Happy New Year to all the lovely wedding couples and their families we have worked with in the past year.
Here’s a shot we took of the French Chateau venue and it’s reflections before our latest January wedding in minus five degrees in northern France!
We look forward to working with faces old and new in 2017, and making it our biggest and best year yet.
Take a look at a selection of images from the last twelve months in our galleries on the website here: Wedding Galleries
By David Green
There are not many St Paul’s Cathedral wedding photographers, and there are not that many weddings at St Paul’s Cathedral! So we were delighted to speak last year with Jo and Mike about their special day at perhaps Britain’s and certainly London’s most iconic church.
Famously designed by Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of London it was completed within his lifetime, and it has dominated the skyline of the capital now for three hundred years.
Along with Tower Bridge there is nothing quite like it’s shape for screaming out to the world “I am London and magnificent!”
Now for a wedding there the business of tourism doesn’t stop, how could it, so there are certain restrictions we had to work under, one minute only under the dome, no flash photography and no capturing the actual ceremony itself. However we were excited by the challenge and certainly excited by the results!
The day started with coverage of Jo and Mike’s preparations in The Grange St Paul’s Hotel. Joanna stayed with our bride to be while I ran between herself and Mike and his groomsmen, strangely enough gathering around the bar area…As I’ve said before I like a bit of extra exercise on a wedding day.
After a while Mike and the boys headed to St Pauls’ and the OBE Chapel which is where wedding ceremonies take place. Jo and her proud mother and father and bridesmaids walked the short distance from the Grange to the northwest entrance of St Paul’s. Not surprisingly they created quite a stir as they made their way to the ceremony.
After signing the register and our one minute under the dome (!!!) we headed to the famous steps for some group and family photos. The new Mr and Mrs then spent a fifteen minute walk with myself and Joanna for some couple shots on their way to their fantastic reception venue Skinners Hall.
Skinners Hall on Dowgate Hill is an excellent and classy venue for either a wedding reception, ceremony or both! It dates from 1670 and is another fine building like St Paul’s built soon after the Great Fire of London.
Jo and Mike choose well for their drinks reception on the Italianate roof terrace, and wedding breakfast in the magnificent banqueting hall. We had great fun taking shots in the short time we had between guests taking their seats for the evening meal and the newly weds making their grand entrance. We don’t always get a great deal of time but we make sure we make it count!
Great speeches featured after the wedding breakfast. I particularly enjoyed Mike’s funny naming and shaming of guests who were late with their RSVP’s from wedding invites, and these were then followed by the traditional cake cutting. For their first dance the couple boogied a memorable routine accompanied by their live band for the evening. Then it was down to some serious partying.
I have to say we thought the team at Skinners Hall were fantastic, and really made a great and smooth end to a brilliant day for a great couple and their friends and families.
By David Green
For more images around St Paul’s Cathedral take a look at this blog post from earlier in the year:
St Stephen’s Walbrook and Corney & Barrow Central London Wedding Day
Alternatively check out one of our four galleries below:
It’s always great to return to one of our favourites with Lansdowne Club and Farm Street Church wedding photography, as it feels like a second home there in Mayfair. Although we suspect the cost of a second property in the area may be a little bit pricey for a another house!
This particular big day for Holly and Mike started with Holly’s bridal preparation upstairs in the Lansdowne Club itself. Both Joanna and myself began there to stylishly document events as they happened, but after a little while I trotted a few streets away to catch Mike and his groomsmen preparing heartily in the Punchbowl Pub on Farm Street, just a few doors from the church itself.
Needless to say the Punchbowl is a very popular pitstop for any wedding party on their way to the Church of the Immaculate Conception as it is also known. We had a good time as they were an excellent bunch of chaps, and my favourite moment was when I captured my suggestion on camera that everyone get a free shoeshine from the Westminster Council Street cleaning machine driving by on the edge of the pavement!
I jogged back to check on Joanna and Holly and her bridesmaids and then jogged back to Mike and the boys just to prove it’s not just a London wedding photography adventure, but an exercise program for myself built in too!
Farm Street Church really is beautiful and grand, and so tucked away on Farm Street Mayfair that the casual passerby wouldn’t realise how fantastic it would look inside.
