Charley & Joe | Claridge's & Chelsea Old Town Hall

Written By Oliver Holder
Charley and Joe kissing beneath a flower-covered doorway in Chelsea with their guests either side
Charley & Joe

Claridge’s · Chelsea Old Town Hall · London

A Documentary Wedding Story

Getting ready at Claridge’s, vows in the Rossetti Room at Chelsea Old Town Hall, a beer to sit out the rain, and a Louboutin that very nearly did not make it home from Bond Street station.

The Morning at Claridge’s

They got ready at Claridge’s, which is a building that does a great deal of the work for you. The art deco corridors, the mirrored hallways, the staircase, the chandeliers — every one of those surfaces throws light back at you, and a hotel of that vintage has windows tall enough that you never need to reach for anything artificial.

Joe and his groomsmen took the corridor. Charley took the mirror. Nobody was rushing.

Joe and his groomsmen in the chandeliered corridor at Claridge’s in Mayfair Joe waiting by the lift at Claridge’s on the morning of the wedding
Black and white photograph of Charley getting ready at Claridge’s Black and white photograph of Charley reflected in the mirror during preparations
Black and white photograph of Joe on the staircase at Claridge’s Black and white photograph of Charley and Joe in the corridor at Claridge’s Charley and Joe together with her bouquet before leaving for Chelsea Old Town Hall

Into the Rain

Charley’s dress was Babyboo — short, clean, with an enormous bow across the back that is the whole design in one detail. And on her feet, the Christian Louboutins that are going to become the main character of this story.

It was raining. Properly raining, the kind of June afternoon that London specialises in, and if you are getting married in the city there is no point pretending it might not. Umbrella up, taxi door open, off to Chelsea.

Black and white photograph of the bow on the back of Charley’s Babyboo wedding dress Charley arriving in the rain under an umbrella before the ceremony Charley at the bar before the ceremony, photographed from behind

The Rossetti Room, Chelsea Old Town Hall

They married in the Rossetti Room at Chelsea Old Town Hall — the smaller of the two ceremony rooms, and to my mind the better one. The Brydon Room next door is grander and gets photographed more, but the Rossetti has the great arched window at the front, and that window is the reason the room works.

It faces the right way. Light comes in high and soft over the registrar’s table and falls on everybody at once, which means you can photograph an entire ceremony there without a single flash. A civil ceremony is twenty to thirty minutes with no second take, a line you are not allowed to cross and no artificial light permitted, so you work from one side with whatever is coming through the glass. Knowing which side, in which room, before the day starts, is most of the job.

Charley read her vows off a card and got about four words in before the room went. Joe held it together marginally better, but not by much.

Black and white photograph of Charley and Joe before the ceremony at Chelsea Old Town Hall Guests with drinks waiting for the ceremony at Chelsea Old Town Hall
Joe waiting beneath the arched window in the Rossetti Room at Chelsea Old Town Hall Black and white photograph of Charley walking in to the Rossetti Room
Guests standing for the ceremony in the Rossetti Room at Chelsea Old Town Hall Black and white photograph of Charley and Joe at the registrar’s table
Charley and Joe signing the register in the Rossetti Room at Chelsea Old Town Hall Charley and Joe facing each other during their ceremony at Chelsea Old Town Hall Charley and Joe holding hands during the ceremony in the Rossetti Room
Black and white photograph of Charley and Joe exchanging vows A detail of Charley and Joe’s hands and rings behind her bouquet Black and white photograph of Charley reading her vows at Chelsea Old Town Hall Black and white photograph of the arched window in the Rossetti Room at Chelsea Old Town Hall
Charley and Joe embracing among their guests after the ceremony Black and white photograph of two guests laughing during the ceremony Charley and Joe beneath the chandelier in the Rossetti Room at Chelsea Old Town Hall

Chelsea Old Town Hall is one of the London venues I photograph most often, and the two ceremony rooms behave completely differently — different light, different times of day, different places to stand. There is a full guide to it below, along with everything else on how I cover a wedding in the city.

Chelsea Old Town Hall guide London wedding photography Micro weddings

Out into Chelsea

Out under the flower arch for photographs, and the rain paused just long enough to be polite about it. The Louboutins came out from under the hem for exactly one frame — red soles, bouquet, wet pavement — which turns out to have been worth taking, given what happened to them later.

