Brixton East Wedding

Gemma and Dan had their official legal ceremony in the Mayfair Library, London. The registrars were lovely. In fact any registrar I’ve worked with in Mayfair has been a scream to be around.

Once married, we left to go back to the Audley pub before heading off to the Maltby Street Market, Ropewalk.

Ropewalk, until today, had been somewhere off my photographers radar.

I rocked up and didn’t expect to see the flags and festoons hanging there, asking me to shoot them. One of the benefits of a winter wedding it that light takes on a different direction. The festoons were illuminating the flags and diffusing the light down below. This is a great place for photography.

Their reception was at Bar Tozino, right at the end f the market where they had tapas, speeches and they saw the night out.

On day two they had chosen Brixton East, a warehouse space with plenty of London charm to it. There are three levels, ground floor for dinner, upstairs for the ceremony and dancing with another level above for smokers and catching some fresh air. It works really well.

This wedding was funky. I arrived early in order to get setup as winter weddings need more consideration where photography is concerned. Plus I was warned there was going to be confetti Canons. Big ones. 58 of them. So I had work to do.

Even though there was a ceremony on the Monday a huge number of Gem and Dans friends were coming to day two, essentially a massive party which contrasted the smaller, more intimate gathering of day one.

So the other ceremony took place led by a Mariachi Band, followed by Gem’s brother and bridesmaid throwing petals and then finally through a cloud of smoke Gem was walked down the aisle by her mum towards Dan.

Once a few readings had taken place 58 industrial sized Confetti Cannons were let off to signify their first kiss. Every guest had one and in my life, I’ve never seen so much confetti.

Afterwards dinner was set for downstairs and speeches took place. The food was supplied by the street vendors of Maltby Street Market.

The Mariachi Band played for most of the reception and then people started to mosey on up to the dance floor once the speeches had finished.

Once on the dance floor DJ Alex was spinning Vinyl whilst an overhead projector was playing Back to the Future and Top Gun on the brick walls of Brixton East and I stayed late, because I didn’t want to leave!