Michelle & Robin | Chelsea Old Town Hall & The Phene
Chelsea Old Town Hall · The Phene, SW3
A Documentary Wedding Story
A wedding in two parts — a small legal ceremony at Chelsea Old Town Hall with immediate family in November, and then a Jewish ceremony under a chuppah at The Phene, five minutes down the road.
Two Ceremonies
I had photographed these two before. Their legal ceremony was the previous November at Chelsea Old Town Hall, just the immediate family, in one of the small register office rooms on the King’s Road — twenty minutes, a handful of people, and done.
This was the other half of it. The Phene is a pub with a garden room tucked away on Phene Street in SW3, about five minutes’ walk from the town hall, and being asked back to document the second day was genuinely special.
A two-part wedding is a completely normal Chelsea wedding and I have photographed it both ways. It is worth deciding early whether you want both days covered, because they photograph as one story rather than two.
Chelsea Old Town Hall guide London wedding photographyUnder the Chuppah
A fabulous rabbi, a lace chuppah strung above the room, and a ceremony full of the kind of emotion that does not need any help from a photographer.
The room at The Phene is small and low and lit almost entirely by whatever is coming through the glass, which means you work close and you work quietly. I photographed the whole thing from the edges without a flash.
A chuppah is a gift to photograph. It frames the couple without me having to do anything, it gathers everybody in close underneath it, and it puts the two of them under a canopy of other people’s hands and faces.
Everybody Else
Half of a wedding happens behind you. The mother two rows back who has stopped pretending she is fine, the boy in a suit who is done with all of this, the uncle whose laugh you can hear from the other end of the room. Those are the frames couples come back to years later, and they only exist if nobody is looking at the camera.
Chelsea
And then out into Chelsea, which is about as good a backdrop as London gives you: pastel front doors, quiet mews streets, and Albert Bridge a couple of minutes away with the river behind it.
Ten minutes of walking produced more than an hour of setting anything up would have. That is true of most of Chelsea, and it is a large part of why couples get married here.
Michelle and Robin, thank you — twice.
Marrying in two parts, or somewhere in Chelsea? There is a full guide to the town hall on my Chelsea Old Town Hall wedding photography page, and more London weddings on the London page.
Oliver has an incredible eye for the moments you would have missed entirely just by blinking. I recommend him unreservedly.— Michelle
Legal ceremony: Chelsea Old Town Hall, King’s Road, SW3
Ceremony & reception: The Phene, Phene Street, SW3
Photography: Oliver Holder
Planning your own London wedding? I would love to hear about it.
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