The Kent Wedding Venues I’d Recommend as a Margate Wedding Photographer
Hey! I’m a Margate 35mm Film Wedding Photographer!
That’s me! (& My partner Paddy) Margate Super 8 Wedding Videographer
Living by the Sea
There is something slightly ridiculous about living in Margate and still travelling all over the country to photograph weddings when there are so many completely brilliant wedding venues practically on my doorstep.
Don't get me wrong, I love capturing a destination wedding. I love travelling for weddings, discovering new places, photographing weddings across the UK and occasionally getting on a plane with an unreasonable amount of camera equipment. But since relocating to Margate a couple of years ago, I've become increasingly obsessed with the idea of photographing more weddings right here in Kent.
Because Kent is good.
Really good.
There are grand country houses, wild coastal landscapes, eccentric spaces, beautiful old buildings, proper party venues and places that feel more like a weekend away with your favourite people than a wedding venue.
So, if I were planning a wedding in Kent, these are the venues I'd be looking at.
And, naturally, they're all places I'd love to photograph.
Goodnestone Park Wedding Photographer
Goodnestone Park is the sort of place that makes you understand why people get excited about country-house weddings.
It's a historic estate in the Kent countryside with landscaped gardens, a beautiful house, an orangery, luxury accommodation and enough space to disappear into for the weekend.
There are a few different ways to get married here too, including the church nearby, the gardens and the round house for smaller celebrations. The estate offers exclusive-use weekend weddings, multi-day celebrations and intimate winter weddings, so there's a sense that you're actually staying somewhere rather than simply hiring a room for eight hours.
And that makes a huge difference to the photography.
As a Goodnestone Park wedding photographer, I'd want to photograph the whole thing — not just the ceremony and reception, but people arriving, drinks in the gardens, everyone getting ready, wandering around the estate, the quieter bits of the weekend and whatever happens once the formal wedding stuff is out of the way.
It's also a seriously photogenic place.
The gardens have that slightly romantic, slightly cinematic quality that works beautifully with both digital photography and Kent 35mm film wedding photography. I'd be very happy disappearing into the grounds with a couple and a roll of film for half an hour while everyone else is drinking champagne.
Basically: historic house, beautiful gardens, weekend wedding, excellent excuse to shoot loads of film.
Yes please.
Turner Contemporary Wedding Photographer
This one is probably the most obvious choice for me personally.
I live in Margate.
I can walk to Turner Contemporary.
And it would be a bit rude not to mention it.
Turner Contemporary sits right on Margate seafront, overlooking the North Sea, and it's about as far removed from the traditional country-house wedding as you can get.
It's modern, architectural, full of natural light and surrounded by one of the best views in the county. The gallery is available for exclusive weddings, with spaces for ceremonies, receptions and evening celebrations.
As a Turner Contemporary wedding photographer, I'd be very interested in the combination of brutalist-ish architecture, enormous windows, sea views and actual people moving around inside it.
This is exactly the kind of place where documentary wedding photography makes sense.
You don't need to manufacture atmosphere when you've got the sea outside and a gallery full of people having a party inside.
And then there's Margate itself.
You could have your ceremony overlooking the water, wander down to the beach for photographs, head into town for a pint, eat something brilliant, and end up dancing somewhere that doesn't feel remotely like a conventional wedding venue.
As a Margate wedding photographer, I would be extremely happy to make this one of my regular haunts.
And, naturally, this is also exactly the kind of wedding where I'd want to bring the 35mm film.
Ripple Court Estate Wedding Photographer
Ripple Court might be one of the most interesting wedding venues in East Kent right now.
Just outside Deal, it's a private country estate built around a romantic Georgian house, with walled gardens, Victorian glasshouses, a Gin Shed, a ballroom, woodland, a pavilion and a secret dancefloor.
Yes.
A secret dancefloor.
The whole thing is designed around a three-day wedding, rather than simply hiring somewhere for a Saturday afternoon. Guests can arrive on Friday, settle in, get married on Saturday and spend Sunday slowly recovering together.
This is precisely the sort of wedding I want to photograph.
As a Ripple Court Estate wedding photographer, I'd be less interested in producing a collection of perfect portraits and more interested in documenting the whole slightly chaotic ecosystem of the weekend.
People arriving with bags.
Drinks in the Cow Shed.
Getting ready.
