The moment that the bride is in her wedding dress, make up done looking the most beautiful she has ever looked, ready to go to the church and her father walks into the room and sees her for the first time is very special indeed and a moment I am honoured to witness.  After everything the bride is still ‘daddy’s little girl’ and it’s a moment that literally any reaction can happen. Sometimes its a fairly unemotional reaction from dad on the surface to all but those close to the him, the man who never drops his guard and shows his true feelings in public, you might notice the slight moistening of the eyes, if you look very closely, despite a strong stoic expression on the surface and a quip “you scrub up alright love!” (even though his heart is bursting out of his chest with pride. The other end of the scale is a father weeping uncontrollably, unexpectedly to himself, unashamed at the sight of his little girl all grown up. One minute he was getting her ready for her first day at school the next he was about to give her away to some other bloke (grrrrrrrrr!) and wondering “how did that happen?” and “when did the last 30 years go?”

My documentary wedding photography style has often been described by other photographers as capturing real emotions and expressions, I guess I probably agree with this, certainly most of my award-winning images have ‘touched’ the judges in some way or invoked an emotional reaction.

The image here is one of those images from a beautiful 2014 wedding in Oxfordshire at Dovecote Barn. The bride was of Spanish descent and her Spanish father came into the room and just hugged his daughter and you could literally feel the love and emotion in the room, a very, very, very special moment indeed for all that were in the room and one that needs no more words from me the image speaks for itself………documentary wedding photography at it’s most emotional.