Ffion and Tom | An Alma Tavern Wedding
The Alma Tavern · Clifton, Bristol
A Documentary Wedding Story
A concrete modernist church in Clifton, portraits on the Downs with the Suspension Bridge behind, a wedding breakfast in the front room of a Clifton pub, and a ceilidh across the water in Bedminster.
The Morning
Ffion and Tom’s wedding was a Bristol day in the truest sense. It began in Clifton, moved about two hundred yards on foot to a pub, and finished across the water in Bedminster with a ceilidh. No cars, no convoy, no half hour of everyone standing about in a car park.
Tom arrived by train that morning, which is my favourite detail of the whole day. He stepped off at Temple Meads in a sage green suit carrying a bag for life, met his groomsmen for a pint, and walked up the hill. Ffion got ready nearby with her bridesmaids in deep green and the most enormous spread of spring flowers I have photographed in a while.
From the start, communication was quick and clear — helped by Ollie knowing a local pub with a happy hour to meet in! We met to share plans and for him to understand what we wanted and then once again a few days ahead of the event to go over logistics.— Ffion, Google review
All Saints, Clifton
All Saints on Pembroke Road is not what most people picture when you say church wedding. It is a post-war rebuild in raw concrete and glass, with a folded ceiling that comes to a point over the altar and a wall of blue and green stained glass down one side. On a bright morning that glass throws colour right across the floor.
It is a genuinely brilliant room to photograph in. High, open, no dark corners, and because the seating wraps round rather than running in straight rows, everybody can see everybody. A string quartet played against the windows while the room filled up.
Ffion came down the aisle with her father and Tom did not manage to keep his face straight for a second of it. There is more on how I work at churches and venues around the city on my Bristol wedding photography page.
The Register and the Confetti
The signing was the loudest part of the ceremony, which is not usually how it goes. Ffion laughed most of the way through it, half the front row were in bits, and then the doors opened onto a wall of confetti and a very sunny Clifton street.
Portraits Above the Gorge
We took twenty minutes and walked out to the Downs. The Clifton Suspension Bridge is the one piece of Bristol everybody recognises, and standing on the grass above the gorge with it strung out behind you is about as good a backdrop as this city gives you.
We also spent a few minutes against the concrete of the church itself, which photographs beautifully in low sun. Two very different sets of pictures within a five minute walk of each other, which is Clifton all over.
Clifton is where a lot of my Bristol weddings start, and the walk from the church to the Downs to the pub is one of the best short routes in the city. There is more on how I cover weddings here on the page below.
Bristol wedding photographyInto the Alma
Then round the corner to the Alma Tavern, which is a proper Clifton pub with a theatre above it and a wedding licence most people do not know about. Ffion and Tom walked in to a room already applauding.
I like photographing weddings in pubs. Everyone knows how to be in one. Nobody is waiting to be told where to stand, the bar does the job that a drinks reception normally has to be engineered into, and the whole thing runs about twenty degrees warmer than a marquee.
The Wedding Breakfast
They ate in the pub itself. Yellow walls, old prints and racing posters, and a clock that everybody checks at least once. Long tables down the room, candles, and the flowers from that morning running the length of them.
It seats a small wedding rather than a big one, and that is the point. Everybody was within earshot of everybody else. There was no top table marooned at one end of a hall.
The Speeches
The speeches in a room that size are a completely different thing. No microphone needed, no awkward acoustics, no half the room straining to hear. People spoke from where they were sitting and the whole room reacted at once.
They went on a good while longer than planned and nobody minded. This is the part of the day I always hope goes long, because you get faces you cannot get anywhere else — people listening to somebody they love being talked about.
The Ceilidh at the Southbank Club
In the evening everybody moved across the water to the Southbank Club in Bedminster for a ceilidh. A caller, a band, and a room full of people who mostly did not know the steps.
A ceilidh is the best thing that can happen to a wedding dance floor. Nobody is standing at the edges deciding whether to join in, because you get grabbed by the arm and put in a line whether you like it or not. Within one dance the room was gone.
Ffion and Tom, thank you. A day that ran on trains, footpaths and a lot of goodwill, and one of the most Bristol weddings I have photographed.
If you are planning a wedding in Clifton, at a pub, or anywhere else around the city, there is more on how I work on my Bristol wedding photography page.
In their words
The photos are stunning — natural, bright, and full of emotion. They captured so many moments we didn’t even realise were happening and got some amazing angles (including one with a drone!) We received sneak peeks within a week and the full gallery in 8 weeks. We’d recommend them to anyone looking for a relaxed but professional photographer.— Ffion, Google review
Ceremony: All Saints Church, Clifton, Bristol
Wedding breakfast: The Alma Tavern & Theatre, Clifton
Evening & ceilidh: The Southbank Club, Bedminster
Photography: Oliver Holder