Trinity Buoy Wharf Weddings
Trinity Buoy Wharf isn’t your typical wedding venue. It’s raw, industrial, and vibrantly alive. Exposed brick walls whisper of nautical adventures, vintage cranes stand sentinel like loyal guardians, and the ever-changing sky serves as a backdrop that’s never the same twice. It’s a place where couples who crave something different, something authentic, come to celebrate their big day.
As I’ve shot so many amazing weddings here, I thought it would be a good idea to write a consolidated blog about Trinity Buoy Wharf Weddings because it has been one of my most consistent and enjoyable wedding venues over the last five or six years. When I first started shooting at Trinity Buoy Wharf the only space available for weddings was bright, airy, warehouse of The Chainstore. But that has been expanded now to include The Electrician’s Shop, both upstairs in the bright ceremony room and down below in its beautifully atmospheric basement. They’re also numbers 2 and 3 on my list of Best London Wedding Venues. So it’s very definitely one of my preferred wedding venues. Hopefully this post can also function as a resource and jumping off point for your wedding.
The Chainstore
The Chainstore at Trinity Buoy Wharf is a very big open space. Couples looking for a wedding venue have told me that it can be quite overwhelming the first time you see it empty. They wonder how they’ll ever be able to fill it and make the vast room, with its high white walls, feel like an intimate wedding space. The first time I shot there Matthew and Erica actually created a temporary living room space in one corner, complete with sofas, Persian carpet and a standard lamp and dressed the stage with a curtain of lights. The most recent wedding I shot there last summer, Laura and Matt had a bespoke neon sign made for them which they hung on the wall surrounded by flowers. But I’ve also seen it left alone and the space still works beautifully once it’s filled with all your friends and families.
The Electrician’s Shop
Upstairs, The Electrician’s Store at Trinity Buoy Wharf is a smaller space by square foot but is still a bright, high ceilinged space with the light coming in from large windows at the front. Down below in the basement is a much smaller affair altogether. A narrow intimate space lit only by ambient spot lighting creating a very atmospheric space to get married and a warm sense of community among all your guests settling in down there, waiting for the bride and the big reveal.
The Lighthouse
While it’s on The Chainstore that has the river view, looking out across The Thames to the O2 Arena, all of the venues allow for chaperoned access to The Lighthouse with its brass viewing point and 180 degree view. The shots you can get up there are fantastic, both looking down on the guests drinking outside, and the couple shots of the bride and groom both inside and out.
All the weddings I have shot at Trinity Buoy Wharf have been really fun, lively events. If anything they tend to be parties with a wedding thrown in for good measure. Situated close to East London this is another venue perfect for the kind of East London Weddings which have create the perfect mix. A space for hip urban London wedding with the container park serving as aa background full of bold primary colours that still manages to provide an attentive easy-going wedding service.
There is also the added benefit of being so close to the river Thames. A number of weddings I have shot here have taken advantage of this, chartering a boat trip up to the Houses of Parliament and then back to Greenwich before returning to dock at the wharf. Guests are always met with a split of champagne as the walk off the gangway.
Access to Trinity Buoy Wharf is restricted but not limited to wedding guests. There is a cafe onsite as well as Fatboy’s Diner; a classic chrome and neon 1950s style diner that provides another great backdrop for a few quick photos during the couple’s portrait walk around I like to do during a relaxed 15 minute slot in the afternoon. Opposite that is the large red, permanently docked boat, which is one of my favourite backdrops of any London wedding. Bride and groom in front of the red boat, beneath a blue sky. Unbeatable.
Trinity Buoy Wharf Wedding catering
The catering at Trinity Buoy Wharf is always superb. I’m really not sure how they do it. Everything is done outside, behind the scenes, inside a large tent and comes out like clockwork. I’ve been around a lot of weddings and have never seen anyone waiting or complaining that the food is taking too long here.
Trinity Buoy Wharf Wedding planners
Also, it can be a pretty daunting task to start planning a wedding. Most people are doing all this for the first time, of course. And with any luck will only be doing it the one time. So almost everyone is coming at this from the need to get it exactly right first time. Therefore, you’re looking for wedding planners, a couple of great wedding planners I’ve worked with here are: Emerald and Mae and The Wedding Arrangers
I loved this effortlessly stylish wedding, which started off at Bethnal Green Town Hall Apartments for the bridal prep and moved the short journey to Trinity Buoy Wharf and The Electrician’s Shop for a humanist wedding ceremony and an amazing party. As I say in the blog itself it reminds me of Jerry Hall marrying Bryan Ferry back in the 80s, with maybe a little bit of Studio 54 thrown in for good measure. And I mean Laura and Bengt have the kind of cheekbones that must shred pillowcases in their sleep.
Matthew & Erica’s Wedding Blog
This was the first wedding I ever shot at any of the Trinity Buoy Wharf wedding venues and it’s still one of my favourites. It was also one of the rare times when the weather hasn’t been amazing. But of course the beauty of The Chainstore is that it can accommodate all the weddings guests pouring in at once with ease. Matthew and Erica met a music college and so they, along with a number of their guests, provided the live music as their own wedding band. It made an amazing night and some amazing photos.
So if you’re thinking about getting married at any of the Trinity Buoy Wharf venues and you’re looking to book a wedding photographer I’d love to hear from you: contact me