This New Wedding Platform Is Like Hinge for Photographers, Matching Them With the Right Couples

Finding a wedding photographer should be one of the fun parts of planning a wedding. You look at beautiful photographs, find a photographer whose style makes you go “oh, I want THAT,” check that they’re available and then, hopefully, everything falls into place. In reality, finding the right wedding photographer can be a bit of a nightmare. Traditional wedding directories can leave couples scrolling through page after page of suppliers, while photographers can spend an awful lot of time dealing with enquiries that aren’t a good fit in the first place, or alternatively, no enquiries at all.

This challenge inspired UK wedding photographer Richard Skins to create UNVL (pronounced “Unveil”), a new wedding platform launching in October 2026. Instead of being another directory where the suppliers who pay the most get the best positions, UNVL takes a different approach by aiming to match couples with suppliers based on their actual preferences. Think Pinterest meets Hinge, but built for the wedding industry.

From photographer frustration to wedding platform: How UNVL works

Richard has been working in photography for 17 years, so he knows the industry particularly well. He’s also tried just about every wedding directory and platform going, with increasingly frustrating results.

“I’ve tried just about every wedding directory and platform there is. One directory alone used to get me twelve weddings a year, but that was ten years ago. That number dropped to zero and has stayed there. I also tried one of the big wedding platforms more recently, and it was a horrible experience: salespeople promising the world, and none of it coming true,” he says.

Things became even more interesting when Richard started organising his own wedding and found himself on the other side of the process.

This experience underscored a common issue. Couples aren’t necessarily looking for the “best photographer”, they’re looking for someone who fits their wedding vision, budget and the way they want the day to look and feel. UNVL is designed to solve exactly this problem.

You’re matched, not ranked

The simplest way to understand UNVL is that it doesn’t want couples to search through a directory. Instead, they tell the platform about their wedding, including things like their date, location, budget, priorities and the sort of visual style they like. UNVL then creates a shortlist of suppliers who fit those requirements.

But the really interesting bit is the visual discovery side. Rather than asking couples to know the right terminology for the photography style they’re looking for, UNVL lets them respond to actual photographs. This makes perfect sense to anyone who’s ever had a client who says, “I can’t tell you what I want, but I can tell you what I don’t want!” It’s a familiar phrase to anyone who works in the visual service industry when clients struggle to translate their vision into words.

UNVL’s Style section works as a visual feed where couples can save the images they love. The photographer or supplier behind each image is attached to it, and those choices help refine the matches. In other words, couples don’t have to say “I want a documentary photographer with a fine-art editorial influence and a warm, film-inspired colour grade.” They can just look at pictures and say, “Yep. More of this.”

It feels familiar to most of us who are used to the infinite scroll of social media, so it feels entirely intuitive, and of course, is completely mobile-friendly, allowing couples to plan their wedding on the go in their downtime.

“Couples are often overwhelmed with the wedding planning process. A time in life that should be fun and exciting often becomes unnecessarily stressful. I believe UNVL will massively enhance the experience of organising a wedding by making it more efficient and enjoyable overall,” says Brighton photographer Jonny of Jonny MP Photography, one of the platform’s ambassadors.

Better enquiries, rather than more enquiries: What makes UNVL different?

Another part of UNVL caught my attention as a photographer. Its entire pitch to suppliers centres on getting fewer enquiries rather than bombarding them with more.

That might sound strange for a wedding platform to say, but it makes sense. A photographer doesn’t necessarily need 100 enquiries if 90 of them are from couples who can’t afford their prices, are looking for a completely different style or want a date they’re already booked for.

UNVL wants enquiries to arrive after the couple has already seen the photographer’s work, starting price and apparent availability. The enquiry can also include information such as the wedding date, venue, guest count, budget and even the couple’s own description of what they want from the day. Photographers can keep their availability updated through the supplier app or by syncing their Google Calendar.

