What Pride Month can teach us about modern weddings
Modern weddings are becoming less about tradition and more about personality - and honestly, that’s made them far better. With Pride Month around the corner, here’s why the best weddings are usually the ones that feel genuinely true to the couple at the centre of them.
June is almost here, which means wedding season is properly underway again. Venues are filling up, suit jackets are being reluctantly tried on, and somewhere there’s already a best man insisting he’s “definitely got time” to write his speech.
June is also Pride Month, and it feels like a good moment to talk about something that has genuinely changed weddings for the better over the last few years.
Weddings have become far more personal.
For a long time, weddings often felt like they came with a fixed set of rules. There was a “right” way to do things. Certain traditions were expected, timelines were rigid, and a lot of couples ended up planning weddings that looked great on paper but didn’t necessarily feel much like them once the day actually arrived.
That’s shifted massively now, and I honestly think LGBTQ+ couples have played a big part in that change.
One of the nicest things about photographing modern weddings is seeing couples feel far more comfortable questioning traditions instead of blindly following them. Rather than asking “What are we supposed to do?”, people are increasingly asking “What actually feels right for us?”
That mindset changes everything.
It creates weddings that feel more relaxed, more emotional and far more memorable because people stop performing and start enjoying themselves properly. Some couples keep lots of traditions. Others throw most of them out completely. Both approaches work brilliantly when the wedding still feels true to the people at the centre of it.
I’ve photographed weddings with formal receiving lines and weddings where guests were drinking cocktails in the garden before the ceremony had even started. I’ve seen couples walk down the aisle together, skip speeches entirely, replace formal dinners with street food vans, and turn wedding receptions into what basically felt like brilliant house parties with better outfits.
And honestly? The common thread in the weddings people talk about for years afterwards is rarely whether every tradition was followed perfectly.
It’s whether the day felt genuine.
That’s especially true when it comes to photography. The best photographs nearly always happen when people feel comfortable enough to be themselves. When couples stop worrying about looking “correct” and focus more on being present with each other, the atmosphere changes completely. Guests relax more. People laugh properly. Emotional moments happen naturally instead of feeling staged.
Those are the moments that matter.
Pride Month feels like a good reminder that there has never been one single version of love, and there definitely isn’t one perfect template for a wedding either. The best weddings now are often the ones that reflect the couple’s personalities rather than somebody else’s expectations.
Some are elegant and traditional. Some are loud and chaotic. Some involve sunglasses, dogs in bow ties and questionable dance moves by 8:30pm. All of them can be brilliant.
The important bit is that the day feels like yours.
And from a photography point of view, that’s always where the magic is anyway.
If you’re planning a wedding that feels relaxed, personal and genuinely like the two of you, I’d love to hear all about it.
Sue & Toni
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