A wedding photographer says men repeatedly grab her and ask if she's single while she's working

• Kim Williams is a wedding photographer in the UK.
• She shared an Instagram post on Sunday that was captioned, "Things men did to me at weddings in 2021."

A wedding photographer is speaking out about the ways she says men have crossed boundaries with her at weddings, from belittling her work to touching her without consent.

Kim Williams, 30, is a wedding photographer and videographer based in Brighton, UK. She shoots about 45 to 50 weddings per year, and she told Insider she loves her work.

But Williams took to Instagram on Sunday to share one aspect of photographing weddings she hates: the way some men treat her.

Williams says she noticed a pattern of men mistreating her at weddings

Williams told Insider she first started to feel uncomfortable at work when she was photographing dance floors.

"When I started shooting weddings and was covering a lot of dance floors and big groups of cis-het men around alcohol, a lot of the time I didn't feel hugely safe," she said, sharing that some men would touch her without consent or try to ask her out.

She also said men at weddings would frequently "mansplain" things to her, or defer to her two male staff members.

Williams told Insider that male peers she worked weddings with were some of the worst offenders of this type of behavior.

"I went through some really horrendous things, such as a photographer clicking at me all day and refusing to learn my name," she said.

Later that night, Williams said the same photographer asked her to take a selfie with him, and then told Williams he was sending it to his wife because "she knows I have a thing for brunettes."

By the end of 2020, Williams had had enough.

Williams shared her experiences on Instagram

Williams told Insider she started keeping track of her uncomfortable interactions with men at weddings after her experience with the aforementioned photographer at the end of 2020.

She wrote down each instance she felt a man crossed a line with her at a 2021 wedding in a note on her phone, and at the beginning of 2022, she shared the list in an Instagram post titled, "Things men did to me at weddings in 2021."

The list included touching her without consent, asking for her phone number, trying to kiss her, and belittling her work.

"Working a job that requires you to be around large groups of cis-het men and alcohol means that this kind of stuff happens at about 80% of the weddings I shoot," Williams captioned the post. "I am friendly, smiley, approachable, chatty, and I get stuck into a dance floor. This is not an invitation for any of the above."

Williams told Insider she was immediately inundated with responses from women and non-binary wedding vendors who had similar experiences, with some even saying they left the industry because of cisgender, heterosexual men's actions.

Williams is calling on men to hold each other accountable

"Men: go away and talk to each other," Williams wrote in the caption of her post. "It's not enough for you to be 'one of the nice guys.' If you aren't actively helping to solve the problem then you are a part of it."

"I don't believe it's women's problem to solve," she said to Insider. "I think if the men doing the harassing were listening to women, there would be no more harassment because we ask them to stop every single day."

Williams also wrote a blog post and shared a follow-up Instagram post where she listed out ways couples and wedding guests can work to prevent these types of interactions from happening, as well as deal with them if they do arise.

Williams recommends couples designate an attendee as a "safe space" that can vendors and guests can talk to if anyone makes them uncomfortable. She said couples can also note on their wedding website or the order of service handouts that harassment of any kind will not be tolerated at the event.

Williams also suggests couples, vendors, suppliers, and guests use an Inclusivity Guide created by inclusivity consultant Ky Richardson as they plan their weddings, which she says can help make everyone feel more comfortable.

Williams told Insider she hopes sharing her story can lead to industry-wide change that ensures other female and non-binary wedding vendors feel safer at work.

"I would just love for them to be able to turn up at a wedding and feel safe, and feel like all they need to do on that day is focus on making a couple and a guest feel awesome and taking amazing photos or shooting amazing video and not have to worry," she said.