Meet Helen Williams, Cheshire wedding photographer
The nutter
behind the lens.
Ex-drama teacher. Loud. Ginger. Fifteen years and 650 weddings in, and I still get the giddy shakes when a dancefloor properly goes off.
I’m Helen. I’m a lot.
Super energetic, disco dancing, tea drinking, doggy loving (calm your dirty mind, I’m talking about actual dogs), pizza munching, photo bombing, car singing, prosecco guzzling, weight lifting, Welsh and proud, limbo champion, cartwheeling extraordinaire. Who happens to spend her days taking pretty pictures.
Things I hate: spiders, wooden forks, and the cardboard straws that have appeared everywhere to save the planet. They stick to my lips and they feel wrong. Also people who take themselves too seriously.
I am also completely terrified of having my own photo taken. Genuinely hate it. Which is probably why I’m so good at making you forget I’m there.
How a drama teacher ended up here
I’m not going to give you the usual guff about always having a camera in my hand, or some misty story about discovering my passion. There is a story. It’s just not going to move you to tears.
Picture me at 22. Degree in Drama, PGCE freshly passed, fully qualified to go and inspire the young people of Britain. Brilliant.
Fast forward a few years. Scowl lines arriving, tea to wine ratio evening out nicely, hair starting to fall out with the stress. Teaching kids was the good bit. The paperwork and the daily rule changes from Westminster were the bit that finished me off. I needed somewhere else to put my energy.
So in 2009 I took myself off to a night class with a fancy camera and absolutely no idea what I was doing. My Timehop reminds me once a year that after one lesson I announced I was going to be an epic award winning photographer. I have seen those early pictures. I was shit. What I did have was a stubborn streak and a very strong desire to stop marking books.
December 2014. I walked out of the school gates, probably flipping the bird, and never went back.
That was the moment “she believed she could, so she did” finally landed for me. The end.
Why I won’t stage your wedding
There’s a look going round at the minute. Muted, moody, everyone stood very still, all a bit Vogue. It makes a lovely grid. It just isn’t what a wedding actually is.
Here’s my problem with it. To get those pictures you have to keep stopping the day and arranging people. Every time you do that, you lose whatever was about to happen on its own. And whatever was about to happen on its own is almost always the better picture.
The other thing worth knowing: an enormous chunk of the work you see in that style was never a wedding at all. It was a styled shoot. Hired models, a free afternoon, perfect light, and nobody’s nan quietly sobbing in row three. It’s a mood board. It isn’t a day.
So I don’t do it. I turn up, I stay out of the way, and I photograph what actually happens. The vows. The speech that goes off script. Your dad’s face. The dancefloor at half eleven when everyone has stopped caring what they look like. Proper light, sharp pictures, colour that looks like the day felt.
You’ll still get the two of you looking ridiculously good. I’ll just borrow you for twenty minutes and give you straight back to your people.
No styled shoots.
I teach this stuff as well
Weddings are half of what I do. The other half is teaching other photographers.
Neil and I run Flash Masters, an education community for photographers who want to get properly good with flash. I run workshops, I mentor a small handful of photographers through their businesses each year, and I speak at conferences here and abroad.
Why does any of that matter if you’re getting married? Because it means the technical side isn’t something I’m quietly hoping goes well on your day. It’s the thing other photographers pay me to teach them. Dark barn in November. Chucking it down at 4pm. A reception room lit like a chip shop. All fine. That’s a Tuesday.
What I’m like on the day
I take twelve weddings a year. That’s a deliberate choice, not a humble brag. It means I’m not knackered, I’m not answering your emails in between four other couples, and you get all of me rather than the last third of me.
On the day I work fast and I bring a lot of noise. I’m your hype woman and your problem solver. I’m the one shifting your uncle out of the aisle, tracking down the missing bridesmaid, and telling your nan she looks incredible.
Rain. A timeline that has completely collapsed. A barn with no windows. A best man who peaked at 2pm. All fine, and none of it new. After 650 weddings there isn’t much left that can surprise me, which means you never have to watch your photographer panic.
My actual job on your wedding day is to make sure you have a brilliant time. The photographs come out of that. They always have.
“Helen was bubbly, hilarious, mad as a hatter, full of energy, and a fantastic person to have around you. All our guests commented on how much they loved her. And when it comes to the photos, wow.”
“We didn’t even notice her during the ceremony itself, but somehow she captured every joyous moment in exquisite detail, from getting ready until the last dances of the night.”
“Helen is honest and open, quick to praise and equally quick to give constructive criticism where it’s needed. The last 12 months really have been a game changer for me.”
Still here? Go on then.
Send me the date, the venue, and who’s going to be first on the dancefloor. I take twelve weddings a year and I’d love yours to be one of them. Based in Cheshire, shooting across the North West, the UK and anywhere you’ll have me.