We did the family and wedding-party photographs during natural gaps in the drinks reception. There was no need to stop everything and turn it into an hour of people standing in lines.
When High Grosvenor House started seating the guests, Matt and Lauren came for a quick walk around the grounds.
Their engagement shoot helped here. They already knew what I meant when I gave them direction, so we didn’t spend the first ten minutes working out what to do with their hands.
We got what we needed and went back to the wedding. That is normally enough.
Matt and Lauren spent most of them laughing, and plenty of people around the room were doing the same. That bit is still in the photographs.
The speeches do not need reconstructing line by line. The reactions tell it well enough.
The rain photograph was something I had been refining for a while. When it started coming down properly, I asked Matt and Lauren if they were willing to go outside.
Lauren absolutely was.
People normally fall into one of two camps. Some are happy to step into the rain for five minutes. Others categorically do not want their dress, hair or shoes anywhere near it. Both are fair.
If you are getting married in spring, autumn or winter, it is probably worth deciding which person you are before the wedding.
This was the point where everything I had been practising finally came together. The rain was heavy enough, Matt and Lauren trusted me and we were outside for no longer than necessary.
I re-edited the photograph in 2026 and it still holds up. It is the sort of wedding photograph that can hang on a wall for years without feeling like it belonged to a passing trend.
There is normally one person in a relationship who does most of the dancing at the wedding. It is rarely both.
At this one, it was Lauren.
Matt did the first dance. Lauren handled most of the rest, including a few structured dances with the bridesmaids that had clearly existed before I arrived.
They also wanted a sparkler exit. It was still pissing down, so we invited the people who were willing to come outside rather than dragging the whole wedding into the rain.
The weather did at least make it less likely that a drunk guest would set fire to the venue and cost Matt and Lauren their security deposit. Every cloud.
Everything clicked at this wedding. Good people, a relaxed day and a couple who made my job very easy. Exactly my sort of wedding.
It was also one of the last weddings I photographed using two Nikon D850s before moving over to Z8s. That will mean absolutely nothing to most couples, which is fair.
I loved those cameras, though. This wedding sits at the end of a particular chapter for me too.
If you want your photos to feel like your day actually did.
No awkward posing. No staged moments. No turning your wedding into a photoshoot.
Most couples I work with want to spend the day with their people, not disappear for hours taking photographs. So I keep things simple. I document what’s happening, step in when you need me, and get you back to your wedding.
Big country house, registry office or somewhere in between, the job stays the same. Honest photographs of the people, atmosphere and moments that made the day yours.
Years from now, I want the photographs to take you straight back to it.