Greenwich, oh how I love you, you were my home for the best part of ten years, I do miss you. The walks along the Thames, the architecture of the naval colleges, the oversized hot dogs I would buy in the market that would go all over my face and hands, good times. And what a nod this wedding was to the naval history of the place, and I don’t mean oranges. The reception was held at the yacht club (yes Greenwich has a yacht club) and even the name places were tiny little paper boats – I always wonder how long the zen lasts during origami on such scale, one paper crane is therapeutic, one hundred of them is a shortcut to mild insanity.
If you live in the city, fewer things are as iconic as having wedding reception overlook the Thames, which is why this is one of the great wedding venues. The sun setting over that river upon which the nation was founded, everything from the stones that built st.pauls cathedral being shipped from France to the whales that sometimes get lost, this place has stories.
The joy of getting married in a building with history as rich as the Greenwich naval colleges is that they were conceived when money was no object. This means everything was thought of and evaluated during the design and building process. How the building is oriented relative to the sun, how occupants of the space would move through it without being impeded and how the light would fall across it at certain times of year. Fast forward a few hundred years and we can plunge ourselves into a world that would be untouchable to most folk at the time of the buildings construction. Now (for a few shiny pennies of course) you can get married in a building that would have been reserved for societies elite.
It’s amazing how much of a place you can miss even when you live there (although technically i lived in blackheath), it’s so easy to take it for granted, Greenwich is one of those places for me, having been a wedding photographer for so many years, I never explored it to it’s full. I’ve never been in the painted gallery at the collages for example, maybe you could hire me to shoot your wedding there and I’ll tick that one off the list, wink wink, nudge nudge. Sticks n sushi I went to plenty of times, but I can’t say that I spent many afternoons strolling up the rivers edge, in all honesty I got hungry and had to stop, then ate so much I got sleepy, and then walked home, it was the best of times I cannot lie. I did however head up to the observatory, have you been in the space experience? That’s quite cool, it’s like a cinema with fully reclining chairs and you sit and look at the stars.
If you’re getting married in Greenwich, you should definitely head to the top of the park, the views over the river are truly spectacular. Catch it on a clear day and you’ll walk away with some of THE most epic couple portraits ever taken, if only the naval colleges had a golf buggy…
Check out some more weddings: One Whitehall Place, Blackheath, The Horniman, Hill Gardens, Hall Place