Maureen Cotton Photography

We were envisioning an intimate small wedding… I stumbled upon Maureen’s candids for city hall weddings on facebook… Later, we heard more of Maureen through our mutual connections via SoJust Boston and decided to pay her a visit in her new studio in Beverly. We were impressed with Maureen’s artistic taste and unique album design, so we hired her the second day. She is sweet, professional, experienced, kind, creative… She magically made everyone at ease and looks cheerful for supposedly boring formal photos! We love both the candids and formals she took and will definitely consider hiring her for other family events!

In the whirlwind that is your wedding, you want someone that you can depend on and trust. While Maureen unfortunately was not available for our wedding, her associate Kelly Schatz was able to step in and photograph our wedding. Maureen made sure that every detail up until the day and after the day was perfect. I was thrilled with what Kelly was able to capture, the moments of the day, not just the perfect pose. Her eye captured the most amazing wedding party pics along the ocean, and so many laughs.

I’m excited to add another glowing review of Maureen Cotton Photography — because it is deserved! Maureen has an incredible energy that manages to uplift her subjects, without them even knowing! Maureen recently shot engagement photos with my fiancé and I at Lars Andersen Park in Brookline. She puts you at ease immediately and is a true calming presence. Maureen puts the work in — getting to the site early to find the best views, light and backgrounds. You know you are dealing with a skilled professional and also with a fun and thoughtful person. What I noticed most was that, aside from being a true artist, she is encouraging and affirmative. That kind of reinforcement from Maureen made both of us feel as though, «Yes! We ARE good at this!» … which lead to a lot of fun and genuine expression, all reflected beautifully in her photos. Professionally, Maureen is second to none. You will never be disappointed with Maureen Cotton Photography! As a bride, you see a lot of «5 star» reviews … you really can trust each star given to Maureen Cotton, she is the best you can get.

My bride and I feel incredibly fortunate that we had already been introduced to Maureen prior to getting engaged. She shot our close friends’ wedding and I was in their enormous wedding party. She handled all (18!) of us with calm assurance. The resulting photos were incredible. We actually ended up using one of the photos of us from that wedding as our engagement photo.
I’m a professional event planner and have worked with many excellent photographers. What I really appreciated about Maureen’s work was her ability to capture really touching candids — and really fun «formals». We decided against interviewing lots of photographers and booked Maureen after one meeting. It was a perk that she gave an LGBT community discount.
We set up a Pinterest board shared with Maureen and proceeded to pin all kinds of wedding photos that we liked (including weddings at your venue). We threw in a few really fun and quirky shots that really fit our fall theme. The day of the wedding her and her assistant magically made those moments happen. We brought huge bins of pressed autumn oak leaves which she put to great use — including a fun montage throwing leaves with our nephews, a stunning photo of us laying on a bed of leaves and an incredible candid of us laughing as leaves rain down on us.
Maureen’s photos speak for themselves — but you also get a real professional who manages to be everywhere yet not ever in the way. Oh, and she uploaded a few images to Facebook that night, emailed a dozen more the next day and uploaded the rest of the images (over 850!) just 2.5 weeks after the wedding! After all the horror stories I’ve heard about couples waiting months (or longer) it was awesome to receive the images so quickly. She, with our permission, also uploaded many of them to her Facebook page making it really easy to share them with friends and family.
If you’re looking for a really great, creative and fun to work with photographer — you should definitely book Maureen Cotton.

