Nat & Josh | Chelsea Old Town Hall & The Other House

Nat & Josh

Chelsea Old Town Hall · The Other House

A Documentary Wedding Story

A Chelsea Old Town Hall wedding with the whole party loaded onto a Routemaster, a confetti shower under the flower archway on the King’s Road, and a night at The Other House in Kensington that nobody wanted to end.

Getting There

Chelsea Old Town Hall does not give you a long morning. A register office ceremony is twenty or thirty minutes with a registrar’s interview half an hour before it, so the day arrives all at once — suits being straightened in a corridor, a buttonhole going on at the last second, a flower girl already halfway through her confetti.

Nat wore a gown by Suzanne Neville and Josh a suit by Tommy Raban, and by the time the doors opened the room was already full.

This was a micro wedding in the proper sense — a small ceremony with the people who actually matter, and then everything else spent on the day itself rather than on the guest list. There is more on how I photograph them on my micro weddings page.

The Ceremony

There is something about the ceremony rooms at Chelsea that just works. Herringbone parquet underfoot, soft light coming through those tall windows, panelled walls that take a shadow properly — and all of it small enough that everybody in the room can see everybody else’s face.

The little ones led the way down the aisle. When Nat appeared with her father, the look on Josh’s face said the whole thing. I did not use a flash once and I did not need to.

The advantage of a room this size is that you can see the whole thing at once — the registrar, the front row, the child leaning out into the aisle, a grandparent two rows back who has quietly given up on being composed. In a big church you would have to choose. Here you do not.

Confetti on the Steps

Then out through the famous flower archway into a storm of confetti and cheering. The stone arch over the doors frames the whole thing, the steps stack everybody up so no face is hidden, and the King’s Road carries on behind it, entirely unbothered.

This is the shot people book Chelsea for, and it takes about ninety seconds. The only thing worth planning is where everybody stands — guests naturally spread into a wide, shallow line that puts half of them out of frame, so I usually ask them to tighten in and come up the steps. Ten seconds of organising, and it is the difference between a nice photograph and the one that goes on the wall.

Chelsea Old Town Hall is one of the venues I know best in London. I have written everything I know about photographing there — the rooms, the timings and how to make the confetti steps work — on the venue page below.

Chelsea Old Town Hall guide Micro weddings

The Routemaster

A classic red Routemaster took the whole party from Chelsea to The Other House in Kensington — champagne going round, everybody piled onto the open platform, and that beautiful long light coming in sideways through the windows.

A bus between two venues sounds like dead time on a schedule. It is usually the best twenty minutes of the day.

Portraits

We stole twenty minutes at the end of the afternoon while the light was going. No direction needed — by that point in a day nobody is performing for a camera any more, which is exactly when the good frames turn up.

The Other House, Kensington

The Other House is dark, plush and full of colour — deep banquettes, low lamps and proper atmosphere, which is a gift for photographs and a challenge to expose. Speeches, drinks, four small children discovering an entire sofa of their own, and the noise level climbing all evening.

Hotels get a bad name for wedding photographs and mostly they deserve it. This one does not. The colour in the rooms does half the work, and because everything is in one building there is no shuffling people between spaces and watching the momentum drain out of the evening.

The Party

The whole room was on its feet by the end of the night. Pure joy from start to finish.

Nat and Josh — thank you for having me along for the ride.

Getting married in Chelsea? There is a lot more on photographing there, including the rooms and what to plan around, on my Chelsea Old Town Hall wedding photography page — and if you are planning something small like this one, everything I know about shooting a micro wedding is over here.

Ceremony: Chelsea Old Town Hall, King’s Road, SW3
Reception: The Other House, Kensington
Transport: Routemaster bus
Photography: Oliver Holder

Planning your own London wedding? I would love to hear about it.

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