The ceremony in the gardens.
Cocktails at the Gin Shed.
Dinner in the Pavilion.
Firepits.
The ballroom.
And then the discovery of the secret dancefloor later that night.
There are also loads of different environments packed into one estate, which is brilliant from a photographic point of view. You're not spending the entire day in the same room.
And for a Kent documentary wedding photographer, that's basically a gift.
The gardens alone would keep me busy for hours.
Elmley Nature Reserve Wedding Photographer
Elmley Nature Reserve Weddings
Elmley is one of those places that doesn't really feel like Kent.
Or England.
Or, occasionally, civilisation.
Set across 3,300 acres of nature reserve on the Isle of Sheppey, Elmley is an extraordinary setting for a wedding — huge skies, wetlands, wildlife, wild meadows, the Swale Estuary and a collection of beautiful buildings and accommodation tucked into the landscape.
It's also specifically designed for multi-day celebrations.
The reserve is yours exclusively for three days and two nights, with accommodation on site, several ceremony options and spaces including Kingshill Barn and the Stables.
And crucially for anyone who likes a party, there's no curfew and no sound limiter, with the option to keep going around the firepit after midnight.
That sounds like my sort of wedding.
As an Elmley Nature Reserve wedding photographer, I'd be photographing a lot of landscape as well as people.
Sunrise.
Big skies.
Guests wandering around.
Wild swimming.
The couple disappearing off for ten minutes.
Golden-hour portraits in the long grass.
Dinner.
Dancing.
The firepit.
The morning-after brunch.
The stuff that happens when a wedding becomes a three-day experience rather than just a single event.
It also feels like an especially good place for analogue photography.
As a Kent analogue wedding photographer, I'm always looking for places where film can add something to the atmosphere rather than simply making everything look “vintage”. Elmley's wilderness, changing light and natural textures would be ridiculously good on 35mm.
And if you want moving images too, this is exactly the sort of place where I'd love to shoot Kent Super 8 wedding videography alongside the stills.
Port Lympne Wedding Photographer
Port Lympne Hotel & Reserve Weddings
Port Lympne is perhaps the least conventional venue on this list.
Which is precisely why it's here.
A historic mansion.
600 acres of wildlife reserve.
Wild animals.
Huge views.
Beautiful gardens.
Luxury accommodation.
And the possibility of getting married somewhere while knowing there are rhinos, giraffes and big cats wandering around elsewhere on the estate.
It's not exactly your standard country-house wedding.
Port Lympne has a number of options, from intimate weddings in the historic mansion to larger celebrations using the Pergola and Orangery. The Orangery can accommodate up to 120 seated guests and has a rather spectacular glass-walled setting overlooking the gardens.
They also offer elopements, including a ceremony in the Moroccan Courtyard or Spencer Roberts Room, followed by a private ranger tour for two.
As a Port Lympne wedding photographer, I can't think of many places where you could potentially go from photographing a couple in a historic mansion to photographing wildlife and then back to a champagne reception.
It's a photographer's dream in a slightly bonkers way.
The architecture gives you one visual language.
The landscape gives you another.
The animals give you a third.
And the whole thing has that slightly surreal quality that makes photographs much more interesting.
If you want a Kent wedding that your guests are still talking about ten years later, this is certainly one I'd be putting on the list.
Kingdom Wedding Photographer
Kingdom is completely different again.
Set in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty near Tonbridge, it's an enormous four-storey wooden-and-glass clubhouse surrounded by woodland and Kent countryside, with 360-degree views.
It's earthy, slightly wild, a bit magical and very far away from the polished country-house wedding aesthetic.
And then there's the tree.
Kingdom has its own Seven Sisters — a huge living tree — and there's even space inside it for a wedding ceremony.
Yes, actually inside the tree.
The venue describes the tree as the largest living tree in the British Isles and offers it as one of its ceremony settings.
As a Kingdom wedding photographer, I'd be having an absolute field day.
Woodland.
Glass.
Big views.
A giant tree.
People moving between indoor and outdoor spaces.
And then, presumably, a fairly spectacular party.
This is the kind of venue where I'd want to photograph the day as it unfolds rather than trying to impose a particular style on it.
Which is basically my approach to all weddings.
But particularly the weird and wonderful ones.
Salomons Estate Wedding Photographer
If Goodnestone is the romantic country-house option, Salomons Estate is its slightly grander Victorian cousin.
