Brighton Town Hall Weddings
The Guide to Awesome Brighton Town Hall Wedding Photos
We’ve shot dozens of weddings at Brighton Town Hall, so this is our photographer’s guide for couples to Brighton Town Hall weddings!
If you’re planning a wedding at Brighton Town Hall, and you’ve got all the brochures and had all the meetings but you still want some ideas and inspiration and top tips for your Brighton Town Hall wedding, you’re in the right place!
We’ll share our top ideas for Brighton Town Hall weddings, from where to face in your ceremony for the best light, to mistakes a lot of couples make, to who the coolest registrars are, to where the cool hidden Brighton spots are for photo ops are – that no other photographers go (because they’re weird but make for super cool photos!)
Who are we? We’re Anna and Todd, we’ve been shooting weddings in Brighton since 2013 and have photographed weddings at the Town Hall soooo many times! We’ve seen it all! We’ve even been the witness THREE times! There’s photo evidence of one of those occasions below!
How to get the best ceremony photos at Brighton Town Hall
In the big upstairs room AKA The Council Chamber
This room’s for bigger weddings and looks like you’re in court.
It has three or four entrances too, and no one ever knows which door you’ll come in through so it’s like a game of roulette.
They’ll hold you in a room to the side, and you’ll be tempted to come in through that door, but it will spit you out right next to where your partner is waiting for you, and you either rush straight to them, missing out on your aisle walk (it’s happened so many times by mistake!) or you’ll have to do a long walk all around the seated guests before getting to the top of the aisle.
I recommend the middle rotating door – it spits you out at the top of the middle aisle (oh yes there’s more than one aisle too – very fun for photographers, keeps us on our toes). The aisles are super narrow so if you’re going down it in twos it’s tight.
The light in this room is also… pretty bad. Where you’re made to stand means you’re backlit and the light is very orange, so my top tip is to stand near the window, and I’ll stand with my back to the window, and then you’ll look fab. You can stand a bit further in, too, but don’t face completely away from the window.
I chat to all my couples about this in advance, don’t worry! I point out where to stand and where to walk down the aisle and all that stuff so don’t worry, it’s all in hand to make sure you get the best photos!
In the photos here, the top one shows them standing on the window side of the table, and the bottom they’re on the far side, but still facing the big window enough for me to get a fab shot. Those windows you see behind them aren’t the ones I mean by the way! The windows are the ones in the b&w photo – face them at all times, unlike in this photo! Otherwise your photos will come back to you all in black and white!
In the downstairs room AKA The Regency Room
Most weddings happen in the Recency Room at Brighton Town Hall. It’s downstairs so has easy access, and has a whole wall of lovely windows for natural light.
You can walk in from any of three doors – the outside door if you want to wait outside and come in from the left, a door straight ahead of the aisle, or a door facing the outside door, so you come down the aisle from the right. All are good!
The registrars each have their own quirky way of laying out the area where you stand – some like to put two chairs facing each other, some facing the front, and one registrar likes to stand in the aisle and have you face him, which I don’t recommend because then we can’t get photos of you!
Top tip – whoever’s most important (that’s for you to decide haha) and wants nicest photos of themselves must stand facing the windows. The other partner will be facing away from the window and the light isn’t as good. If you both face the front we have a fighting chance, but you’ll want to be facing each other really, for obvious reasons (cos you want to see each other!).
In the mini downstairs room AKA The Fitzherbert Room
A teeny room for teeny weddings! This room doesn’t get used very much, but we’ve done a few there and a top tip would be (have you guessed it already?) face the windows! This photo was taken using flash because facing away from the windows means no light on you, and we want light on you!
Top tips for Brighton Town Hall weddings
Walking out
The registrar will often send guests out before you, ready for confetti, so if you want to do the aisle walk out together, tell them! We may try to catch a moment at this point to get a photo of the two of you on the steps inside the town hall if permitted.
Confetti
I organise the confetti – so you two head inside to a different room and have a chat/smooch/hug/drink/moan while I prep confetti. You have to bring it yourself (I think they sell little bags of it too, but you’ll want lots so best to bring it!) and I recommend biodegradeable and colourful! Non biodegradeable is not allowed by the town hall, as it clogs up local businesses’ air filters and isn’t good for the environment of course. We don’t want to get confetti banned, so bring the eco friendly stuff!
The Brighton Town Hall registrars
They’re all lovely! Tim (blue shirt below) and Angelique (red dress below), and Eve are fab – they’re lovely and a good laugh. We don’t know the names of the others because these are the ones we see the most and love them.
Where to sit/stand for the ceremony
Facing a window where possible! There are several places to have your chairs and to stand, and my fave is both of you facing the window (first photo below) – it’s win win because you can also see your guests and I can get lovely photos of both of you.
The best wedding photo spots in and near Brighton Town Hall
Inside the Town Hall
Gotta be done! The steps inside the hallway of Brighton Town Hall are fabulous for stunning wedding photos. We often walk all the way up to get the good light. There’s a lift too! We’ll do these before confetti if we can, as there’s only a small window of opportunity to be inside after your ceremony.
The beach
It’s Brighton, you have to get wedding photos at the beach! It’s often blowing a gale and if it’s not it’s packed with people. But both things make for cool wedding photos! Sometimes if the weather is horrendous we’ll just do beach photos from up on the promenade with the sea in the background.
The promenade
The iconic turquiose railings have to feature in your Brighton wedding photos. They’re as Brighton as seagulls stealing your chips.
If it’s a truly horrendous day and you can’t bear to go all the way down to the beach, the prom is a good middle ground for beachy shots.
Car parks
Hear me out… car parks have really cool lines and shapes and they’re fab for urban vibes wedding portraits. Yes, they smell of wee, but all the best places do. Wait, that’s not right…
Our fave spot in the Lanes – the bunting!
We take all our couples here after the ceremony! It’s right outside Brighton Town Hall and looks awesome whatever the weather – as you can see! In winter they have festive lights up instead of bunting (one of the below photos show this off nicely!), so if they’re on (from dusk) this can make a gorgeous wintery photo.
The Lanes
Let’s go for a walk! The Lanes are narrow and windy and we’ll get lost, but that’s the fun! There’s bunting, trees, people, shops, lots of fun things to play with for wedding photos.
Graffiti Alleys
Brighton is famous for fab graffiti, and urban wedding photos are awesome, so let’s go for a wander and see what colourful graffiti we can snap!
Piss Alley
Named by the bride in this photo, Piss Alley is a spot in the middle of Brighton that just has the best reflected light and some gorgeous fig trees and vines hanging over the walls. Yes, it smells of piss. Like other photo spots in this guide. We treat our couples like royalty as you can tell! But it’s worth breathing through your mouth for a few minutes, right?
Bandstand
A Brighton classic, the bandstand is great for wedding photos (as long as no one is hanging out on it!) It’s a bit of a way out of town though, so we generally go there if our couples fancy a walk or they’re having the wedding reception nearby.
Brighton Pier
The pier is so iconic you have to get a wedding photo here! We can go a little bit up the pier to get the sign, or all the way to the end to get photos in the fairground – you’re very welcome to have a go on the rides too – many of our couples do!
The Brighton Sign (temporary!)
Fun while it’s there! Not a permanent spot but while it’s there it’s a cool spot for a wedding photo!
Brighton Town Hall Wedding Photos Inspiration Board!
Can you spot the photo of us where we were witnesses for our couple?