When my boyfriend and I got engaged, I knew when we began planning our wedding that I would want to hire my high school friend, Maureen (who had taken my senior yearbook picture!). Although we had not stayed in close touch since high school, I had seen Maureen’s career take off thanks to Facebook and her blog. Her wedding photography was stunning, and I recognized in her work the same passion and enthusiasm that had drawn me to her as a friend when we were teenagers. So, Shawn and I were psyched that Maureen was available on our date, and willing to drive out to western New Hampshire to the summer camp where we were getting married.
We met with Maureen in the spring to go over the details, and she had a great presentation, which helped us understand the logistics of the photography, as well as the wedding day. We didn’t have any other wedding professionals (like a wedding planner), so having Maureen, who is so familiar with weddings, plus well-​organized and efficient, really helped me with my planning and made the wedding day go super smoothly.
After checking in with me over the phone a few days before the wedding, Maureen arrived at the camp early and ready with a list of our plans and the day’s schedule. She scouted the area for scenic locations before meeting Shawn & me, along with our families, for a little pre-​wedding yoga! (Even if you are not familiar with yoga, if you like relaxing, I highly recommend including Maureen’s yoga teaching in your photography package.) It was so wonderful to spend 30 minutes being quiet and getting focused.
Okay, on to the picture taking… having our photos taken by Maureen was super fun! She truly creates a mixture of candid, classic, and creative shots. Shawn and I took our couple photos before the ceremony and Maureen captured our first look beautifully, along with photos all over the camp, from the docks on the pond to the summer flower garden. Most of her six hours photographing us were spent catching us and our guests having fun, sneaking in traditional shots, like of our flower arrangements and my fancy shoes. Maureen also made sure we posed for all the group shots we had requested — from Shawn & his grandfather, to us with all 100 guests (a shot for which she gamely climbed in to the hayloft of the barn we held our ceremony in).
And on to the photos… first of all, by the time Shawn and I returned to our cabin after hours of dancing on our wedding night, Maureen had already made it home and posted several beautiful photos on Facebook! It was such a great surprise as we turned in for the night. She continued to share photos with us via email and on Facebook as she edited, and had the whole batch of over 600 photos edited and ready in just a few weeks. They are all so great! We look great, our friends and family look great, and the camp looks great (even though the weather was not very nice). We love looking through our online gallery and reliving our wedding day. As we looked at the photos of our ceremony, Shawn kept saying, «where was she?» Maureen was all over the barn, providing many perspectives and reactions, but we never saw her during the ceremony! She also got the most difficult shot of all: a photo of a flatbread pizza at our dinner… those pizzas flew off the tables, but Maureen managed to snag a photo!
I also can’t say enough about how much our guests loved Maureen. Everyone from my younger brother to my best friend from grad school made a point to say how nice she was — getting 100 people together for a photo before cocktail hour without being bossy and really impressing everyone with her stealth moves.
We are so lucky to know such a kind, friendly, excellent photographer, and so glad she shot our wedding. If you want to love your wedding photographer as much as you’ll love your wedding photos, hire Maureen Cotton!

Maureen Cotton was always going to photograph our wedding. For the sake of full disclosure, I need to point out right up front that she’s been a close friend of my wife’s for many years, and has become a friend of mine as well.
Thank goodness she was, too. If we didn’t know her, we might not have found her, and that would have been a huge loss.
Other folks have talked plenty about how easy Maureen is to work with, and it’s all true. She manages to walk the very fine line between friendly and professional, she has unfailing energy, and a can-​do attitude. You know how the Marines talk about Improvising, Adapting and Overcoming? She has exactly that mindset.
But here’s the ONE most important thing when selecting a photographer. Her photos make us look good.
Each picture tells a story. Some are epic, some are intimate, some are joyous or thoughtful or profound. There’s the one of the two of us in front of a window that looks like a French new-​wave movie (seriously, she made me look like Yves Montand, it was great!). There’s the one of me and my Best Man locked in serious discussion before the wedding that’s so dramatic my father-​in-​law refers to it as a «Jack and Bobby» shot. There’s the one from our engagement shoot that sits near the door of our apartment, a photo we look at every time we come home, that I won’t describe because I can’t do it justice. Suffice to say it exactly captures the way I feel about the woman I love.
And that is the great intangible about Maureen Cotton’s art. She didn’t just capture the moments of one of the best days of our life. She captured, perfectly, the way I felt during them. The smartest thing I did in regards to my wedding was convince Becky to marry me. The second smartest thing I did was agree when she said she wanted her dear friend, now our dear friend, Maureen Cotton to photograph it.

My band recently did a photo shoot with Maureen, and not only do we all love how the photos turned out, but we loved working with her! As you can see in her photos, she’s got a great eye for picking beautiful settings and photographing people at their best. But she also caught our myriad expressions and personalities. Without her direction, we would have just stood around or shyly played our instruments, but Maureen got us moving and trying out different positions and arrangements — she even got one of us up a tree! Even things that felt kind of odd at first ended up looking really great in the photos. Because she kept us busy chatting and playing, we looked natural and like ourselves — not forced or awkward or too serious (always a risk when taking band photos).
And if you’ve ever thought that posing and being photographed for several hours would be awkward, Maureen will change your mind about that, too! She’s such a master at switching back and forth between having a conversation, joking around, and giving you directions and tips that after a while it starts to feel pretty natural to be photographed.
If you’re looking for someone who not only takes amazing photos but is also fun to be around, easy to work with and will put you at ease, you couldn’t do much better than Maureen.