Love in the time of Coronavirus… Making the best of 2020 amidst the global pandemic and celebrating the ingenuity and tenacity of Covid 19 weddings.

2020 certainly brought some unexpected challenges, we did our best to navigate them for our couples and for our own survival. Covid-19 has affected weddings all over the world with 71% of UK weddings cancelled last year and 2021 currently feeling a similar strain. It has been heartbreaking for some of my couples, some having lost money, venues going out of business and others have lost the chance the have special relatives in attendance. Of course, we need to bear in mind the wider picture, the reason behind these affected couples and realise that measures were needed and large gatherings were simple impossible through most of last year. Perhaps, we can instead look forwards to things returning to some kind of normality? I don’t know about anyone else, but a packed dance floor and the wonderful atmosphere of a great social gathering are something I am craving by this point!

Each year, I make a slideshow which rounds up the year with some of my favourite images. Usually I would name this something like “The Best of”, but not this year, this year it is a tribute to so many of my amazing clients and couples who have truly MADE THE BEST of 2020!
Some of the couples were on their 7th date change before making it down the aisle, some had their plans changed and their guest numbers halved overnight. You are all bloody amazing and I love your tenacity beyond an expressible amount. It has been a very difficult year for so many of us and a special mention to my own beleaguered industry, it has been a struggle, but with some imaginative promotions and because of my amazing couples I managed to work enough, I was just about busy enough and I am very grateful.

Some areas of the wedding and events industry have been effected more than others, but it has unfortunately had a huge impact across the entire industry and some businesses and venues were unable to survive.

It’s been an adventure, we started with over 50 weddings and finished the year on 16! Some were just a couple of hours, some were just 6 guests, some had mask-laden guests and no confetti allowed. On a couple of occasions, I wasn’t even able to be in the ceremony room for the vows (cue a quick camera lesson to fathers of brides and me throwing my camera at them on guesstimate settings! – and then them nailing it!).

It wasn’t quite ‘the same’, the vast majority of the wedding bookings were cut from whole day, elaborate affairs to just the essential coverage. Instead of having the entire day, the changing light and multiple venues to work across, we had to work quickly to achieve some amazing shots in much a shorter length of time and capturing natural shots with 15 guests is a little more challenging than with 200. So the same opportunities to create those ‘wow’ shots were far harder to come by, especially with social distancing rules needing to be adhered to. Managing these obstacles was a challenge and privilege, a year of work like never before – and hopefully never again!

Here is this years slideshow summary, these guys just kept finding reasons and ways to still get married, reasons to find joy in all of this madness and I got to feel and capture it and that makes me just so damn happy. Keep an eye out for 2020 covid wedding trends; socially distanced group shots, masked guests, live streaming weddings and taped off church pews!

If you want to see what usual year produces, you can see our 2017-2018 and our 2019 slideshows too or see more on our weddings and galleries.

Time will tell what 2021 brings, I am feeling cautiously optimistic. So far, we are looking very busy already, but we still have spaces for 2022, you can get in touch with us here

Here is to a better 2021! – Esmé xx

Thanks, as always to my second shooters and my associate shooter who bossed one of the weddings without me due to me having to quarantine for 14 days! NB: These weddings were conducted throughout 2020, so they took place during various differences in restrictions at the time. All rules were adhered to blah blah blah.…