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Aldgate wedding

East End wedding couple

Aldgate Wedding Toynbee Hall in London’s East End

By London Wedding Photographer, Wedding VenuesOne Comment

married at Petticoat Lane London banner

As soon as we met Alex and Matt we knew their wedding would be different. They would be getting ready TOGETHER at their venue. They would go out and about in the East End of London with us for some fun and quirky couple shots BEFORE the wedding ceremony. There would be no wedding aisle, and all guests would stand in a circle around the couple with not a chair in sight! Wedding breakfast would be an indoor picnic with quality ingredients you would put together yourself, and all left overs of any kind would be recycled. Great! We love that Alex and Matt were able to express their values and personality through their wedding day, putting not just their personal stamp on things, but even going as far as to writing elements of their vows to each other.

East End wedding ceremony Tonybee Hall London

Venue for this wedding with a difference was Toynbee Hall near Aldgate station in London’s East End. Toynbee was created in Commercial Street in 1884 by Samuel and Henrietta Barnett as a centre for social reform. It dedicated much of it’s diverse work for helping the poor and disadvantaged of London’s East End. It has had many famous patrons and visitors over the years including Lenin, Clement Attlee, and John Profumo (who my own father met, I have the photo to prove it!) to name just a few.

wedding laughter by red London postbox

Newlyweds standing in the Whitechapel road

In the whirlwind of a wedding day we hit the ground running as a centre of calmness (ha!) and took a short tour of Whitechapel and Commercial Street with Alex and Matt for some photos before the meet and greet of their wedding guests. In truth we probably went no further than two hundred yards away from the venue, because we found an abundance of backdrops and objects to help tell the story of their relationship, attitude and special day right there.

wide angle shot of Whitechapel wedding

A great wedding photo/image is not just about backgrounds and equipment, though they have their place, it’s about light, mood, the interaction of the couple and the story being told. It’s easy and tremendously difficult all at the same time!

Toynbee Hall railings wedding shot

Ceremony time and the circle of love was a memorable, moving and amusing time too. We will never forget the wedding vow, “I promise to make you a cup of tea every day…” paraphrasing but along those lines!

The rest of the day was a fun filled time with family and friends and much laughter filled the air.

Great couple, great guests, great planning and execution, great day full stop.

wedding couple on Aldgate bench 1

wedding couple on Aldgate bench 2

You can see another East End London wedding blog post here on the website: Hackney and Hoxton Wedding for Carly and Jim

And of course a ton of our recent wedding images here: Wedding Galleries

Love_on_Petticoat Lane

By David Green