2017 has been a rather busy one for Nick Church Photography, and I have loved every amazing, emotional, stressful and hilarious minute of it!

Twelve months ago, as we entered 2017, I would lying if I said I had a masterplan and knew what the year held in store. With an accelerating 2015 and 2016 behind me, 2017 weddings came flooding in and I soon found myself on an unstoppable, exciting ride to a destination that was unknown. What I did know was that this journey somehow felt totally ‘right’ and, unlike the time I proclaimed mini-disk as the future of music, this gut-instinct was spot-on.

I have worked with amazing couples, and it has been a genuine privilege to provide photography for their wedding day. I am thrilled with the positive feedback I have received from them, and I am delighted to have repaid the faith couples take when selecting a photographer for one of life’s most important events. I love meeting and working with people that are different in so many ways, all with unique stories bringing them to where we sit discussing their wedding. Sometimes they are childhood sweethearts, sometimes they are second time around and in some cases both! But what they all share is that they are planning a public, loving commitment to each other and there are few better places to be than letting my clients talk excitedly about their wedding day as I scribble down everything trying to catch it all.

I have also met some generous, collaborative and inspiring professionals that all care about their craft as much as I do. I am proud to be working in a field that has such creativity and openness running through it.

Other highlights for me was to be featured in Professional Photo magazine both as ‘Rising Star’ and through subsequent articles and interviews. Lately I have even been contributing my own articles as a guest-writer which is hugely exciting; I love to write and it’s another creative outlet that I’m embracing. I have also written guest blogs for some products that I regard very highly: studio management software/life-savers Light Blue Software and JPEG Mini the experts in visually-lossless compression of JPEG files saving photographers bandwidth and storage all over the world. Finally, shooting England and Leicester RFC Jonny May's wedding was a great experience and made me the envy of all my peers that are (I have to admit) more informed rugby fans than I.

All this has of course meant that I’ve been insanely busy, and the support of Dawn (my partner in crime), family, friends and the kids has been fundamental in allowing 2017 to ‘happen’ for Nick Church Photography.

Selecting my favourite ‘best of’ images for 2017 has been hard, but much fun; so many moments and so many great couples, families and friends. The Nick Church Photography style is to aim for each picture to have a story or a feeling behind it and to present that in a beautiful scene from the wedding day. If I can show all that through a single shot then this is a perfect picture for me. The photos I have selected all have that vision behind them, and there is no coincidence that these are also the shots that I know the couples love.

My view for the road ahead for 2018 is much clearer, with a nearly full year of weddings, both in the UK and overseas, and some emerging plans in the pipeline that I am really excited about. Watch this space…