Alice & Brad’s Winchester Registry Office Wedding: A Wedding That Was Completely Their Own
There’s something I love about weddings that don’t try to follow a formula.
Alice and Brad’s wedding was a perfect example. They kept the legal part of their wedding beautifully intimate with a ceremony at Winchester Registry Office, then headed to Rotherwick Village Hall for an evening that was much more relaxed, personal and completely them.
There was a ceilidh, an Indian street food van, a vintage ruffle cake, a second dress for dancing and even a full-moon portrait to finish the night.
It was a brilliant reminder that there really is no single “right” way to get married.
A relaxed start at Winchester Registry Office
Rather than covering bridal preparations, I started the day by meeting Brad outside Winchester Registry Office, where he arrived in his dad’s beautiful cream Dodge Coronet.
His dad had decorated the car with flowers and ribbons especially for the wedding, which made it such a lovely detail to photograph.
From there, I popped over to the pub to capture a few photographs of Brad getting ready before heading back to meet Alice.
Alice arrived in her dad’s car with her mum, dad and sister, while her two best friends were waiting outside. They were all carrying beautiful bouquets from Moutan Flowers, and Alice looked incredible in her strapless sweetheart-bodice dress, with a soft tulle overlay, huge full skirt and long train. Her voluminous fingertip-length veil completed the look.
She headed inside to meet the registrar, while I took a few photographs of Brad waiting nervously at the top of the aisle.
A beautiful ceremony in the Basing Room
The ceremony took place in the Basing Room at Winchester Registry Office, one of my favourite spaces there to photograph.
The room has beautiful mahogany-panelled walls, striking green peacock wallpaper and an old stone fireplace, creating a wonderfully atmospheric backdrop. Although it is quite a dark room, there is a gorgeous amount of natural light pouring in, which made for some beautiful, soft photographs of Alice and Brad and their guests.
Alice walked into the room with her dad, accompanied by her bridesmaids, flower girls and sister, and they were married in front of the fireplace with their closest family and friends around them.
It was a small and intimate ceremony, with the rest of their guests waiting to join them later at the village hall. And it turned out the ceremony was over much sooner than they expected, which was actually rather wonderful, because it gave us plenty of time for photographs.
Confetti, direct flash and a lesson I'll be taking forward!
For their confetti photographs, Alice and Brad walked straight out into some very bright sunshine.
Usually, this is the kind of situation where I would be looking for shade or trying to position the couple away from the harshest light. Instead, I decided to embrace it and used direct flash to balance the shadows and create a much more even, flattering exposure. I loved how this one sort of looks like a vintage 35mm image.
The combination of bright sunshine and flash gave the photographs a really crisp, editorial feel, while still keeping all the joy and movement of the confetti.
After seeing how well this worked, I think I may be very reluctant to photograph another couple walking directly into the sun without a flash!
Winchester portraits around the city
After the ceremony, we took the opportunity to explore a little of Winchester for some couple portraits.
The surrounding area gives you so many possibilities, and we also made use of the beautiful nearby barracks, with their manicured grounds, tree-lined walks and lovely fountain.
It was a chance for Alice and Brad to have a little breathing space together after the ceremony, away from the excitement of the rest of the day.
We also took a few photographs with the Dodge Coronet before they headed off to the reception. Having a family car with that much history and character was such a lovely addition to their photographs.
For their immediate family group photographs, we headed to the wall of the Great Hall, right next to Winchester Registry Office. It provided some lovely open shade, which meant everyone could look towards the camera without squinting in the sunshine.
Later, once everyone had arrived at the village hall, we took additional group photographs with their wider group of guests, including one big photograph of everyone together.
A village hall ceilidh and Indian street food
Then came the second half of the wedding, and this is where Alice and Brad really made the day their own.
Their reception was held at Rotherwick Village Hall, which turned out to be a fantastic space for the kind of celebration they had planned. It has high ceilings, large windows and a big open floor, making it absolutely perfect for a ceilidh.
Rather than having a traditional formal wedding breakfast, they brought in Ultimate Indian Street Food, a luxury Indian street food van.
The food, the village hall, the relaxed atmosphere and the ceilidh all felt much more like Alice and Brad than a traditional formal wedding reception ever could have.
A wedding that was completely their own
One of my favourite things about this wedding was the way Alice and Brad didn't feel the need to make their wedding fit a traditional template.
They had a smaller registry office wedding for the legal ceremony, followed by a much bigger celebration with their friends and family. They chose street food instead of a formal wedding breakfast.
They had a ceilidh instead of a traditional evening reception.
And Alice even changed into a less formal dress later in the evening so that she could properly enjoy the dancing.
There was no sense of “this is what we're supposed to do at a wedding.”
Instead, everything felt like them.
And honestly, I think that's something more couples should feel completely free to do.
Your wedding doesn't have to look like anyone else's.
If you love Indian street food, have Indian street food. If you want a ceilidh, have a ceilidh. If you'd rather get married in a registry office and then throw a huge party afterwards, that's absolutely fine. If you want to change into something you can dance in, do it.
The best weddings are often the ones where you can look around the room and recognise the couple in every detail.
A vintage ruffle cake and a night of dancing
There was still plenty of tradition woven into the evening just with Alice and Brad's own twist.
Their cake was a gorgeous three-tier vintage ruffle heart cake in cream, covered with red and pink ruffles. It had that modern-vintage look that is so popular at the moment, and it looked fantastic against the rest of the reception styling.
It was wheeled in and out on a pink vintage trolley, which was such a cute detail.
I photographed the cake cutting using a mixture of bounce flash and direct flash, before heading back onto the dance floor as the ceilidh continued throughout the evening.
There were speeches, plenty of dancing and lots of photographs of the band and the action on the stage.
And then, as the evening started to draw in, we snuck away for a few more portraits.
Pink skies, a full moon and a little off-camera flash
We were incredibly lucky with the sunset. The sky turned a gorgeous mixture of pink and purple, giving us a beautiful opportunity for some evening portraits of Alice and Brad. I actually saw the sky while they were dancing, decided not to interrupt, and then as fortune had it, the band decided to have a break so I rushed them out :)
But there was one photograph we particularly wanted to get. Alice and Brad had deliberately chosen to get married on the day of a full moon, so a photograph with the moon was high on the list. Thankfully, there was just enough cloud cover to make it possible without completely obscuring the moon.
I set up an off-camera flash on a tripod with a softbox and photographed them leaning against a postbox just outside the town hall. It was one of those slightly unconventional wedding photographs that ends up feeling particularly special because it represents something specific to the couple.
Your wedding doesn't have to follow the rules
Alice and Brad's day is a lovely example of why I don't think weddings should come with a rulebook. I'm a little biased because I too ripped up the rule book for my own wedding!
There was a beautiful dress, but also a second outfit for dancing. There was a cake cutting and speeches, but there was also Indian street food from a van. There was a traditional wedding dance, but it was a ceilidh that had everyone properly involved.
It was a wedding that took the bits they loved and left behind the bits that weren't important to them.
That is exactly what I think a wedding should be, your wedding day is an opportunity to create something that feels yours unmistakably, whether that's an intimate ceremony followed by a village-hall party, a huge country-house celebration, a relaxed festival-style wedding or something completely different.
And if you're planning a wedding at Winchester Registry Office and want your photography to reflect the day as it really feels, from the nervous anticipation before the ceremony to the last dance of the evening, I'd love to hear from you.
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