Kate McCarthy Photography

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Kate McCarthy Photography

Natural, relaxed fine-art wedding photography based in Manchester & Cheshire

11/12/2025

Choosing a photographer isn’t just about who has the prettiest photos — it’s about who FITS your day. All love stories deserve to be told by someone who you know has your back.

Here are the Qs I recommend couples ask:
1. What’s your approach to posing? We’re super awkward in front of the camera, how can we change that for the day?
2. How do you handle bad weather? (North west of England etc etc)
3. How long until we receive photos?
4. Can we see a full gallery?
5. What’s your backup plan if you get ill?

Want my answers? Comment “LIST” and I’ll DM you.

08/12/2025

Chosen Family … because who better to spend your wedding day with than the people who know you best - who have been there from the beginning, your secret keepers and biggest cheerleaders. The ones you can moan to about your actual family and who love you because of your imperfections not in spite of them. Choose your squad well and you will have the BEST day ever.

07/12/2025

Confetti I mean, obviously.

06/12/2025

Rituals…

There’s an ongoing debate in wedding photographer circles about guests taking pictures on the day. Who is prioritised in those moments, whose camera looms largest, who gets to is entitled to capturing that moment.

But I don’t actually think there’s any reason debate to be honest. Because with the ritual and tradition of a wedding day comes the timeless moment when you stop and smile for ALL the cameras, not just the hired one.

So why not build it into the day?? A new ritual, just 1 minute when I put my lens down and your guests lift theirs up? So I can preserve the solemnity of the vows, the silence as you walk down the aisle to your beloved and your guests sit in those moments: present, through their eyes not their phones, knowing their moment will come too and be welcomed not admonished.

What do we think?

03/12/2025

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I made the terrifying decision to not return to my admin job when my maternity leave was up and instead throw all my eggs in the wedding photography basket.

It was an act of bravery that I’m not certain I’ll ever replicate - it may even have been a little unhinged. But with the full and unwavering support of my amazing husband, with a teeny tiny Hadley often strapped to my chest, Kate McCarthy Photography grew.

And grew..
And grew…

And nearly 11 years later, that wildly impulsive pregnant-brain decision has taken a life of its own and become the career of my damn dreams.

My tiny queen, my Hadley Pearl is both the inspiration and motivation for absolutely everything I do in this business.

Kate McCarthy Photography has also given me SO much: the space and freedom to be a mum at home with her baby as long as I wanted to be - travel to extraordinary places capturing beautiful love stories - an office shared with my dreamboat of a husband - creative expression and mining depths of my own humanity I never knew existed.

But at the end of it all, here is where it begins - this tiny, ferocious, clever, hilarious, exquisite queen who set me on a path to become the human I always dreamt of becoming.

01/12/2025

Let me tell you clearly, directly, and without any ambiguity who exactly you are hiring and what Kate McCarthy Photography stands for:

I am a photographer who only wants to capture you authentically, without agenda, ego or stiff posing - your wedding photos are about YOU not me.

I celebrate ALL love stories

I will elbow my way right into the middle of a heaving dance floor and not filter out the unbridled joy letting loose

But you won’t notice me unless I really want you to. Those quiet moments are just for you to lean into (I’m super sneaky)

Some moments in time are so breathtakingly fleeting, if you’ll have me for the ephemera, I’ll witness it with you

I want your wedding gallery to transport you back to exactly how all of these beautiful, magical moments felt. I’m not creating content, I’m preserving memories.

Above all, forever, I’m your Time Machine.

, let’s do this.

27/11/2025

SO. THANKFUL. Today is Thanksgiving in America and usually I’d be deep in my feelings, missing my family and preparing a quiet feast for the three of us ahead of Sunday’s larger gathering. But instead I’m impatiently waiting for my sweet tiny king nephew to wake up so we can go to the train museum and wander the Christmas markets with my sister and her husband before Hadley & Michael meet us for festive Manchester merriment. I am absolutely in the thick of family time, soaking it all in after a truly spectacular year of celebrating 4 decades on this beautifully imperfect planet. Because this is, above all, the most important: that we love fiercely & without condition. I am so very breathtakingly thankful for this extraordinary community, my amazing family spanning across the globe, and for the two at home that keep my cup running over and over again. Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Sending so much love.

26/11/2025

This look, Keira listening to her father speak and Tom unable to look away from his breathtaking bride. These in-between, catch me if you can moments are the true magic of wedding photography. And they’re why I am always, unabashedly, a hopeless romantic. How could I not be when this is literally my day job??

21/11/2025

Happy Friday! Still not over Shanna & Daz’s uber-diy wedding at my fave - Shanna even chose her bouquet from the market trader once I arrived. It was beautiful and emotional and so so special (just like every love story I’m so lucky to tell!)

19/11/2025

What you see vs what I see.
You see the photos — the big, beautiful, obvious moments.
I see the real stuff: the nervous laugh before you walk in, the way your shoulders drop when you spot your person, the tiny moments that make the whole day feel like you.

Ella & Ciaran’s Manchester Monastery wedding was full of those honest, blink-and-you-miss-it bits that I quietly live for as a photographer.

If authentic, romantic, storytelling photography is your vibe, you know where I am.

(And thank you so much to mega babe content queen .content for the clips!)

14/11/2025

Name a more iconic Liverpool moment… I’ll wait.

Address

Manchester
M335

Website

http://www.katemccarthyphotography.co.uk/

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