A Marylebone Town Hall Wedding — Elizabeth & John

When the cab pulled away from the Kimpton Fitzroy and turned toward Marylebone, Elizabeth called her mum. Her mum was in America. She held the phone up so she could see London through the window — the streets, the buildings, the two of them in matching cream on their way to get married. That phone screen, held up to the glass of a black cab, is the frame I keep coming back to from this day.

Elizabeth and John got married at Marylebone Town Hall on a quiet morning — two witnesses, a registrar, and a handful of rooms that between them represent about five hundred years of London architecture. No reception, no suppliers, no guest list. Just a decision, made well.

The Kimpton Fitzroy

The prep was at the Kimpton Fitzroy on Russell Square — one of the most visually extraordinary hotel interiors in London. The original Victorian Gothic building wraps an art nouveau atrium around a palm court with a glass ceiling, the ironwork balconies stacked above an ornate marble floor. It is a space designed for arrivals and departures, and what it gave us for portraits was a series of environments that felt staged without anyone having touched them. Elizabeth and John both wore cream — a deliberate choice that ran against every convention, and one the Fitzroy absorbed completely.

The cab across London

Then the call to mum, and the cab, and London passing by outside. Elizabeth's mother was watching through a phone screen from somewhere in America — the taxi, the streets, her daughter on the way to get married. There is a particular kind of intimacy in a small wedding: the moments that in a larger celebration would be lost between the catering and the room plan surface cleanly instead, and this was one of them.

Marylebone Town Hall

Marylebone Town Hall sits on Marylebone Road — a neoclassical building that has been marrying people since 1920. The ceremony room is formal and high-ceilinged; the staircase was dressed with a white and yellow floral arch for the occasion. The registrar officiated with the quiet authority of someone who has done this thousands of times and means it every time. Two witnesses. The two of them. After the ceremony they came down the staircase into the marble entrance hall and out through the columns onto Marylebone Road, where London continued entirely as if nothing particular had happened.

The Landmark

The couples shoot was at the Landmark, a few minutes' walk along Marylebone Road — another Victorian atrium, another glass ceiling, another space that does the work before you raise the camera. The palms, the gallery levels, the particular quality of diffused daylight through a glass roof: it is a building that has been photographed a thousand times and still managed to look specific to whoever is standing in it.

The year before

I first photographed Elizabeth and John at St Dunstan in the East — the ruined medieval church in the City of London whose walls are open to the sky and whose garden grows through the remaining stonework. That was their engagement. Marylebone was the legal beginning of what follows next.

Planning a Marylebone Town Hall wedding?

If you are looking for a Marylebone Town Hall wedding photographer, the combination of the Town Hall itself with prep at the Kimpton Fitzroy and portraits at the Landmark gives you three completely distinct visual environments within a mile of each other — and London as the backdrop to all of it. For American couples planning a London wedding, or for anyone drawn to a small, intentional civil ceremony in the city, I would love to hear from you.

The venues

Ceremony: Marylebone Town Hall

Prep: Kimpton Fitzroy London

Couples shoot: The Landmark London

Rob Moore is a fine art editorial wedding photographer based in Essex, covering historic estates, country houses and destination weddings across the UK and internationally. His work has been exhibited across eight international cities.