Photographing Fabulous Intimate Weddings in Cambridge

As a Cambridge Wedding Photographer, one of the best things about my job is spending time shooting weddings in my birthplace and hometown. A sleepy, relaxed City in the heart of East Anglia and just 45 minutes north of London, Cambridge is easily accessible and a fantastic place to host your wedding.

Maybe I am little biased with it being my home city, but Cambridge consistently holds a position in the UK’s top 10 most visited cities with good reason. For me, as a photographer it is a fantastic place to immerse yourself with a camera. The stunning medieval architecture and natural green spaces that make up the City are surrounded by open fields with huge skies, farmland and picturesque villages.

View of Kings College, Cambridge from Castle Hill

The rural City’s skyline of historic spires sit among open public spaces of green common land and wild meadows, it’s a very appealing combination of town and country rolled into one, which makes it a wonderfully romantic backdrop for wedding photographs.

Bride and Groom at Wedding at Trinity Hall College in Cambridge

Intimate Weddings and photography in Cambridge.

There are tonnes of places your can tie the knot and celebrate a marriage in Cambridge. The City’s world famous University has an unusual structure; instead of one university campus building, it is made up of 31 individual historic colleges. Most of these colleges have event hosting facilities and regularly host weddings. Picturesque architecture and a wealth of beautifully manicured lawns are on offer for wedding parties of all sizes.

But, what if you are planning an intimate wedding in Cambridge?

Bride and Groom on a punt on the River Cam in Cambridge

The freedom to explore for couple portraits.

Shire Hall, the registry office on Cambridge’s Castle Hill, is where the majority of the Cambridge’s civil ceremonies are conducted. It’s around a 15 minute walk from the historic City centre with plenty of pubs and restaurants available nearby offering their services for small and intimate weddings with drinks receptions, lunches and dinners all offered for wedding parties.

From a photographer’s perspective this is where the opportunity to explore the local surroundings begins. The following 4 images were taken after a small ceremony at one of my recent intimate weddings in Cambridge, the couple, Deborah and Noah were more than happy to explore the area and by simply spending around 30 minutes walking around the outskirts of the small city, with my Nikon camera in hand I was able to get some lovely shots of the newlywed couple with a variety of backdrops that really captured the essence of Cambridge life.

Bride and Groom overlooking the River Cam

We began our walk on Magdalene Bridge.  As tourists were leisurely punting along the river below, we paused for a couple of Bride & Groom portraits, keeping the happy couple in focus and using a bokeh effect to blur out the punts tourists behind.

Magdalene bridge is the oldest of many bridges crossing the river Cam and it is here that the City’s name originates, Cam – Bridge.  We passed the Pickerel Inn, one of Cambridge’s oldest pubs and continued along Bridge street keeping my shutter finger poised for action and regularly pausing to take a photo of the couple alongside typical local features such as bikes, old textured walls or big painted wooden doors.

We headed along “The Backs” making use of the surroundings and light for more portraits as we went finally finishing with an awesome view across the meadow to Kings College Chapel, this is always an opportunity for a couple portrait with the newlyweds in the foreground with the chapel behind.

Bride & Groom having a walk after their small and intimate wedding in  Cambridge

Brides and their dog at Wedding Ceremony in Anstey Hall Wedding VeBrides and their dog at Wedding Ceremony in Anstey Hall Wedding Venue in Cambridgenue in Cambridge

Weddings in Cambridge don’t have to be traditional.

In my time as a Cambridge wedding photographer I have learned that this little city is almost unique in the in what it has to offer in terms of  wedding possibilities. The mixture of old & new within Cambridge itself, the cosmopolitan vibe and the surrounding rural landscape make it a great choice whether you are looking to have a traditional church wedding with a reception at a stunning historic building, a modern civil metropolitan hotel wedding or something different like a rustic barn or a farm wedding all can be catered for within a short distance of Cambridge’s city centre.

Cambridge weddings all hold special memories for me as a photographer. If your considering a wedding in Cambridgeshire but not sure on a choice of venue then why not check out my feature “10 Alternative Cambridgeshire Wedding Venues”  and if you are considering a small and intimate weddings in Cambridge then please get in touch.

Damien Vickers is a Wedding photographer shooting weddings in a natural photojournalistic style across the UK.