There’s also a step before an enquiry. If a couple likes a photographer but isn’t sure whether they’re available, they can simply ask. The request appears in the photographer’s app, and the photographer can answer with a tap. Until then, the date is shown as “pending” rather than UNVL making assumptions on their behalf. It sounds like a small feature, but it could eliminate an awful lot of the classic and frustrating back-and-forth-time-suck.

Richard is particularly keen to make sure the platform doesn’t make promises on behalf of photographers, either. Availability is described as “looks free”, rather than definitively available, because the supplier ultimately controls their own calendar. And there’s no commission, booking fee or pay-to-rank system. If a photographer books a £3,000 wedding, they keep £3,000.

AI that actually knows wedding suppliers

UNVL also has a planning feature called Assist, although Richard is keen to distinguish it from simply bolting an AI chatbot onto an existing directory. Couples can ask questions about planning their wedding, but the answers are based on information provided by real suppliers on the platform. Those suppliers are credited by name, with a link back to their profile.

The answers are also personalised to the couple. Their date, venue, guest count, budget and wedding vision can all be taken into account, meaning two couples asking exactly the same question could receive different answers.

“UNVL is an intelligent engine unlike anything else in the wedding sector. I love how engaging and fun the process of finding suppliers is with the varied search approaches. It makes for an invaluable resource for those planning their wedding and results in perfect matches for both couples and suppliers,” says Somerset photographer Simon Biffen.

And crucially, the platform hasn’t been designed by photographers alone. Richard says ambassadors from the different wedding categories, such as caterers and venues, have helped shape the questions UNVL asks couples and the information it needs from suppliers.

Built with suppliers, not just for them

The platform is currently recruiting its founding suppliers ahead of its October launch. The first 50 suppliers in each category will become founding suppliers, with discounted pricing locked in for as long as they remain subscribed.

For photographers, standard pricing after launch will be £49 per month plus VAT, with founding suppliers receiving 30% off monthly, 40% off quarterly or 50% off annually.

There are no different feature tiers, either. Everyone in a category gets the same platform features, rather than paying more to unlock the bits that actually matter. The idea is also to build those supplier profiles properly before couples arrive, rather than launching with a giant directory full of half-finished listings.

“Weddings are always at their best when the whole supplier team just clicks, and that’s exactly what UNVL is building,” says Kent photographer Alex Tenters.

That idea of fit runs through pretty much everything UNVL is doing. The platform doesn’t give suppliers a mysterious “87% match” score, either. Instead, couples see language such as “Exceptional fit”.

Perhaps most importantly, Richard says the platform isn’t interested in pretending that more enquiries automatically mean more success. “Fewer enquiries” is the point, not a caveat. “It is the one line that makes some suppliers hesitate, and it is the line I am least willing to soften,” he adds.

Ten high-quality enquiries are worth considerably more to most wedding photographers than 100 people who aren’t actually going to book them.

A different way to find a wedding photographer

There are already plenty of websites where couples can find wedding photographers. That’s not really the problem UNVL is trying to solve. Its proposition is that couples shouldn’t have to become experts in wedding photography, learn the language of the industry or spend their evenings opening 20 browser tabs just to work out who might be suitable. They should be able to look at photographs, save the ones they love, explain what they’re planning and have the platform do some of the hard work.

“I joined UNVL because it works the other way round to a normal directory. On most listings, you add your name and then quietly languish near the bottom of a page nobody ever scrolls to. This one goes looking for the match, pairing couples with suppliers based on what they actually respond to rather than the language the wedding industry has taught everyone to use,” says London photographer Tom Aizenberg.

That’s probably the most interesting thing about UNVL. It isn’t trying to create another giant list of wedding suppliers. It’s trying to change the way couples find them in the first place.

How to join UNVL as a Founding Member

The platform opens to couples in October 2026, initially focusing entirely on getting the UK market right rather than rushing into international expansion.

And for photographers who have ever stared at a wedding directory, wondering why they’re paying to sit on page seven while couples scroll past them, the idea of being matched because someone actually likes their photographs is certainly an appealing one.

UNVL is open to UK-based wedding photographers, videographers, and other wedding suppliers. Founding members can sign up now by visiting the UNVL website.

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