The winning and highly-commended images from the eighth International Wedding Photography Of The Year Awards have been announced with the impressive finalists showcasing the very best from this demanding photography genre.
2024’s edition drew over 2,000 entries submitted by 450 photographers from 63 countries and the awards state that the competition exists to “support, reward, celebrate and promote exceptional wedding photography worldwide”.
Photographers could enter imagery over ten categories and the awards featured an international judging panel with experts from Italy, Indonesia, Germany, and the United States on the panel. 2024’s Grand Winner was announced as Bettina Vass, who took top honors for a mesmerizing portrait of a happy couple at the Katla Ice Cave in Iceland. Along with the prestige of the title, Bettina also takes home more than $6,500 in cash and prizes from the competition’s sponsors.
2024’s competition saw a big spike in interest, with Luke Simon, International Wedding Photographer of the Year Awards Curator, commenting; “The wedding photography industry is just brimming with excitingly talented photographers. The 8th International Wedding Photographer of the Year Awards highlights to us just the tip of the iceberg. We’re grateful that this year is the largest to date and we had a 50% increase in the number of photographers submitting entries, and a 25% increase in the number of entries overall.”
This year’s competition also announced a new title – the Emerging Artist award, which Simon explained also went to the 2024 Grand Winner Bettina Vass; “Created to highlight the talent of wedding photographers with 5 or fewer years in the industry. Our aim is always to support the industry and operating a small business is tough at the best of times, but especially tough in those first few years. So we expect this award recognition will help.”
Other categories in the eighth International Wedding Photography Of The Year Awards included the aerial “From Above” genre, along with “Black and White”, “Break The Rules” and the appropriately named “Epic Location”.
A gallery of the winning and highly commended images from all of the categories can be seen on the IWPOTY website, with the images also shared via the competition’s Instagram.