Jade and Adam | St Bride's and The Ned

Jade & Adam

The Ned · City of London

A Documentary Wedding Story

Vows at St Bride’s on Fleet Street, a black cab through the Square Mile, confetti in the sunshine and a candlelit wedding breakfast in the Tapestry Room at The Ned.

The Morning at The Ned

Jade got ready in one of The Ned’s panelled rooms, dress hanging against dark wood, veil across the carpet, the whole thing looking like a painting before anybody had done anything at all. Her dad arrived and the room went quiet for a second.

There is a particular calm to getting ready in a hotel where the ceremony is not for another two hours and nobody has to be anywhere.

The Ned is one of the venues I know best in London. There is a full guide to photographing a wedding there, including every room on the events floor and how long to allow for portraits, on my The Ned wedding photographer page.

The Ceremony at St Bride’s

A black cab across the Square Mile to St Bride’s on Fleet Street — stained glass, a chequerboard floor, and the kind of acoustics that make a hymn sound like considerably more people than are actually present.

St Bride’s is the journalists’ church, rebuilt by Wren after the Great Fire, and its tiered spire is the one every wedding cake in the country is supposed to be modelled on. Not a bad place to get married.

London does this better than anywhere: a ceremony in a Wren church off Fleet Street, and dinner ten minutes away in a former bank.

Getting married at The Ned, or anywhere else in London? The venue guide covers the ceremony rooms, the terrace and the timings that actually work. The London page has a wider selection of city weddings.

The Ned venue guide London wedding photography

Confetti and the Square Mile

Confetti on the pavement outside St Bride’s, a receiving line that turned into a party, and then everybody back through the City to The Ned for the rest of it.

Portraits in the City

Fifteen minutes outside with the dome of St Paul’s at the end of the street, and then back inside for the spiral staircase, which is the shot everybody wants at The Ned and takes about four minutes to get.

Shoot down it and it is a spiral; shoot up through it and it is something else entirely. I have never photographed it the same way twice.

If you like the way this day looks, there is a lot more of it in the portfolio, and pricing is a single page with no forms to fill in first.

View the portfolio See pricing

Dinner and Speeches

Dinner in the Tapestry Room. Long tables, candles, panelled walls, and chandeliers doing most of the lighting work. It is a dark room and a beautiful one, and it rewards being photographed on fast lenses rather than lit.

The speeches went the way the best ones do, which is longer than scheduled and better than anybody expected.

The Party

First dance, then everybody in. Jade and Adam, thank you — a City wedding done exactly right.

Planning a wedding at The Ned? Start with the venue guide — it covers all four ceremony rooms, the terrace, and what I would do with your timings. For weddings elsewhere in the city, there is more on my London wedding photography page, and a wider selection of days in the portfolio.

Ceremony & reception: The Ned, 27 Poultry, City of London
Venue guide: The Ned wedding photographer
Photography: Oliver Holder

Planning your own wedding at The Ned, or anywhere across London? I would love to hear about it. Send me your date and I will come straight back to you.

Get in Touch View Pricing View Portfolio