Photography by Nimmy

I’m Nimmy, and I’ve photographed weddings and elopements across Northland for around a decade.

Here’s the thing nobody warns you about… a wedding day goes fast! You’ll spend a year, maybe two, thinking about one Saturday, and then that Saturday moves at a speed that catches you off guard, and afterwards you remember it in pieces. The bit where your hands were shaking, someone’s laugh from the back of the room, the moment you finally sat down and realised you were starving. My job is to hold onto everything in between, so that when it’s over you get all of it back.

THE PHOTOS YOU’LL ACTUALLY KEEP

The ones that matter are rarely the ones where everybody is looking at the camera. They’re your mum’s face during the vows, your best mate going quiet for a second because they didn’t expect to feel like that, the friend who fixes your dress without being asked and disappears again before anyone notices, your nan being walked to her seat by someone who loves her. That’s what I’m watching for all day, usually from the edge of the room with a long lens and enough patience to wait for it, because the best photographs from any wedding are of people who have forgotten there’s a photographer there at all. Most of what I’m doing is waiting for exactly that.

I’ll still get the group shots done, and I’ll get them done quickly and smoothly, because your grandparents deserve a photo with you and nobody deserves forty minutes standing on wet grass while a list is read out.

A SMOOTHER DAY, NOT A LONGER ONE

Most couples are surprised by how much of this job happens before the day and nowhere near a camera. We’ll go through your timeline together beforehand and I’ll tell you honestly where it’s too tight, where the light will be at its best, and how much time you need between the ceremony and the first drink so that nobody spends the afternoon running. Getting that right is the single biggest difference between a day that feels rushed and one that feels like it belongs to you, and it costs you nothing except a conversation.

On the day itself I arrive early and work out how things are really running, because a run sheet and a wedding are rarely still the same document by mid afternoon. If the ceremony slips half an hour, I’ve already adjusted around it. If the rain comes in, I know where we’re going instead, because we would have looked at that option long before. Northland weather has strong opinions and I’ve worked around most of them by now, so a grey forecast becomes a change of plan rather than a crisis in your inbox at 6am.

You also won’t need to manage me, chase me, or wonder where I’ve got to. I’ll introduce myself to your celebrant and your venue, we’ll have sorted the group photo list together in advance, and if people need gently rounding up for those I’ll do the rounding up rather than handing that job to your bridesmaids. For bigger days, or when the two of you are getting ready in different places, one of my photographers comes with me so that nothing is missed while I’m across town.

ELOPEMENTS AND SMALL WEDDINGS

Some of the best days I’ve photographed have been the small ones. If you want to stand on a beach with a celebrant and two witnesses and then go and eat somewhere good, that is a real wedding and I’ll photograph it like one, with the same planning behind it and none of the sense that you’re doing a lesser version of the proper thing. It’s usually the opposite, fewer people, and far more room to actually feel it.

AFTER THE DAY

You’ll get an online gallery you can download from and share with your family. I’ll tell you upfront when to expect it and you won’t be left wondering, because waiting months in silence for your own wedding photos is its own particular kind of awful and I’m not going to do that to you.

NORTHLAND, SPECIFICALLY

I’m based in Whangārei and I work right across the region, from Waipū, Mangawhai and Matakana up through the Tutukākā Coast, Whangārei Heads and Ocean Beach to Kerikeri and the Bay of Islands, and I travel further around New Zealand as well. Knowing the region matters more than it sounds like it should. It means I know which beaches lose their light early, where you can pull over for ten minutes on the way to your reception and come back with something worth hanging on a wall, and how long the drive from a Bay of Islands ceremony to a Kerikeri venue actually takes on a Saturday in January rather than what the map optimistically claims.

The rest of my year is portraits, headshots, commercial, product and property work, which is a large part of why I’m useful on a wedding day. Tight schedules, light that keeps changing and rooms full of people who would rather not be photographed are all just ordinary working conditions for me.

FREE PLANNING HELP, WHETHER YOU BOOK ME OR NOT

There are free wedding planning guides on my website, written specifically for Northland couples, covering what to wear, how to build a timeline that doesn’t collapse by three in the afternoon, and what to do when the forecast turns on you. They’re genuinely free and there’s no catch to them, so please use them even if you end up booking someone else entirely.

IF YOU’RE STILL LOOKING

Send me your date and tell me a bit about what you’re planning, even just the rough shape of it. I’ll come back to you quickly with availability and some honest advice, and if I’m already booked that day I’ll happily point you towards someone good too.