Caitlin & Joe: Oxford Town Hall and Medley Walled Garden, by boat

Caitlin and Joe got married on the last Saturday in June, on one of those Oxford days where everyone spends the first hour saying how lovely it is and the second hour looking for shade. Sunglasses on the bride, sunglasses on the groom, paper fans going round the guests like a collection plate.

The ceremony was at Oxford Town Hall. The party was at Medley Walled Garden, a short way up the Thames. And rather than doing the sensible thing with taxis, everyone went by boat.

Before the day

I’d met the two of them properly a few weeks earlier for an evening in Hyde Park, under horse chestnuts still in flower. It’s the best way I know to get the awkward bit out of the way. By the end of it Joe had stopped asking what to do with his hands, and Caitlin had worked out that I wasn’t going to make them do anything silly.

The morning

Getting ready was two bridesmaids in sage satin, a dress with more buttons down the back than anyone had budgeted time for, and a mirror that got a lot of use.

Meanwhile Joe’s best man did his tie for him, standing behind him like a barber. It’s an odd, slightly intimate job, and nobody ever looks entirely sure they’re doing it right.

Caitlin went to the Town Hall in an old black car with leather seats the colour of conkers.

Oxford Town Hall

Oxford Town Hall sits on St Aldate’s and looks every bit the Victorian civic building it is: Henry Hare designed it, and the Prince of Wales opened it in 1897. Inside it’s carved stone, wood panelling and heavy red curtains, which sounds stern on paper and turns out to be quite warm in person. The panelling soaks up light and gives it back golden, so skin looks good and nobody needs flash.

The bridesmaids went first, then Caitlin.

I always watch the groom at this point rather than the aisle. Joe managed about two seconds of composure before the grin won.

Civil ceremonies are short, which suits me. There’s no time for anyone to settle into a performance, so what you get is mostly real: a bridesmaid wiping her eyes, a few people pretending they weren’t, and a room that laughs at the right moment.

Back in the car afterwards, there were thirty seconds of quiet. That’s usually the first time all day that two people get to be alone together, and I try to take one frame and then leave them to it.

On the river

Then the boats. A small fleet of launches took everyone up the river, with Caitlin and Joe on their own in a wooden one called Constantia. They had a driver, sunglasses and a red ensign off the stern, which is about as close to a getaway car as the river allows.

Photographing a wedding from a riverbank is mostly a matter of running between gaps in the hedge. The ducklings, I’m pleased to say, didn’t care that it was anyone’s wedding at all.

Getting off a boat in a wedding dress is its own small event. Caitlin did it with one hand on the rail and the other holding the dress, and the guests who’d landed first lined the path to make sure she didn’t miss them.

Medley Walled Garden

Medley is a family farm on the north-west edge of the city, out towards Port Meadow, and the walled garden behind it has been brought back after years of being left to itself. The wall is seventeenth century; the planting is newer and a bit wild, in a good way. You come up from the river, through a stone arch, and straight into a tunnel of confetti.

Dinner was under a long timber pergola with a glass roof, so the light stayed soft even in the middle of a very bright afternoon. Long tables, sage runners, snapdragons in jam jars, and a mix of old floral china that looked collected rather than hired.

Plenty of it was handmade. The menus had a pen drawing of the Oxford skyline and an Italian running order: antipasti, then primo and secondo served family style. A quilted heart with their names and the date hung behind the top table, and it looked like it had taken someone months.

They’d also booked an illustrator, who sat at a little table sketching guests all afternoon. It’s a good idea. People who would dodge a camera will happily sit still for a pencil.

Speeches, cake and a lot of lawn

The speeches were the kind where the couple laugh harder than anyone. The bridesmaids had the room in pieces, and Caitlin spent most of it laughing.

After that the garden took over. Lawn games, small children running in straight lines for no reason, and a group photograph of everyone on the grass in front of the farmhouse, which took less time than the queue for the bar.

If you’re getting married at Oxford Town Hall

Work with the panelling: The rooms are dark wood and stone, so the light is warm and fairly low. I shoot without flash during the ceremony and let the room do its thing.

Leave time for the street: St Aldate’s is busy. A few minutes on the steps afterwards is worth it, but your quieter portraits are better saved for wherever you go next.

Keep it moving: Civil ceremonies run to a schedule, and the next wedding may be waiting. Plan to be out of the room promptly and do the hugging outside.

If you’re having your reception at Medley

Think about the river: Medley sits by the Thames, and arriving by boat turns the transfer from the city into part of the day rather than a gap in it. Allow more time than the journey suggests; getting a crowd on and off boats is slow.

Use the shade: The covered dining area is a gift on a hot day. Portraits in the garden work best early in the evening, when the sun drops behind the wall.

Ask about numbers: The venue lists dining for around 150, but check the current figure with them directly.

There’s more about both places on my Oxford Town Hall wedding photographer and Medley Walled Garden wedding photographer pages. If you’re planning something similar, the Lookbook has what I charge and what’s included.

A town hall, a boat called Constantia, and a garden that waited for them.