2020 Wrap-up
2020 eh?
Well it has certainly been a strange year.
As far as inaugural years to go ‘full time’ as a wedding photographer I could certainly have picked some slightly better timing. From almost 30 weddings down to just 5 over the course of a year; its been an odd road with many a lump and bump! But thanks to all our incredible couples we’ve just about rode out the storm of 2020 and we’re cautiously optimistic that 2021 will show us some slightly better times.
For all the doom, gloom, and cancellations/postponements it’s been an incredible learning experience. Watching our couples go ahead with completely altered plans (sometimes within 48 hours of new information) has been nothing short of inspirational. It just goes to show that you don’t need 200 people at your wedding to have an incredible event that speaks to you as a couple. I’m all for big events, but I certainly wouldn’t mind some more of these intimate 15 person dates in the new year!
This blog
Rather than just write about the few weddings we attended this year (amazing as they were) I wanted to write a little about our experiences in the lockdown. How we have tried to keep ourselves sane, offer a little insight into being a wedding photographer in the middle of a global pandemic, try to find the positives in our achievements this year, and to commit to some of our goals for 2021.
The Weddings
Where would any wedding photography year-end blog be without at least a few pictures from weddings shot in the year?!
We started off the year with a huge amount of psyche, because our first wedding of the year was in ANTIGUA!!!! Ellie and Tyler tied the knot in Jolly Harbour - with dancing on the beach, pool antics after midnight, and generally having a great time by the sea.
These two are such beautiful people, and it’s testament to how much we mean it that Abigail is still doing online yoga with Ellie almost a full year on from their wedding - (check her out Thrive with Ellie).
Behold - our only ‘normal’ wedding of 2020!
We stayed in Antigua for the rest of the week, chilling out on the beach, eating lobster, and reading news stories about some strange virus in China that people were starting to get concerned about.
What sweet summer children we were…
We returned to the UK at the start of February, and didn’t shoot another wedding until August!
Since then we’ve been on full logistics mode - moving dates, new contracts, rebranding, and trying to fit in couples shoots around the lockdown restrictions.
Masks, ‘Micro weddings’, and Hand Sanitiser
The rest of this year has been challenging.
The whole wedding industry has taken a hammering with many, many others like myself falling through the government support scheme cracks. We’ve been lucky enough to make it work with the help of our incredible couples - many of whom who have now booked us for two dates rather than one so we can cover their parties in the new year!
Celebrating Our Covid Couples!
Special shout out to all the couples on this list that scrambled their way to a ceremony within 48 hours of a rules change! So many phone calls, registrar chasing, donut buying and more went into making these dates happen and we can’t say it enough - we’re mad impressed at you all!
Lockdown Projects
It’s not all doom and gloom though, all the time spent not shooting has meant that we’ve had time to work on some other projects both inside and outside the house over lockdown - hobbies, home improvement, baking, exercise. We’ve definitely gone through some different phases drifting in and out of activities before finding something new to fill the time with.
Favourites from the year!
Finding ways to fill time has been a chief pursuit of this year, and we’ve gone through Netflix, Steam, NowTV and more. Thinking back through the year has given us some fun memories of the media we’ve consumed - some olden classics, some modern classics, some absolute garbage - but here are some of our favourites.
Series
Haunting of Bly Manor
Avatar the Last Airbender
New Girl
Tiger King - Lockdown classic!
The Mandolorian
Galavant
Games
We don’t often have much time to play games together, but we have this year and it’s been great fun working through some murder mysteries,
The Return of the Obra Dinn (OMG Game of the year!!!)
The Last of Us
RDR2
Among Us
Board Game Arena
and a special shout out to Zoom quizzes (soooo manyyyy)
Films
Shoplifters
The Story of Fire Saga
The Devil all the Time
Marriage Story
A Few Gratuitous Self Portraits
Achievements
We shot weddings!
At the start of this whole thing it seemed unlikely, but we got it done!Almost all of our couples were able to postpone rather than cancel their dates.
We are now listed on both Rock My Wedding and This is Reportage.
We even have a submission due on RMW soon!
We did our first ever styled shoot.
Started climbing again, and ticked off a couple of boulders from the wishlist!
Goals
Shoot more weddings!
Read more books - 12 for the year sounds so few, but we’ve done a horrible job in 2020.
Set up and complete more styled shoots - 3 minimum.
Do a one armed pullup on both arms. (Archie)
Do a Pullup (Abigail)Lose some lockdown weight!
Win some awards
Have some more blog submissions accepted!
Looking forward into 2021
With a new year comes new couples, we’ve knocked out several pre-wedding shoots so far, but there’s still so many to go! There’s a lot to look forward to in the coming year and if everyone can keep safe, look after each other, and stay optimistic it stands to be a wonderful palate cleanser from this dumpster fire of a year!
We’re still taking bookings for 2021 and 2022 now, so drop us a line if you’re getting married or just fancy a shoot somewhere out in the great outdoors!
