Skip to content A short list, kept deliberately short. These are the ones I hand over the name of without thinking twice.
I get asked for recommendations most weeks, usually in the same breath as the booking. This is my answer, and it is worth saying what it is not: it is not everyone who has ever worked a wedding alongside me. Those people are credited on the wedding itself, and you will find them on the individual venue pages.
This list is shorter than that, on purpose. Everyone here is on it for one of three reasons:
One thing worth knowing about how suppliers fit together: the day runs on other people's timings, not mine. A florist who arrives late costs you your ceremony room shot. A DJ who cannot read a room costs you the last hour. Booking well here buys you more than the thing you are buying.
An Interflora shop on the high street in Pontefract rather than a wedding-only studio, which means weddings, funerals and everything between — and a team who do this every single day of the year. 4.8 across 177 Google reviews.
One of the florists I work with again and again at Darrington Golf Club.
michellesflowersltd.co.ukRustic and romantic with the wild left in, as the name promises — hooked on texture, scent and colour rather than symmetry. They run workshops through the year as well, so you can go and make something yourself.
They did the flowers at Walworth Castle.
wildfloral.co.ukLynnie's studio, with a team of floral designers making bouquets and buttonholes every week of the year rather than seasonally. They work without floral foam and source a good deal of what they use from local growers, which is rarer than it should be.
stemsdesign.co.ukCheryl has been making cakes under her own name since 2015, working out of Huddersfield and covering Yorkshire. Sugar flowers and clean finishes are the signature, and she does rustic as readily as she does formal.
cherylbottomleycakes.co.ukFood and the bar from the same people, which removes an entire conversation from your planning. Menus built round what you actually want, cocktails made properly, and they cover Yorkshire and the North East.
They fed Chris and Lucy's wedding at Hornington Manor.
theoutsidekitchen.co.ukMarc's outfit, built around tailoring each event individually rather than running a fixed menu. Private dining and home cookery classes as well as functions.
They covered the marquee wedding at Newton Kyme, where they also supplied the singing waitresses.
gallopinggourmetmm.co.ukGoing since 2013, and structured around event managers as well as chefs — which matters more than the menu on a marquee wedding, where somebody has to actually run the room. Everything made in-house.
They catered the marquee at Skipbridge, the one that finished with a first dance under open sky.
homegrownhospitality.co.ukHair and make-up from one person, leading a team when the party is big enough to need one, and she travels for destination weddings. Soft, natural finishes rather than heavy work — which photographs the way you actually look.
She did Joseph and Charlotte's wedding at Goldsborough Hall.
chryschapman.comAward-winning, full-time, working from a home salon in Hemsworth and taking bridal bookings into 2027. She also does one-to-one lessons if you would rather do your own on the day and want to be taught properly first.
She did the make-up for Emily and Myles at Woodstock.
@emilyhartleymuaYorkshire-based, covering bridal, evening and prom. A smaller diary than most on this list, which is worth knowing both ways — harder to get, easier to get properly looked after.
@zoeadelemuaThe longest section here, and not by accident. Music decides whether the last two hours of your wedding are the bit everybody remembers or the bit where people start looking for their coats.
Fifteen years in, a thousand-plus weddings, and over 400 five-star reviews. He does acoustic and DJ as one package, which is the setup I would pick if I were booking — one person, one sound system, no handover at nine o'clock.
His acoustic set is what Skipbridge's first dance happened to, out under an open sky.
michaelmulhollandacoustic.comAcoustic guitarist and DJ with 250 five-star reviews, working across Yorkshire and well beyond it. Quiet instrumental at one end of the range and a full dancefloor at the other.
One of my two favourite musicians to work with, and Scarlett Dickinson is the other. At Holmfirth Vineyard he took the evening on with his acoustic loop pedal and kept the dancefloor packed all night.
matthewstephens.netSoulful jazz readings of songs you already know, which is the trick that makes a drinks reception feel considered rather than background. 5.0 across 56 reviews, and she works Yorkshire, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Lancashire and London.
My other favourite musician to work with. At Holmfirth Vineyard she carried the whole daytime, and the weather outside was doing its worst.
scarlettdickinson.co.ukA professional choirboy at eleven, a music degree after that, then residencies in Rome, Nice and Barcelona. What he does now is get a room dancing — his own description is showman, and the reviews back it up.
Listen on EncoreWill, Chris and Charlie — an acoustic three-piece rather than the usual duo, which gives them somewhere to go when the room lifts. Good for a drinks reception that needs to turn into a party without a gear change.
grumpah.comAndrew's outfit, solo or as a duo, and voted best solo and duo acoustic act in the UK in 2022. Fourteen years and more than 800 weddings, with packages that run from the ceremony through to the evening.
