These are the stunningly creative photographs voted as some of the worlds best wedding snaps from the last year. The International Society of Professional Wedding Photographers (ISPWP) Awards features more than 20 categories. From the conventional Bride and Groom Portrait to the vibrant All About Light award - everything is taken into consideration. In total more than 20,000 images were submitted by the societys members. Here: The bride being thrown up buy her Groom and Ushers. 1st place – the wedding dress. Cordoba, Spain. (Photo by Valentin Gamiz/Caters News)

“Cassowaries are large, flightless birds related to emus and (more distantly) to ostriches, rheas, and kiwis”, writes Olivia Judson in the September issue of National Geographic magazine. How large? People-size: Adult males stand well over five foot five and top 110 pounds. Females are even taller, and can weigh more than 160 pounds. Dangerous when roused, they’re shy and peaceable when left alone. But even birds this big and tough are prey to habitat loss. The dense New Guinea and Australia rain forests where they live have dwindled. Today cassowaries might number 1,500 to 2,000. And because they help shape those same forests – by moving seeds from one place to another – “if they vanish”, Judson writes, “the structure of the forest would gradually change” too. (Photo by Christian Ziegler/National Geographic)

Yulin, a city in southern China, celebrates the summer solstice by throwing a festival that involves the slaughter and consumption of as many as 10,000 dogs. Not everyone in China supports such practices, however; 65-year-old Yang Xiaoyun, a retired teacher who runs an animal shelter in Tianjin, traveled more than 2,400 km (1,500 miles) and spent more than 7,000 yuan ($1,100 or €990) to save 100 dogs from certain death.

A tearful Beatle lover pleads unsuccessfully with a policeman to carry her fan button to Ringo, one of the four mop-top singers who drew squeals and shrieks from more than 30,000 spectators at two Indiana State Fair shows in Indianapolis on September 4, 1964. (Photo by Bob Daugherty/AP Photo)

A dog from the K9 Division of the Sri Lanka Army’s Commando Regiment performs during an event to mark International Children’s Day at a school in Welisara, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 01 October 2016. Sri Lanka marks the Children's Day on 01 October with more emphasis on prevention of child abuse. (Photo by M.A. Pushpa Kumara/EPA)

Firefighting teams try to extinguish an oil fire November 27, 2016 as smoke billows from one of the remaining oil wells set ablaze by ISIL in their retreat from Qayyarah at the start of the Mosul offensive which began more than a month prior. (Photo by Byron Smith/ZUMA Wire/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Firefighters work to quell a fire on an alleged clandestine gasoline storage in the Ixtlahuaca community, Mexico on January 5, 2016. Looting broke out at dozens of stores in Mexico on Wednesday on the sidelines of protests against a steep gasoline price increase as authorities detained more than 200 people. (Photo by Mario Vazquez de la Torre/AFP Photo)

A woman sits on a terrace at Tiki hostel in Cantagalo favela, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, April 16, 2016. Hostels in a few of Rio's more than 1,000 slums serve not only as a cheap housing alternative for the more adventurous among the estimated 500,000 foreign tourists expected to arrive for the Olympics in August. The establishments also open up the rich culture of the city's shantytowns for travellers, giving them a glimpse into once “no-go” areas where about one-fifth of Rio's population lives. (Photo by Pilar Olivares/Reuters)