Whitstable wedding photographer

Whitstable is twenty minutes from my home in Canterbury, and it’s one of the few places in the south-east where you can marry and then watch the sun go down over the sea. The coast here faces north across the Thames estuary. On summer evenings the sun sets in the north-west, out over the water towards Sheppey. That one fact shapes a Whitstable wedding more than anything else.

Weddings here tend to be smaller and looser than inland. A ceremony at the castle or the register office, a long lunch on the harbour, oysters, a walk along the slopes in the evening. That suits a documentary photographer: there’s less to stage and more to watch.

I haven’t photographed a Whitstable wedding since coming back from filmmaking, so this page covers what the town gives you and how I’d plan around it, not a portfolio of weddings here.

Where people marry in Whitstable

Whitstable Castle. A Georgian house in public gardens on Tower Hill, between the town and Tankerton. Ceremonies take place indoors in rooms of different sizes, from a dozen guests to about sixty, or outside in the Victorian gazebo in the gardens. The grounds are public, so expect dog walkers in the background of wider shots unless you plan around them.

East Quay. The old oyster grading room at the end of the harbour, with its own roped-off patch of shingle beach looking straight out to sea. Ceremonies are indoors, on the mezzanine or downstairs, and the beach is for the photographs afterwards. It’s the closest you’ll get to marrying on the water.

The Marine Hotel on Marine Parade overlooks Tankerton Slopes and has bedrooms for guests who don’t want to drive. The Beacon House on Tankerton beach is a beachfront house with a veranda and decking, and you bring your own caterers.

The register office for Whitstable is in Canterbury. Wellington House on St Stephen’s Road has a small ceremony room for up to twenty-five and a riverside garden at the entrance. Couples often marry there in the morning and drive out to the coast for lunch, which fits my intimate wedding package or, with the evening too, the full day.

The places worth walking to

• Tankerton Slopes. A long grass bank above the beach huts, open to the sky. It’s the best evening portrait spot in town.
• The Street. A shingle spit running half a mile out to sea from Tankerton. It only appears at low tide, and it disappears completely when the tide comes in. If you want to walk out on it, look up the tide for your date first.
• The harbour. Working boats, fish sheds, the oyster stalls, rope and rust. It’s good at any hour, and better than the beach at midday when the light is flat.
• The beach huts. The rows along Tankerton and the West Beach are colourful backdrops, but they’re privately leased, so we use them as scenery.

The light

The sea to the north means you’re never shooting straight into the sun on the beach at midday. The light comes across the water from one side, which is kind to faces. The good hour is the last one before sunset, when the light goes gold and the sky over the estuary turns.

Sunset is around quarter past nine in late June and just before four in December. A winter wedding on the coast means doing the beach photographs before the meal. It’s often the best idea of the day, because the sky does more in January than in July.

Practical notes

• Trains. Whitstable has direct trains to London St Pancras on the high-speed line in roughly an hour and a quarter, and to Victoria in about an hour and a half.
• Parking near the harbour is difficult in summer and on bank holidays. Tell guests early.
• The oyster festival is held over a weekend in September, and the town is packed. If your date falls on it, plan around the crowds or lean into them.
• Wind. Bring a plan B for veils and a jacket for the evening. The beach is always colder than it looks from the car park.

How a Whitstable day usually runs

The days I’d expect to photograph here are mostly between thirty and eighty guests. Getting ready in a rented house, a ceremony in the morning or early afternoon, a long lunch, and then the evening walk to the slopes. The full wedding day covers it, and its ten hours give you the walk to the beach at sunset without rushing the speeches.