24-live.co.ukBecky and Luke, out of Wakefield, and the name is the brief: motown, soul, northern soul, indie and the good end of everything from the fifties on. For couples who have strong opinions about music and do not want the standard playlist.
notyouraverageentertainment.comThey work the wedding breakfast as staff and then stop serving and start singing. The photographs you get from it are of faces rather than of a performance, which is the entire point.
They did Emily and Myles's wedding at Woodstock.
theundercoverwaiters.co.ukEight instruments and no subtlety about it. They are mobile, which is the useful part — a brass band that can walk is a band that can be anywhere on the day rather than stuck on a stage.
At Chris and Lucy's, they were the first people through the door of Hornington Manor and led the couple down the guard of honour. Later they played on the lawn during the games.
backchatbrass.comPhotography and film are the only two things you take home. I work alongside videographers constantly, and the ones below are the ones who make the day easier rather than harder — for you, and for me.
Marta, filming quietly and staging nothing. Her own line for it is an extra guest who is present for everything and never in the way, and that is exactly how it feels to work next to her.
She filmed Bethany and Lewis's autumn wedding at Villa Farm.
blossomweddingfilms.co.ukWakefield-based, covering Yorkshire, with a range of packages rather than one fixed offer. Discreet on the day, which is the quality that matters most in someone sharing your aisle.
He filmed Ryan and Sophie at The Bridge Hotel & Spa.
adamdoesweddings.co.ukTwenty years of it, out of North Yorkshire, covering Leeds, Harrogate, York, the coast and the Lakes. Cinematic without being fussy about it.
He filmed at Sneaton Castle in Whitby.
weddingvid.co.ukAllan and Maggie, a husband-and-wife team, so you get both of them rather than a subcontractor. Award-winning, natural, and they travel nationally.
They filmed Sneaton Castle alongside me.
strikeaposeweddingmovies.co.ukAdam, working across the UK and on destination weddings, relaxed and unobtrusive on the day. Film and photography both, though you already have the second half of that sorted.
He filmed Tom and Bex's wedding at their coach house outside Tadcaster.
deliriousweddings.comMulti-award-winning, based in the North East, delivering cinematic films built to be watched more than once.
jollyfilms.co.ukSara and Tony, husband and wife, with one all-inclusive package and no clock on it — no set start, no set finish. Two videographers, always the two of them, never outsourced.
marrymefilms.co.ukTori Evans-Fisher, out of Leeds — balloon installations, neon signs, four-foot light-up numbers and sequin walls, by appointment. Her work has been in OK Magazine.
She styled Hatfeild Hall. The floral arch framing the ceremony was my favourite thing they did: it gives the room a focal point, and it gives me something to shoot the vows through.
@occasionsbytoriCheryl's outfit, working across Leeds, Huddersfield, Bradford and the West Yorkshire venues. Chair and table décor, ceremony styling, light-up letters — the full room rather than one corner of it.
She knows Holmfirth Vineyard inside out and is virtually the resident expert there. On the day I shot in the rain, the room she had styled was immaculate regardless of what was happening outside.
pinkblossomweddings.co.ukTipis, sailcloth marquees and stretch tents, put up more or less anywhere — a field, a garden, a bit of land belonging to somebody in the family. If you want a wedding somewhere that is not a wedding venue, this is where that starts.
garden-weddings.co.ukCorrina, in Holmfirth. Save the dates through to on-the-day signage, and hand-drawn illustrations of your venue — which is the thing people frame afterwards, and the one piece of your stationery that outlives the day.
withlovefromx.comA different job from mine and not a substitute for it. They shoot vertical video on a phone through the day and hand it to you that night, while your gallery is still being edited properly.
Jess, going since 2023, describing the role as your extra bridesmaid — which is accurate, because the job is half filming and half being in the room with you.
She covered Emily and Myles at Woodstock.
@bridesmaidbabeNorth East based, taking bookings into 2027. Same-day social content from the parts of the day you would otherwise only see months later.
@rr_content_A 360 booth covering Huddersfield and West Yorkshire. It goes down well late, once the formal part of the night is behind everybody and people have stopped being self-conscious.
JG 360 on FacebookStefan, a member of the Northern Guild of Toastmasters. The value of a toastmaster is not the red coat, it is that somebody other than you is holding the running order — and everybody, including your photographer, knows what happens next.
thetalltoastmaster.co.ukA planner rather than a co-ordinator, which is a different job: she is involved long before the day, and by the time it arrives she is the person who knows where everything is.
She planned the private marquee wedding I photographed on family land — the hardest kind of wedding to run, because a field has no staff, no kitchen and no plan B. It ran like a venue.
Ask me for an introduction