SES setup issue(s)

EDIT : no longer required. Started the setup again and managed to get it working.

Hoping someone can point me in the right direction.
New to setting up anything related to an email server but have fumbled my way through most of it (I believe) using Lightsail, SES, postfix and dovecot.

At present I have a site hosted outside AWS which has recently been replaced by a site on Lightsail (old site still currently running). The old domain is up for renewal in a week or so's time and I'm shutting it down I will be transferring the domain to AWS and pointing at the new site. The old site/hosting has email included which I need to set-up in AWS. The purpose of the email server is just for welcome, password reset, account notifications etc as well as inbound for a few legal reasons (privacy requests etc) and account management (aws, payment provider etc).

For the past day or so I've played around with dovecot and postfix and finally managed to get outlook to connect to dovecot to download mail and send to myself.

I have several issues however that I'm stuck on. The only email I can send/receive is to/from myself. Incoming mail at present disappears in to the ether somewhere (previously would be rejected).
The domain is verified within SES and I have a confirmation email from AWS saying I can send DKIM signed emails from any address in this domain.

If I send from the server itself directly to an external address I get a Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender bounce with

<recipient_email_address_here>: host email-smtp.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com[52.51.155.83]
   said: 554 Message rejected: Email address is not verified. The following
   identities failed the check in region EU-WEST-1: recipient_email_address_here (in
   reply to end of DATA command)

If I send from outlook I get an Undeliverable bounce with

The following recipient(s) cannot be reached:
     'recipient_email_address_here' on 12/07/2019 13:39
           Server error: '454 4.7.1 <recipient_email_address_here>: Relay access denied'

Looking in the dovecot and postfix logs both of the above emails match what is logged.

I've tried to add the specific sending email address to be verified however the verification email never arrives (presuming same issue as inbound mail from external just going to the ether). I have tried pointing the MX record to the server (where postfix/dovecot are) directly and also to inbound-smtp.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com. Although if I've read the docs correctly pointing inbound to the aws server means I then need to set-up rules to subsequently pass the message on to my server (and the options available didn't see to apply which is why I tried directly at the server where postfix/dovecot is).

I realise that the problem will most likely be in my postfix/dovecot settings somewhere so not strictly an AWS SES issue but I'm at a bit of a loss as to where or what to try. If anyone could point me in the right directly it would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Happy to post any logs if it helps

Edited by: jpknz on Jul 12, 2019 6:34 AM

Edited by: jpknz on Jul 13, 2019 1:39 AM