Tiarni and Garry held their ceremony and reception at Wharf One Cafe, right on Trinity Inlet, before we headed off to wander the Cairns Wharf precinct, Wolf Lane and Three Wolves for portraits — laneway walls, warm evening light, and two people who'd told me upfront they were dreading exactly this part of the day.

Tiarni and Garry's relationship had a slow-burn start. They worked at the same centre when they met, and Tiarni will admit she noticed him early — cute, she thought, until she found out he was two years younger and decided that was a hard no. It took another year and a slightly chaotic night for things to actually click: she came home from a night out to find him sitting on her friend's couch, and not long after that, they were together, and moved in within a couple of months.

Garry planned to propose on a trip to Brisbane, though — by his own admission, and Tiarni's — he's not remotely subtle, so she already knew the ring existed well before he asked. He tried a few times to make it special and each attempt fell through, until it finally happened exactly where he hadn't planned it: back in their hotel room, just the two of them, no audience required.

For their wedding, Tiarni and Garry were upfront about one thing above all else: they weren't photogenic, they didn't want the spotlight, and the idea of being photographed made them genuinely nervous. It's one of the most common things I hear, and it's almost never actually true once the day gets going — by the time we were working our way through Wolf Lane and down to the wharf, the stiffness had worn off and they were just being themselves.

What Tiarni and Garry didn't know is that I turned up to their wedding fighting off a nasty bout of illness — the kind that would've had most people cancelling. But when it's someone's wedding day, cancelling was never really on the table. Sick or not, I was going to be there and get them the photos they'd been worried about all along. That's the job, and it's one I take seriously no matter what's going on for me personally.