It's a Grade II listed Victorian manor house near Tunbridge Wells, surrounded by 36 acres of gardens, woodland and lakes, with 47 bedrooms and enough accommodation for more than 110 people.
It's also one of those venues where you can have a wedding that feels genuinely big without losing the sense of being somewhere.
There are multiple ceremony spaces, including outdoor options, plus the Victorian Theatre with its double-height ceilings and built-in stage.
Which immediately makes me think: speeches, bands, dancing, slightly chaotic evening photographs.
As a Salomons Estate wedding photographer, I'd be particularly interested in making use of the contrast between the grand interiors and the grounds outside.
The staircase.
The old house.
The gardens.
The lakes.
The woods.
The evening light.
The sort of details that make a wedding gallery feel like a story rather than a collection of photographs of people standing in front of a hedge.
And because the venue has so much on-site accommodation, it works particularly well for couples who want their wedding to feel like a gathering of everyone they love rather than a single day that disappears at midnight.
No.42 Margate Wedding Photographer
And finally, one that is so close to home that I really have no excuse not to photograph more weddings here.
No.42 is a Regency townhouse in the centre of Margate, right by the sea.
It's chic without being stuffy, coastal without going full nautical-themed wedding, and has 21 bedrooms, a rooftop bar, Pearly Cow restaurant and views out over the water.
You can take over Pearly Cow for the wedding or take over the entire hotel, with the whole-house option sleeping up to 42 guests and space for up to 100 people to party.
Which sounds less like a wedding venue and more like someone has handed you the keys to a very good Margate hotel and said:
“Right. Have a party.”
I'm in.
As a No.42 Margate wedding photographer, I'd want to make the most of the town as well as the hotel.
Sea views.
The beach.
The rooftop.
The streets of Margate.
Pearly Cow.
The weirdness of the seaside.
The slightly scruffy bits.
The beautiful bits.
All of it.
Because that's what I like about photographing weddings in Margate: the town itself becomes part of the story.
And as a Margate documentary wedding photographer, I think that's much more interesting than trying to contain everything inside four walls.
It's also an obvious choice for my Margate 35mm film wedding photography.
There's something about seaside light, old architecture and a wedding party wandering around Margate that feels made for film.
So, which Kent wedding venue would I choose?
Honestly, that's the difficult bit.
Not because there's one obvious answer.
Because they're all so different.
If I wanted a beautiful historic house and a proper weekend away, I'd be looking at Goodnestone Park or Ripple Court Estate.
If I wanted something completely wild and immersive, Elmley Nature Reserve.
If I wanted a wedding with a healthy dose of “you definitely haven't been to a wedding like this before”, Port Lympne or Kingdom.
If I wanted something grand and traditional but still with plenty of personality, Salomons Estate.
If I wanted the sea, contemporary architecture and Margate itself as part of the wedding, Turner Contemporary.
And if I wanted a small, stylish, slightly decadent seaside house party, No.42.
The common thread is that none of these places particularly need you to make them interesting.
They're already interesting.
And that's exactly what I look for as a wedding photographer.
A Kent wedding photographer who actually lives here
Although I still consider London my “work home” (most of the weddings I photograph are still in London) moving to Margate has changed how I think about Kent.
It's not somewhere I travel to for work anymore.
It's home.
And I'd really love to photograph more weddings here.
I'm a Kent documentary wedding photographer, shooting weddings in a relaxed, observational way, alongside 35mm film, digital photography, Polaroid and Super 8.
So if you're looking for a Kent 35mm film wedding photographer, a Kent analogue wedding photographer, or someone who can combine stills with Kent Super 8 wedding videography, that's very much my thing.
And if you're planning something closer to home, I'm your Margate documentary wedding photographer, Margate analogue wedding photographer, Margate 35mm film wedding photographer and Margate Super 8 wedding videographer all rolled into one.
Basically, I like photographing people who are properly having a good time.
I like old buildings.
I like weird venues.
I like the sea.
I like film.
I like parties that run slightly later than planned.
And I like weddings that feel like the people getting married rather than a particularly elaborate production of “wedding”.
So if you're planning a wedding at any of these Kent venues — or somewhere else nearby — I'd love to hear from you.
Kent has an absurd number of brilliant places to get married.
I'd quite like to photograph more of them.