Registry Office Weddings

You will have to plan a slightly different shooting schedule for a registry office wedding. I have shot a number of weddings at a very busy city centre registry office. There can be as many as five or six weddings taking place at the same time!

This causes problems with guest shots, you will normally need to arrange to shoot the guests after the wedding as it is not practical to stop every guest who is arriving at the building to enquire which wedding they are attending.

Some registry offices allocate a given time to the Bride and Groom for the use of the building, for example the wedding ceremony takes approximately fifteen minutes but it is not unusual for the couple to have the use of the building for thirty minutes. This will allow you to take some shots inside.

Not all registry offices are as busy; you must however check these details with the registrar prior to the wedding. It will often be the case that you do not have the opportunity to photograph during the service.

The Bride and Groom normally enter the room together, and there are not usually as many guests as there would be at a Church wedding. Having said this, I am not suggesting that you must make dramatic changes to the service provided however the packages chosen for this type of wedding are often, although not always, the cheapest.

Some couples choose the registry office for financial reasons and for that same reason their choice of reception can be somewhere that does not lend itself to good photo opportunities.

If this proves to be the case I would suggest, as with church weddings, the use of a local park or beauty spot for the photographs.

You should enquire whether the couples intend at some future date to have a religious blessing. If this is the case you should offer to attend, providing a supplement to their registry office photographs.

 Wedding Photography Tips