2020 Weddings - my year in review

A selection of some of my favorite wedding photos from the year…

So 2020 eh? Who could have seen that one coming?

The Hong Kong protests, Australian wild fires, Brexit, Covid-19, George Floyd & the BLM protests and lets not forget the famous murder hornets… It was a weird and pretty terrifying way to start off the decade. But, i it’s too easy to lose any of the positive things that also happened in 2020. As well as being given Tiger King, we also saw the people of the US turn out in record numbers to vote, we saw the scientific community come together to work on a global vaccination programme at record breaking speed. and we got to witness huge progress around the world for LGBT rights . Funnily enough, 2020 was also actually a really good year for space exploration.

On a personal level, the highlight of my year was welcoming in a healthy and happy little brother for Max. Josh was born on the 21st November and has been the perfect little housemate for myself, Annie & Max to share this phase of lockdown with :)

And then there was the wedding photography…

I consider myself one of the lucky Irish Wedding photographers who not only got to cover some ‘normal’ weddings earlier on in the year but also that I got to experience quite a few of the ‘Covid-19’ Weddings. From speaking to couples who got married in the various stages of lockdown this year, the commonality in their feedback was “I’ve no idea how this all would have worked with 150 wedding guests”. The smaller and more intimate weddings are just that… more intimate. Every single guest who was present at these weddings was hugely important to the bride and groom and from the guests perspective, they felt privileged to be in that close family circle. The result was really emotionally charged days where everyone was there to celebrate the love and energy of the newly married couple. These made for some really special events for a documentary wedding photographer to get to witness.

On an entirely personal level, I think that lavish, 300 person weddings with eight tiered wedding cakes, fanfare & grandiosity are probably slipping out of fashion a little bit and I think that that’s probably a good thing.

I feel like I have taken better photos this year than ever before and ironically this year I’ve won more awards for my wedding photography that in any previous year. In a year where I took about 30% of the photos I took last year, I somehow still placed 2nd for Irish Documentary wedding Photographer of the year & was a finalist for Irish Creative Wedding Photographer of the Year with the IPPVA. I’m ranked in the Top 10 in Ireland for This is Reportage, I’m currently ranked in the Top 20 the Europe with the Wedding Photojournalists Association WPJA) but the biggest accolade of the year was me finishing with a Top 25 badge with the WPJA in the world.

Obviously, like most everyone else, I’m happy to see the back of 2020 and be starting off a fresh year which is already shaping up to be a great year (if, for no other reason, that baby Josh is actually starting to sleep a little) but meanwhile, below is a selection of some of my favorite wedding images from 2020 and above is a pumped up video version of the same.