What the World Needs Now is LOVE - Mikele & Polina - A Manchester Art Gallery Micro-Wedding

Maybe it’s the sudden onslaught of treacly Christmas movies - maybe it’s a year not spent wrapping myself in love stories - maybe I’m just an emotional smushy goofball and getting worse as I rapidly approach 40 but yesterday’s glorious, opulant, dramatic wedding turned me into a kid in a candy shoppe and I absorbed all of that dreaminess I’ve been missing like a sponge. Mikele & Polina are the most beautiful love story and their wedding venue, the ICONIC Manchester Art Gallery provided a most fitting backdrop. But let’s go back a second.

I just took a peek and realised that I hadn’t blogged since October. It’s not for lack of thoughts - heavens knows I’m never short on those! But after experiencing a year of inital panic, then slow-burning fear, acceptance for what I cannot change or control and then a wild settling that resembled contededness as I deep-dived into bread-making and house painting and (most atypically) exercising and being a full-time all-in housewife and mama, I’ve just not felt it necessary to update my couples and clients with the slightly boring musings of an out-of-work wedding photographer. I’ve kept in contact with my current couples, kept the creative gears turning with other projects and some seriously fun family shoots and commercial work but whilst I’ve missed my work so so much (honestly, I CRAVE shooting weddings like a junkie - or at least a very twitchy coffee addict), I’ve always known that the weddings would return, that the world still spins and above all, LOVE IS NOT CANCELLED.

So I’ve just waited. I’ve advised, I’ve supported, I’ve made suggestions and sure enough, the weddings are beginning to return and with them a fire in my belly and a thirst for long days and thinking on my feet and sourcing light and seeking out new and exciting frames. And yesterday Mikele & Polina and their big beautiful love felt like the beginning of something new and wonderful and inspiring. Because weddings are evolving, as they must. But the love is exactly the same.

These two beautiful humans said their vows in an empty museum with just their 13 guests to witness and hundreds (thousands?) of years of extraordinary artworks. The sculptures held their breath as Polina made her entrance in the most astonishing red tulle confection of a wedding dress, the portraits nodded in approval at dapper Mikele in his velvet Regency-inspired suit and as they said their vows, all was right. With styling and on-the-day support from my main gal Kate at Florence & Vera Events, a stunning bouquet and buttonhole from Ali at Diddibox and a truly spectacular venue run to perfection by the lovely Victoria, yesterday was an exceptional way to usher in a brave new world of weddings and with them, a whole host of possibility. I cannot thank Mikele & Polina for sticking with me throughout this wild year and for being utter muses on the day.

What you’ve been waiting for, here’s a sneak peek of what we got up to…