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Your wedding day is one of the most memorable days in your life time and photographs are imperative to have as a long lasting legacy of such an important moment. For some couples the wedding day is where they want to capture all those memories, and for other couples having the chance to get back into their wedding outfits and have some special portraits done together without the stress of taking time away from friends and family is their preferred choice. It’s more intimate and calming and the pictures are perfect for framed wall art.

So I was thrilled to have the chance to take some special portraits for Tyrone and his bride Viwe, images that can be shared with Viwe’s family back home in South Africa who were unable to fly over to the UK but were able to watch the ceremony online.

While I love the trend for documentary wedding photography- and actually it’s my preferred option too for a wedding day, there’s nothing quite like having special portraits done to elevate the occasion and to have something that lasts longer and is more impactful from such a great occasion.

My portrait “Lockdown Wedding” not only made it into the Historic England archives, but it was also selected as one of 100 portraits out of 31,000 to represent the UK during lockdown. Spearheaded by the Duchess of Cambridge, I think this is one of the biggest accolade’s to have come out of Lockdown for me and it certainly gave me the much needed boost to fulfil my dreams of becoming a portrait photographer.

A panel of judges including the Director of the National Portrait Gallery and the Duchess of Cambridge, selected the final 100 portraits which were also shown to Her Majesty The Queen, and went on to make up a digital portrait exhibition for The National Portrait Gallery.

In collaboration with Co-op, there has also been a community exhibition. The images have been displayed around the United Kingdom on posters and billboards up and down the country, including the hometowns of where the images were taken. My image has been displayed in Camden, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, London Waterloo and of course Bishop’s Stortford! A physical digital exhibition also took place in the grounds of the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.

A poster has kindly been created for me which I will be framing and hanging up with pride in the studio!

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During Lockdown, Historic England asked people to submit images that represented their experience. I submitted an image that I felt represented many people during this period- those that had to miss out on their weddings altogether.

While there are still restrictions in place on weddings currently, back in March the official Lockdown meant all planned weddings were cancelled. That included our own plans to get married in Crete.

The picture I took was taken on the day we would have been getting married. Although we were confined to our home, we celebrated in the best way we could. We got out of our pyjamas, we dressed up for the occasion and we drunk champagne while enjoying the beautiful heatwave that the UK was experiencing. In fact on the day, the weather in the UK was warmer than it would have been in Crete!

This was the first time the public had been called upon since World War II to submit photographs to represent a certain time period and it was a proud moment to know that my image was one of the 100 public submissions that made it into the archives at Historic England out of 3000.

The image made it into a lot of British media as well and it was lovely to see the picture being enjoyed by so many.