Since 2008, Junebug Weddings has been hosting annual photography contests to curate image collections that best represent the year’s achievements in artistry, technical skill, and emotional impact.

Photo contests require a certain amount of subjectivity and we understand that not every photo in our collections will appeal to every person. We try to make sure that collections speak to more than just one audience and that they represent a wide spectrum of photographic styles, cultures, and love.

The Junebug team and photographer guest judges choose the winning images through a point system. This year, wedding photographers The Ferros, Katch Silva, and Bare Odds assisted the Junebug Weddings team in judging the contest.

When submissions are received, we blind them so that no one on the judging panel—including the Junebug team—has access to any information about who submitted the images. After submissions are anonymized, each guest judge and Junebug team member receive the submissions. Then those judging individually narrow down the images from the initial 4,000+ submissions to about 300 of their favorites.

Once each judge has finalized their favorite image selections, they sort the images into three different folders. Each folder is worth a different number of points. While still anonymized, the images in each of the judge’s folders are given points based on a weighted system.

Rather than a specific set of photos moving us, we’re proud that the collection as a whole showcases diversity through photography style, sexuality, race, and geography.

Engagement photos help you get to know your wedding photographer, provide you with photos for your save the dates and invitations, and give you something that you can look back on for years.

Lots of couples wear clothes they wear in their everyday life for their engagement photos and have the session in a location that tells their love story in some way. Other couples wear traditional wedding attire for capturing portraits they may not have the flexibility to squeeze into their wedding day timeline.

Because engagement sessions are less formal than a wedding day (and less time-constrained) we think engagement sessions are the perfect opportunity to document what a couple’s life authentically looks like or to get those epic portraits you don’t have time to achieve on a wedding day.