Black and white photograph of Charley and Joe with their guests outside the town hall Charley talking with guests after the ceremony
A detail of Charley’s red-soled Christian Louboutin wedding shoes with her bouquet Black and white photograph of guests celebrating after the ceremony Black and white photograph of the register being signed at Chelsea Old Town Hall

A Beer at the Sydney Arms

Then, because the rain came back and because a pub is a perfectly good wedding venue for half an hour, everybody walked round to the Sydney Arms on Sydney Street.

This is my favourite kind of in-between hour. Nothing is scheduled, nobody is being called anywhere, and a bride at a bar in a short white dress with a pint in front of her is a better photograph than anything I could have arranged. Somewhere in here a Claridge’s umbrella got borrowed, and it earns its keep in about six frames.

Charley with a drink at the bar of the Sydney Arms in Chelsea Charley and Joe sheltering under an umbrella in the rain in Chelsea Charley walking through the rain under a Claridge’s umbrella in her wedding dress Charley photographed through the greenery on a wet Chelsea street

Down the King’s Road

When it eased off we walked the King’s Road. No cars, no schedule, just two people in wedding clothes walking through Chelsea on an ordinary wet Saturday while the rest of London got on with its shopping.

That contrast is the entire reason to get married in the city. The day is enormous to you and completely unremarkable to everybody walking past, and both of those things end up in the same frame.

Black and white photograph of Charley and Joe walking down the King’s Road in the rain Charley drinking a pint in her wedding dress at the Sydney Arms Black and white photograph of Charley and Joe at Sloane Square underground station

Sloane Square, and the Escalator at Bond Street

At Sloane Square they got on the tube. In a wedding dress. With a bouquet. Sitting on the floor of the carriage because it was busy, which is genuinely one of my favourite photographs I have taken all year.

And then Bond Street, where the day acquired its story. Charley stepped onto the escalator and the Louboutin did not come with her — the heel went straight into the mechanism and stuck fast. There is a photograph of the shoe, alone, halfway up an escalator, which I did not expect to be taking when I got out of bed.

Full credit to Transport for London. A member of staff came down, stopped the escalator, got the shoe out intact and handed it back, and there is a frame of that handover that I would put in any portfolio. The shoe survived. Not a mark on it.

Charley and Joe kissing on the platform at Sloane Square Charley walking through the tiled passageway of the underground in her wedding dress Charley sitting on the floor of the tube carriage with her bouquet Charley’s Christian Louboutin shoe caught in the escalator at Bond Street station
A Transport for London engineer retrieving the shoe from the escalator at Bond Street The rescued Louboutin being handed back to Charley Charley sitting with her rescued shoes back on after the escalator at Bond Street

Carried Home

Charley walked the rest of it in one shoe for a bit, and then Joe simply picked her up and carried her back to Claridge’s. Through the lobby, down the corridor, still laughing about it.

Three things go wrong at every wedding. What you remember is not that they went wrong — it is who was standing next to you when they did.

Joe carrying Charley through the street back towards Claridge’s Black and white photograph of Charley and Joe in a doorway in Mayfair Charley and Joe walking back through the lobby at Claridge’s Charley and Joe kissing in the corridor at Claridge’s at the end of the day

The Team

Dress
Babyboo
Shoes
Christian Louboutin
Suits
Moss Bros
Make-up
Rebekah Eller — @makeupbyrebekah_
Hair
Lucie Reynolds — @hairbylucie_
Shoe rescue
Transport for London, Bond Street station

Charley and Joe, thank you. A hotel in Mayfair, a register office in Chelsea, a pub, a downpour, the Central line and an escalator that tried to keep a shoe. You will be telling that story for the rest of your lives.

There is a full guide to Chelsea Old Town Hall, and more on London wedding photography and micro weddings if you are planning something similar.

Preparations: Claridge’s, Brook Street, Mayfair, London W1
Ceremony: The Rossetti Room, Chelsea Old Town Hall, King’s Road, London SW3
Drinks: The Sydney Arms, Sydney Street, Chelsea, London SW3
Photography: Oliver Holder

Planning your own Chelsea Old Town Hall or London wedding? I would love to hear about it.

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