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In 2022, a group of alternative wedding suppliers gathered inside a deconsecrated church in Leeds to create a dark celestial wedding shoot. Four years later, we can see it was about more than moons and stars.

The alternative wedding world has grown enormously since these images were taken. New suppliers have appeared. New events and communities have been created. The breadth of what an alternative wedding can look like has expanded, and, somewhere along the way, two independent wedding collectives eventually found their paths converging to become Dark Wedding Collective.

There is something wonderfully strange about the way we've turned the heart into a symbol of love. The real thing isn't symmetrical. It isn't pink. It certainly doesn't come with an arrow through it. It's muscle and valves and blood. It beats somewhere beneath your ribs without asking permission, keeping you alive while you fall in love, have your heart broken, mend it, risk it and ultimately decide to give it to somebody else. Which, when you think about it, makes the anatomical heart a rather perfect wedding symbol.