FROM Europe to America to Asia and back – Dan O’Day’s work as a wedding photographer has taken him to all corners of the world.

It’s been a wild ride for the born-and-bred Canberran, who left his safe public service career of more than nine years and a successful band to take photos of happy couples on their wedding days.

And it was a massive leap of faith that has paid off. Last month, he was awarded AIPP Australian Wedding Photographer of the Year, an accolade he’s been chasing for some time (the last two years he’s come runner-up).

This win joins a long list of awards O’Day has received since taking up wedding photography in 2009, a time when he considered a wedding down the central coast as a big “destination wedding”.

These days he’s jet setting across the world – a quarter of the weddings he shoots are overseas for international clients – shooting weddings, speaking at conferences and even shooting editorial spreads for fashion designers. One of which is American fashion designer of couture wedding gowns, Claire Pettibone.

These days he may only shoot three weddings a year in his home town.

“In 2010 I won a couple of big awards that fast-tracked me and opened a lot of other opportunities,” he says.

“I was finding I was shooting less and less in Canberra and more overseas.”

O’Day is now considered one of the world’s best, listed as one of the top 10 wedding photographers in the world by Bill Hurter, editor of “Rangefinder” magazine, and as one of the best destination-wedding photographers in the world by Junebug Weddings.

“If I can give the couple a sense of what the day was like; how it smelt, how cold it was – if they can remember those things by looking at the way I have documented it, then I can give them their day back,” he says.

One of the more recent weddings he shot was closer to home, in Sydney,  and it was not your average wedding. Held at the Carriageworks, a two-Michelin star restaurant that was shut for the night to cater the event, which featured appearances from musician Asta and rock band The Jezabels as well as a live-cross from American comedian Arj Barker. The wedding is set to feature in “Vogue”.

“I met them when they got out of the car,” O’Day says of the couple.

“I had no idea how insane this wedding was going to be.”

Although he has no plans to slow down his work in wedding photography, he is keen to start work on his other artistic pursuits, in particular painting and potentially holding an exhibition of his work, which is no surprise as his father and brothers are all painters.

He’s also thinking about picking up where he left off on a photojournalism project he started in 2011 that focused on marriage after the big day, in particular older couples who have been together for many years.

Called “Two Lives, One Love: A Retrospective”, O’Day spent a couple of days documenting the lives of Canberra couple Ginger and Pearl who had been married for more than 65 years.

His photos were published in a fine art book that eventually won the national 2013 Head On, Momento Photobook of the Year award in the Documentary/Photojournalism category.

O’Day says despite the busy career that takes him across the globe, he’s still pretty keen to continue calling Canberra home, where he lives with his American fiancee Andrea.

They plan to marry next year at Bawley Point where, he says, they plan to give Andrea’s family the “full Australian experience”.

“We’re thinking it’ll be under the stars, with really good food, a good Irish band and maybe about 50 people,” O’Day says.

Although he and Andrea have a clear picture in mind of their day, one thing hasn’t been settled – finding a wedding photographer.

“Half the guests are some of the best wedding photographers in the world,” he says.

Visit danodayphotography.com.au