Getting Married at Camden Town Hall: A Photographer’s Guide

Camden Town Hall sits on Judd Street in King's Cross, directly opposite the spires of the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, and it is one of London's busiest and best-loved places to marry. The 1930s building holds Camden's register office, and everything about it works in a couple's favour: generous rooms, handsome stone, and one of the most photogenic corners of London waiting right outside the door. This is a photographer's guide to the building, its rooms, and the pictures the area gives you afterwards.

Six rooms, from two witnesses to a hundred and sixty guests

Most register offices give you a choice of two or three rooms. Camden gives you six, which is why it suits everything from a lunch-break elopement to a full celebration. The council licenses the rooms roughly like this:

• The Primrose Room seats up to four guests beside the couple. This is the elopement room: quiet, simple and personal.
• The Regents Room seats around twenty, the right size for close family and a handful of friends.
• The Heath Suite seats about thirty in a brighter, more contemporary setting, and can be combined with the Primrose Room for parties of up to a hundred.
• The Council Chamber is the showpiece: a grand civic room that takes celebrations from eighty up to around a hundred and sixty guests.

Ceremonies run to about half an hour, whichever room you choose. If you are still weighing up sizes, my guide to registry office weddings in London covers how the shorter format actually flows on the day.

How the building photographs

Civic buildings of this era were built to impress, and Camden's rooms have what I look for everywhere: height, symmetry and daylight. The larger rooms carry long sightlines, so I can work from a respectful distance while the ceremony simply happens, no directing, no interruptions. In the smaller rooms the opposite is true, everyone is close, and the photographs come out warm and personal: hands held tight, a witness wiping an eye, the registrar's smile as the register is signed.

Afterwards: the best portrait square mile in London

This is where Camden Town Hall quietly beats almost every other register office in the city. Within a ten minute walk you have the gothic frontage of St Pancras and its hotel forecourt, the fountains and steps of Granary Square, the boutiques and brick of Coal Drops Yard, and the calm towpath of Regent's Canal. A black cab, a red bus, a canal bench: the whole visual language of a London wedding is on your doorstep. I usually steal couples away for fifteen or twenty minutes, then hand them back to their guests before anyone notices.

Marrying here

Camden Town Hall rewards a photographer who arrives early, knows which room you have booked, and has a route planned for the light outside. The Ceremony collection covers register office weddings like this across London from £300, and fuller days are covered by Essentials and Signature. See exactly what every collection includes, read how I photograph weddings, or compare with my guides to Islington Town Hall and Chelsea Old Town Hall. I would love to photograph your day here.