Destination Wedding Photographer | Hudson Valley Elopement Photographer | California + Hudson Valley NY Wedding Photographer
Awards, News, Underwater Photography, and More
It was a unique, travel-filled, and award-winning year for Kathryn Cooper Weddings
Article and photos by Destination & New York wedding photographer Kathryn Cooper Weddings
2025 Year in Review | Documentary Wedding Photographer
My 2025 saw a fun year of weddings, and a unique year of new photography learnings  and travel. While I hate writing these year-end thoughts and absolutely don’t want to come off as bragging, it helps people (including me!) realize the accomplishments and areas for improvement moving forward.
The theme of the year was: If there was a 30-day stretch with just 3 days to do something, do it! Such was the case with a number of work and fun activities, including an opportunity to deeply study underwater portrait photography down south—which I took and used with excitement.
I’ll do a separate post on underwater weddings and underwater photography, but suffice to say…it was an adventure in breathing, gear, posing, and shooting in an mostly-new environment: Florida springs and pools all around the country.
Aside from Wedding Photography…
In non-wedding photography news, I had many more events, which marked a recovery since COVID times and funding deficits. Several different conferences, shows, nonprofits, commercial shoots, shows, and more were back in action.
When it came to news outside of photography, I did a fair amount of U.S. road trip travel: A local road trip from California to Texas, with hikes at 7 National Parks and local lands in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California; another local road trip to Montreal, which included camping and white water rafting; and another road trip through Vermont’s cheese country en route to a Boston underwater photoshoot.
My international trips led me to Albania and Greece (with more road trips!), and then after the wedding and event season in late fall, an end-of-year friend reunion in Thailand. After that week, I spent time in Malaysia, then did a SCUBA diving liveaboard in Komodo National Park, Indonesia. Yes—I felt quite lucky.
I finished my third year of being an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University, with trips to teach in LA and Washington, D.C.
Worldwide Wedding Photography Awards and Hudson Valley Wedding Photography Awards
I was delighted to win several big awards this year, including both professionally judged and public-voting contests.
It was with joy that I heard I won the grand prize in a local contest in NY, with thousands of votes in multiple rounds, and can now say that I won Best Wedding Photographer in the Hudson Valley!
Clients, friends, and family voted for over 2 months, and the Reader’s Choice Awards from Chronogram Magazine announced I won–I received First Place, and was awarded the title “2025 Best Wedding Photographer – Kathryn Cooper Weddings”. There was an awards ceremony, with hundreds of local businesses—including a few colleagues of mine—attending.
Another award I won was my third Fearless Award! This shot was for a candid moment I captured during a pouring elopement in Acadia National Park, Maine. To win 3 of these worldwide awards in the past few years has been amazing.
After finally joining the Wedding Photojournalist Association, I won several smaller awards this year for my documentary photo work. Because of all the awards I was lucky enough to receive, I just found out that I was awarded a World Title–and named Kathryn Cooper/Kathryn Cooper Weddings one of the WPJ Top 100 Wedding Photographer 2025 worldwide!
(I only just found this out last week, hence my very late February post in review of 2025.)
Also this year, from WPJ, I am officially ranked the #1 Wedding Photojournalist in the Hudson Valley.
I feel quite lucky to have received so much love, so many votes, and gotten feedback from both followers, friends, clients, and photo judges alike.
Articles:
I was featured in several articles in 2025, in publications such as Offbeat Wed and Love Inc. Magazine.
– This article on how to maximize the types of wedding photos you want: https://loveincmag.com/all-of-your-wedding-photography-shot-list-questions-answered/
– This article on wedding photo deliverables: https://loveincmag.com/when-should-you-get-your-wedding-photos-back-a-realistic-guide-for-newlyweds-eager-to-relive-the-magic/
– This article detailing what people wanting to get into weddings should know:Â https://offbeatwed.com/wannabe-wedding-vendors/
– This article about what 2025 weddings would be like: https://offbeatwed.com/2025-weddings-decoded/
Personal life in 2025:
Personally, as with all years, there were lowlights and highlights. But here, I’ll speak of the big highlights.
I was proud to see my older brother’s scifi short film debut at many different festivals around the country.
I also attended the intimate NYC City Hall elopement of my younger brother. Yes, he’s now married to his college sweetheart!
Not that I could follow that up with much, but I joined several different functions this year that stretched my own experiences, from a multi-day kayaking-camping trip, to new lighting techniques in photography, to diving with giant manta rays in Indonesia, to documenting a 13-mile hiking proposal, to underwater modeling practice, to photographing in pools and freshwater springs in multiple areas in the U.S.
I photographed underwater, in the daytime, at nighttime with light, met a whole new set of underwater photographers from many walks of life, and much more.
Some personal highlights were meeting some unique new folks around the world, seeing pit vipers in Malaysia, going on some unique solo trips, playing board games with new friends, exploring ancient ruins around Greece and Albania (with no one around!), seeing whales in Thailand, and eating tons of street food around the world.
What was 2025 Like Overall?
How was YOUR 2025? Was it good/bad? Did politics and political decisions effect your daily life or mental health? Did you have personal, business, monetary, and/or life successes more than failures?
I hope that your year had more good than bad, but fully admit it was a rough year for so much of the USA and world. In 2026, I hope we can somehow, miraculously, become more united than divided.
All in all, my 2026 was certainly not a boring year, with seven countries explored, and many weddings, elopements, engagements, proposals, adventure sessions, underwater photo sessions, conferences, shows, headshots, nonprofits, and fundraisers photographed.
Below are some of my favorite photos of 2025—the creative, the fun, the beautiful, and the quirky. Here’s to a beautiful and delightful year ahead~
All photography by Kathryn Cooper Weddings.
Kathryn Cooper Weddings: Adventure Elopement Photographer | Upstate NY Weddings | NYC Wedding Photographer