Do you charge travel to Rochester or Chatham?

No. Medway is about forty minutes from Canterbury along the M2, and there are no travel fees anywhere in Kent, Medway included.

Can we marry at Rochester Cathedral?

Only with a significant connection. The cathedral needs an Archbishop's special licence, and couples are expected to be on the Cathedral Roll, which means at least six months of regular worship there. There are only a few weddings a year. Most couples who want the cathedral in their photographs marry nearby and walk past it afterwards.

Is the register office in Rochester good for photographs?

It's in the middle of historic Rochester, which is the point. The ceremony room takes up to fifty, and the cathedral, the castle and the High Street are all a few minutes' walk. A register office wedding and a walk through old Rochester makes a very good short day.

Is Upnor Castle open for winter weddings?

Check with Medway Council. The castle closes to visitors over the winter, and the published dates vary. It also has a lot of steps and no wheelchair access, which is worth knowing early if any guests have mobility needs.

Is Medway part of Kent for weddings?

Geographically yes, administratively no. Medway Council runs its own register office and licenses its own venues, separately from Kent County Council. The process is the same, but the contact details and fees are different.

Medway

Rochester and Medway wedding photographer

Medway is where Kent’s history is most crowded together. In Rochester the cathedral and the Norman castle stand side by side above the river. The High Street is the one Dickens wrote about, and the buildings along it are the ones he described. Downriver, Chatham has the Georgian naval dockyard, and across the water Upnor Castle still guards the Medway. It’s about forty minutes from my home in Canterbury.

I haven’t photographed a Medway wedding since coming back from documentary filmmaking. This page is a planning guide to the venues and the city, not a portfolio.

One thing to know first. Medway has its own council, separate from Kent County Council, with its own register office and its own venue licences. If you’re planning a ceremony here, Medway Council is who you talk to.

Rochester

The register office is on Northgate, in the old city, with a Library Room for up to fifty guests and a tiny statutory room for a two-witness wedding. It’s ceremonies only. What makes it good is what’s outside: the cathedral, the castle gardens and the High Street are all within a few minutes’ walk.

Eastgate House is a Grade I Elizabethan townhouse on the High Street, built in 1590 and connected to two Dickens novels. Ceremonies happen in an oak-panelled room with its original tiled fireplace, for about forty guests. The gardens aren’t licensed for ceremonies, but they’re good for photographs afterwards.

The Guildhall Museum dates from 1687, with painted plaster ceilings, oil paintings and a grand staircase. The Main Chamber takes about seventy seated guests. It’s the most formal room in the city, and the staircase is the photograph.

The Corn Exchange is a Grade I building from 1706. Its Queens Hall has chandeliers and good natural light and takes up to three hundred. The smaller Princes Hall is off the main staircase. It’s the option for a big wedding in the middle of town.

Rochester Cathedral is possible only with a real connection to it. It needs a special licence and a place on the Cathedral Roll, and it holds only a handful of weddings a year.

The river and the dockyard

Upnor Castle is an Elizabethan artillery fort on the bank of the Medway. Ceremonies take place in the old munitions store on the upper floor, for up to eighty seated guests, with drinks in the grounds by the river afterwards. Expect a lot of steps, no wheelchair access and a winter closure, so check dates with the council.

The Historic Dockyard, Chatham has licensed rooms in the Commissioner’s House, an outdoor ceremony space in its garden, and even a Victorian warship. The brick and timber of the dockyard buildings make some of the best backgrounds in the county. Confirm current capacities with the dockyard, as the published figures are a few years old.

Cooling Castle Barn is out on the Hoo peninsula, beside the ruins of a fourteenth-century castle. It has large barns for the ceremony and the party, and outdoor ceremonies in good weather. It’s the countryside option, with marsh and sky in every direction.

The light

The old city sits on a slope above the river, with the cathedral and castle at the top and the Medway below. Rochester Bridge and the river path give you open water and the skyline together. At the end of the day, that’s where I’d take you.

The High Street is narrow and lined with old buildings, so it’s shaded for most of the day. That’s useful at midday, and it’s why a summer register office wedding at noon works better here than on an open lawn. The dockyard’s long brick buildings give soft, reflected light between them at almost any hour.

Sunset is around quarter past nine in late June and just before four in December.

Getting guests here

Trains. Rochester and Chatham are under forty minutes from St Pancras on the high-speed line, with mainline trains to Victoria too. It’s one of the quickest Kent weddings for London guests.
Parking in old Rochester is pay and display, a short walk from the register office and the High Street venues.
Festivals. The Sweeps Festival fills Rochester over the early May bank holiday, and the Dickensian Christmas festival takes over the first weekend of December. If your date falls on either, it’ll be busy, and it can look wonderful.

How a Medway day usually runs

A Rochester wedding is often a city wedding: ceremony in a historic room, a walk through the old town for photographs, and a meal close by. The full wedding day covers that comfortably, and a dockyard or barn wedding with everything on one site fits it too. For a short register office ceremony and lunch, the intimate wedding package is enough.