Sara & Chris | Chelsea Old Town Hall & Brunswick House
Chelsea Old Town Hall · Brunswick House
A Documentary Wedding Story
A personal favourite. Black tie at The Artist Residence, a short ceremony on the King’s Road, the best confetti shower I have photographed, and an old London bus across the river to Brunswick House.
The Artist Residence
They both got ready at The Artist Residence, which is all exposed brick and salvaged furniture and exactly the sort of room that photographs itself. Emotions were running high well before anybody left the building.
The men went into tuxedos. Sara went into her dress. It was black tie from ten in the morning and it set the tone for everything after it.
The Ceremony at Chelsea Old Town Hall
Chelsea Old Town Hall on the King’s Road: tall arched windows, columns down the room, and enough daylight coming in that I have never needed a flash in there.
Register office ceremonies are short — twenty minutes, maybe thirty. There is no second run at any of it, which is why I get there early, work out where the light is falling and then stay out of the aisle. By the time you walk back down it, nobody should be able to tell you where I was standing.
The Confetti
And then the steps. Everybody packed in tight under the stone archway, the whole of the King’s Road behind them, and an absolutely relentless amount of confetti.
The steps do half the work here — they stack your guests so every face is visible, which is the difference between a nice photograph and the one that ends up on a wall.
The Old London Bus
Then a vintage London bus, south across the river to Vauxhall, with champagne going round upstairs and the city sliding past the windows.
Portraits by the River
Twenty minutes on the Embankment before going in. That gap between the ceremony and the reception is the only quiet the two of you get all day, and it is worth deliberately leaving empty on the schedule. Twenty minutes is enough. An hour is too long and everybody starts wondering where the drinks are.
Brunswick House
Brunswick House is a London wedding venue like no other. It is a Georgian house that is also a working antiques shop, which means the chandeliers, the paintings and the furniture around you are all for sale — and therefore never quite the same twice. Photograph two weddings there a year apart and you come away with two completely different sets of pictures. It also means the light changes with the stock: candles, mirrors, gilt frames and a lot of glass, all of it moving around from month to month.
I am lucky enough to be a recommended supplier there. Speeches happened upstairs, in the gold room under the chandeliers, and they were very funny and quietly devastating in the way the best ones are.
Both halves of this day are venues I know room by room, and there is a full guide to each of them — the rooms, the light, the timings and the things nobody tells you.
Chelsea Old Town Hall guide Brunswick House guideThe Basement
Then everybody moved down into the basement bar and partied properly. Low ceilings, close walls, sparklers, and nowhere to stand about at the edges — which is exactly what you want from the last three hours of a wedding. It is one of the few rooms in London where the dance floor genuinely feels like a basement party rather than a function.
Sara and Chris, thank you. Still one of my favourite days.
If your day takes in more than one London venue — and most of the best ones do — there is more on how I cover a full London wedding on my London wedding photography page, and a guide to each venue I know well on the venues page.
Getting ready: The Artist Residence, London
Ceremony: Chelsea Old Town Hall, King’s Road, SW3
Reception: Brunswick House, Vauxhall
Transport: Vintage London bus
Photography: Oliver Holder
Planning your own London wedding? I would love to hear about it.
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