Disconnected.

I stepped back from work last week to give myself a much-needed break and a chance to rest. I needed it. The past few months have been wild on so many levels and, like many of my self-employed wedding industry colleagues at this time of year, I had started to feel the slow creep of burnout.

A few lovely days of sleep and pottering about gave me the space to reflect on something I’ve been carrying privately for months now. A sense of unease. Discomfort. And I’m not sure why today of all days, but I need to share my feelings out loud.

I’m feeling increasingly disconnected from the world of wedding media. Each time I log on to Instagram, I see a sea of incredible artistry, cutting-edge photography, trends and must-haves. While much of it is inspiring, the sheer volume and noise has become deafening.

The line between inspiration and aspiration has blurred. Content feels less relevant and more unrealistic. On highly curated feeds designed to educate and inspire professional photographers, every couple looks like runway models. And while the artistry is undeniable, the wider wedding media industry has started to feel less like magic and more like a marketing machine.

It is exhausting. I am exhausted. And I know my audience and professional friends feel the same, because they are telling me so.

Image by Raini Rowell

I cannot pretend I am outside of this. I make my living through marketing too. But the gap between how I want to promote the creatives I work with, and how so much of the wedding media world now operates, continues to widen.

I am approaching my sixteenth year of telling love stories through Love My Dress. In that time, I have shared weddings of every kind: big budgets and small, barns and rooftops, designer gowns and charity shop finds. Looking back on the breadth of those stories only strengthens my sense that somewhere along the way, the industry and media scene I am part of has let something incredibly precious slip through its fingers.

I know what some of you may be thinking: girl, you need to adapt. But I’m already tech-savvy. I have my finger on the pulse of this industry, and I love my job deeply. It’s not about struggling to keep up. It’s that I don’t want to play by rules that strip the heart out of my work. Because when I do, the sacred connection between what I feel and what I create is broken. And that’s when the authenticity of my work is lost.

And really, then, what is the point?

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I understand the pressure to be seen through the noise, the constant need to evolve your business to stay relevant and desirable. I understand the pull to look cool, to align with the latest publications, to prove your worth by association. But when I look at the social media landscape, I feel the disconnect. I see the “best” lists and rankings, ways of packaging talent into hierarchies, and I feel uneasy. Creativity cannot be measured like that. Artistry should not be reduced to a competition. It’s intimidating. It feels elitist.

I see photography experts promoting slick, editorial-inspired, highly directed work as the pinnacle of wedding photography. While extraordinarily beautiful, much of it leaves me feeling detached. I find myself yearning for something less calculated, something that speaks to the heart, not to the algorithm. I see headlines like “NOT BORING PHOTOGRAPHS” attached to features of impossibly glamorous venues that most couples could only dream of. It can sometimes feel as though everything is starting to look the same – increasingly, the work risks losing individuality, realness and relevance.

Image by Luis Calow

Wedding photography can absolutely be art. It can be visionary, editorial, creative in ways that inspire and elevate us. But before it is art, it is memory. Its deepest value is not how it looks on a grid, but how it holds the truth of a moment for the people who lived it, and how it invites others to feel something real.

Is wedding photography boring if it isn’t shot at a cool destination? If the couple don’t look like models? If the photographer doesn’t charge a minimum 5-figure sum, or the dress isn’t from a high-end designer? Is wedding photography boring because it is small or DIY based, or because it includes group shots and line shots? The group shots in my own wedding are amongst my absolute fave images – they include everyone I have ever loved – some of whom have now passed on, all together and celebrating joyfully! Somewhere along the way, we’ve been sold the idea that weddings only matter if they carry a certain gloss, that they must perform to be worth our attention. But weddings aren’t marketing campaigns or magazine spreads. They are human and imperfect, made up of the kinds of moments that rarely make it to a feed but mean everything to the people experiencing them.

So when did relevance start to depend on how “cool” a wedding looks, rather than how true and authentic it feels?

Image by danielle vicoria

And here is where I feel the gap widening. What I want to share – stories told through words as much as images, slow reflections, love documented with truth, and raw honesty – does not always sit comfortably with how weddings are now presented online. The social media machine thrives on speed, spectacle and vogue-worthy imagery. But weddings aren’t like that. At least, 99.99% of them aren’t. They unfold naturally, in their own rhythm, held together by people, not performance. They represent meaning, love, togetherness, gathering, celebration, joy, truth. And when everything around us rewards the opposite, I find myself questioning where I belong in this landscape, and how I can stay true to why I began.

Love My Dress was never meant to be part of a machine like this. I have never wanted to build a wedding platform for the masses, but for those who seek connection, heart, humanity and honest storytelling. My purpose has always been simple: to honour stories, to celebrate human connection and human craftsmanship. To stand for love, compassion, empathy. To support the creatives who make up this beautiful but fragile industry. And it is in those values that I want to keep grounding this platform as I evolve Love My Dress with intentionality, passion and authenticity.

So much of the online world tells us that nobody reads anymore. That everything must be shorter, faster, cut to fit the scroll. But I know that isn’t true. Our community tells me time and again how much they value long form stories, the pieces they can sink into, the essays that take their time. Maybe not on Instagram, but Love My Dress was never meant to be Instagram. We are here for readers who want more than a caption, who crave honesty, depth and connection.

Image by Georgina harrison

Some years ago, a friend of mine, Laura, launched the #sharethehonestlove campaign after losing her husband Paul very soon after their wedding. She admitted how easily she had been distracted by what she called “the brilliant marketing machine that is the wedding industry.” After Paul passed away, she realised that the photographs she treasured most were not of the details, but of the unguarded, unposed expressions of love captured on the day.

That has stayed with me. Because in the end, it is the love that endures – the human, unfiltered emotion that cannot be staged or art directed.

Weddings are not meant to be performances. They are not about fulfilling a dream of being featured in Vogue, or even Love My Dress. They are not meant to prove that your creativity can keep up with the next trend cycle. They are not meant to be packaged as art for an audience, at the expense of the people at the centre and the sacredness of the vows being exchanged.

Weddings are meant to be lived. To be felt in the moment. To be remembered through photographs that carry those feelings forward. The images that move me most as an editor, and that couples tell me they cling to, are so often the unposed, unpolished, deeply genuine ones. Perhaps we can all be braver in letting more of that side be seen, because those are the photographs that will still hold their power long after the trend cycles have passed. They serve as a reminder of the true purpose of a wedding: love, connection, humanity. That is what I am here for, and always have been. I never want to forget that.

And I wish Instagram could be a more honest reflection of that. A place not only for polished beauty, but for photographs that breathe with sincerity. Images shown as they are meant to be seen: still, powerful, unhurried, not bent into reels because a platform or algorithm demands it.

This might not be comfortable for everyone, but it feels important to say. I am here to tell the truth as I see it, and to stand for what I believe matters.

Love My Dress will continue to stand apart from the machine. For the stories. For the realness. For the connection. For memories captured in truth and honesty. I am here to celebrate people in all their humanity – not for their status, or celebrity or cool factor, but for their love, their stories and the meaning they bring to their day.

That is why I am here.

That is why I always have been.

Image by  Eclection Photography

I want to end with something helpful for you. You are why I am here. You are why Love My Dress exists. I will always strive to share an honest, thoughtful, authentic, human space. Here is some advice from me to you, I hope it helps.

I know the pressure you are under. I know the noise you are fighting through. I know you need to stay relevant and profitable. I see the beauty you create and the skill you have honed. I feel your passion. I know how much you care. But you, and your work is so much more than content for an algorithm, or proof of perfection that was never the point.

Please don’t ever forget that.