After a lovely ceremony, great confetti throw and some quick family shots we took a slow fifteen minute journey back to Lansdowne to get some couple shots. Fashion and commercial photographers get all day to create their magic, we get minutes, which is why wedding photographers take the pressure and make the money they do.
The Lansdowne Club at 9 Fitzmaurice Place established in 1935 was once the home of Harry Selfridge the famous retail magnate. Originally built in 1763 it retains many of its beautiful Georgian features as well as some lovely Art Deco areas too.
One of our favourite parts of the club is the eighteenth century ballroom, which is an excellent setting for a wedding reception. We used a spotlight to feature Holy and Mike kissing at one point there high up on it’s balcony, and earlier in the day we used a fish eye lens to fully capture the majestic sweep of its Georgian features.
After a jolly drinks reception in the club and the conservatory area it was time for the wedding breakfast and speeches in the ballroom. Another drinks reception followed that and then the hired in band played the first dance and made sure all the guests has a great time boogieing on down!
To see other Mayfair weddings take a look at one of our many website galleries here:
And on the blog here’s some more relevant featured weddings in the Mayfair area:
Lansdowne Club Wedding Photographer
By David Green
We have photographed many lovely Goring Hotel weddings in London’s Belgravia, and this special day for Robyn and Ciaran was no exception. It has always been a pleasure to return to one of the most impeccably run and exclusive hotels in central London.
The staff are fantastic from the front of house to the chefs in the kitchen, and we are not surprised that they are popular with discerning brides and grooms.
This time round it was an added pleasure to be photographing too in the Royal Suite where the Duchess of Cambridge stayed before her wedding day to William at Westminster Abbey.
Created in 2011 the Royal Suite has to be one of the greatest hotel accommodation spaces in the whole of London, and we have seen a few! With two beautiful bedrooms, balcony, bathrooms grand piano and many royal and military artefacts, it is truly special and a wonderful place for the couple to have a drinks receptions later in the day.
After a lovely intimate ceremony in the downstairs garden and dining room, the wedding party enjoyed champagne and canapés in the Goring’s beautiful private gardens at the back of the hotel.
After a mixture of natural documentary photography of the proceedings and family shots we snuck the couple away for a short time to photograph them in the gardens and just outside the hotel.
For another fifteen minutes before the inside drinks reception started in the Royal Suite, we photographed the newlyweds in this wonderful space soaking up the classic atmosphere and decor.
Later in the day the wedding party enjoyed dinner and speeches downstairs again in the garden rooms, and then danced the night away to a fantastic acoustic quartet.
Take a look at a couple of our other blog posts of wedding days at The Goring here:
Goring Hotel Wedding Photographer and
Another lovely wedding at the Goring Hotel in London’s Belgravia
By David Green
When we met with Noor and David we were excited to hear they were celebrating their wedding day at London’s Oxo Tower on the Southbank. It’s an area we have taken the kids to many a Sunday for a stroll around the galleries, eateries and shops, and one that we have returned to many other times for central London engagement shoots.
This particular fine days photo coverage started with David documenting Noor and her bridesmaids getting ready at her parents house. While Joanna began with groom David at St George’s Cathedral in Southwark which they had chosen to host their wedding ceremony.
The church was finished in 1848 and was considered the most important catholic cathedral in England in it’s day. Unfortunately it was bombed in the second word war and had to be extensively rebuilt though it retained it’s beauty.
After the ceremony the wedding party headed to the Southbank and the Oxo Tower for the couples lavish reception and wedding breakfast.
We shot much in a documentary style capturing the laughter and emotions of the day, but also had fifteen minutes alone outside with the couple too to get some extra shots. Fifteen minutes isn’t long (David timed it!) but we are used to getting what is needed quickly in whatever time scale we are allowed.
Back at the reception we finished with speeches, cake cutting and first dance.
You can read about more photo shoots on London’s Southbank here:
Chinese Engagement shoot in Central London, Tower Bridge and Southbank
London Southbank Engagement Shoot and
By David Green
Copyright BIG DAY WEDDINGS 2024. Author David Green
