Meg & Jamie | Wilton's Music Hall

Written By Oliver Holder
Meg and Jamie kissing on the stage at Wilton’s Music Hall after their vows
Meg & Jamie

Wilton’s Music Hall · Whitechapel · London

A Documentary Wedding Story

A wedding on the stage at Wilton’s Music Hall in Whitechapel — the oldest surviving grand music hall in the world, a room that sang along, gold confetti cannons and one of the best brass bands in London.

The Morning at The Hoxton

Meg and her bridesmaids spent the morning at The Hoxton, robes on, champagne open, curtains pulled wide for the light. It is the least eventful hour of any wedding day and often the one I like most — nobody is performing yet, and the room is full of people who have known each other for twenty years.

Meg having her hair finished at The Hoxton before her Wilton’s Music Hall wedding Black and white photograph of Meg getting ready in the window light at The Hoxton Black and white photograph of Meg’s wedding dress hanging in the window Meg and her bridesmaids on the bed in their robes before the wedding Meg having her make-up finished before leaving for the ceremony

Wilton’s Music Hall

Wilton’s Music Hall is the oldest surviving grand music hall in the world. It began as a row of houses off Cable Street in the 1690s, became a hall behind the Prince of Denmark pub in 1859, and has been a Methodist mission, a rag warehouse and very nearly a demolition site since. It was saved, and then — crucially — conserved rather than restored. The plaster is left as it was found. The barley-twist columns holding up the balcony are the originals.

That decision is why it photographs the way it does. Nothing in the room is new, nothing matches, and every surface has three colours in it. You do not need to decorate Wilton’s and you certainly do not need to light it — the trick is to expose for the stage and let the corners of the hall fall away into the dark, which is exactly what your eye does when you are standing in it.

Meg greeting guests as she arrives at Wilton’s Music Hall in East London The barrel-vaulted hall and stage at Wilton’s Music Hall during the ceremony Black and white photograph of guests watching the ceremony from the gallery at Wilton’s Music Hall The ceremony taking place on the stage in the main hall at Wilton’s Music Hall

Wilton’s Music Hall is one of the great East London wedding venues and one of the hardest to photograph badly — but it is dark, and it rewards a photographer who is comfortable working without flash. There is more on how I cover a wedding in the city on the London page, and the venue guides cover the buildings I photograph most often.

London wedding photography Venue guides

The Ceremony on the Stage

They married on the stage, with everyone below and along the balcony, which turns a wedding ceremony into something closer to a performance in the best possible way. The Fabulous Tootsies sang, and part way through the song the room did something I have only seen once: guests began standing up to join in, one after another, until the whole hall was singing. Somebody described it afterwards as a Love Actually moment and I am afraid they were completely right.

Then gold confetti cannons, which in a room with a forty-foot ceiling is an extremely good idea.

Meg and Jamie facing each other on the stage at Wilton’s Music Hall Black and white photograph of Jamie during the wedding ceremony Guests celebrating in the balconied hall at Wilton’s Music Hall Black and white photograph of a singer performing at Meg and Jamie’s wedding Guests filling the main hall at Wilton’s Music Hall during the celebration

Out onto Graces Alley

Wilton’s sits in Graces Alley, a narrow cobbled lane in Whitechapel with nothing in it but the hall and the old pub frontage. Guests lined both sides for confetti and there was nowhere for anyone to go but through the middle of it — which is why alley confetti always works better than lawn confetti.

Confetti thrown over Meg and Jamie in the alley outside Wilton’s Music Hall Meg and Jamie beside the Wilton’s sign on Graces Alley

Dinner, Speeches and a Sabre

Dinner was under the vaulted ceiling with flowers running the length of the mahogany bar. The speeches were funny and unguarded, and the croquembouche — a tower of profiteroles four feet high — was opened with a sabre, because of course it was.

Almost none of the frames I keep from a set of speeches are of the person speaking. They are of the room: the friend who already knows the punchline, the mother reaching for a napkin, the table at the back that has entirely lost composure.

Meg on the stage at Wilton’s Music Hall during the reception A guest speaking to the room in the hall at Wilton’s Music Hall Meg laughing at the top table during the speeches at Wilton’s Music Hall Black and white photograph of guests during dinner at Wilton’s Music Hall Guests reacting to the wedding speeches against the bare plaster walls at Wilton’s Music Hall Meg smiling during the wedding breakfast at Wilton’s Music Hall A guest laughing beside the flowers along the bar at Wilton’s Music Hall Black and white photograph of Meg and Jamie in the mahogany bar at Wilton’s Music Hall Meg and Jamie cutting the croquembouche with a sabre at Wilton’s Music Hall The croquembouche under the barrel-vaulted ceiling at Wilton’s Music Hall

The Old Dirty Brasstards

And then the Old Dirty Brasstards, who are as good as a brass band gets and who did not let the floor empty once. The hall in full swing, with the balcony rammed and the stage lights up, is one of the best rooms in London to photograph a party in.

It ran until people were being gently pointed towards the door, and then a fair few of them went on somewhere else. Meg and Jamie were the last two dancing in the doorway.

A practical note if you are considering Wilton’s: it is a working theatre, so your date depends on the programme, and the building is listed and conserved rather than refurbished — which means it is beautiful and also genuinely dim. Any photographer you book should be comfortable working at high ISO without flash, because putting hard light into that room would undo the single best thing about it.

Meg and Jamie on the stage with guests gathered around at Wilton’s Music Hall Black and white photograph of Meg and Jamie dancing in the hall A guest with her hands in the air on the dance floor at Wilton’s Music Hall Guests dancing in the main hall at Wilton’s Music Hall Black and white photograph of guests dancing at Wilton’s Music Hall Jamie with friends in the doorway of the old hall at Wilton’s Music Hall Guests singing together on the dance floor at Wilton’s Music Hall Guests celebrating together at Meg and Jamie’s East London wedding Black and white photograph of Meg and Jamie dancing in a doorway at Wilton’s Music Hall Guests laughing on the dance floor late in the evening at Wilton’s Music Hall Black and white photograph of two guests at the end of the night A guest dancing with his arms out at the end of the night Meg and Jamie dancing outside the doors of Wilton’s Music Hall Meg and Jamie kissing beside the Wilton’s Music Hall sign The empty stage and fairy lights at Wilton’s Music Hall at the end of the wedding

Meg and Jamie, thank you. A whole hall singing, a sabre through a tower of profiteroles and a brass band that refused to let anybody sit down — a properly good London wedding.

If you are planning something in the city there is more on London wedding photography, and the venue guides go into detail on the buildings I know best.

Ceremony & reception: Wilton’s Music Hall, 1 Graces Alley, London E1
Preparations: The Hoxton, London
Photography: Oliver Holder

Planning your own Wilton’s or East London wedding? I would love to hear about it.

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