A City Wedding That Threw Out The Rulebook And Worked Beautifully!
Some weddings are beautifully planned.
Others are beautifully felt.
Dan and Tom’s wedding was the kind of day that if I’m completely honest, as an experienced wedding videographer it looked a little chaotic on paper! Three cocktail hours, no rigid timeline and things moved all over the place, friends involved in almost everything…but in reality, their wedding flowed effortlessly because it was built around people, not tradition.
Hosted at The Depot N7 in London, this was a city wedding that leaned fully into personality, connection and atmosphere. Less “we have to do X, Y and Z” and more “let’s see where the day takes us”.
The Depot N7 Wedding Video
A Relaxed City Wedding With No Rigid Timeline
Instead of guests arriving, sitting down and waiting for things to begin, Dan and Tom flipped the usual wedding day structure on its head!
After getting ready together at The Megaro Hotel by Kings Cross Station, they called an Uber and headed over to The Depot. When they arrived at the venue, they met their guests first. Drinks were poured, specially selected cocktails were enjoyed and we all enjoyed the beautiful sounds of Chiqas string quartet. Conversations started, hugs and belly laughs were shared. A cocktail hour happened before the ceremony not as a filler, but as a way to bring everyone together from the start.
And then… they did it again.
And again.
Yep! Three cocktail hours in total! No rushing. No pressure. Just time to connect between the occasional formality (that was never really that formal!)
It set the tone for the entire day. Wonderfully relaxed, social, and unapologetically untraditional.
A Personal Celebrant-led Ceremony at The Depot
Sticking with the relaxed theme, guests were ushered around The Depot’s mezzanine to enjoy their celebrant-led wedding ceremony. Some guests were treated to personalised name cards on their chairs and others enjoyed standing up, with cocktails in hand.
After dancing in to ‘Pink Pony Club’ played by Chiqas it was time for the ceremony. The couple’s friend conducted their wedding ceremony, sharing fun stories of them as a couple. It was then on to sharing their personal vows to each other, handily written on little notepads kept in their jackets for the occasion!
They sealed it with a kiss before enjoying two of their friends sing ‘Blackbird’ for everyone to enjoy and mark the start of the next cocktail hour!
A Non-Traditional Wedding Reception Built Around Guests
The reception space was laid out with long banquet tables, full of colour and warmth. Their friends had spent the morning pulling it all together and it looked incredible! With bold coloured napkins, colourful day of the dead skulls and candles, it was quite the ‘Rock n Roll meets Day of The Dead’ vibes.
The long banquet tables and zones areas helped it feel more communal rather than formal, the kind of room where people stay seated longer than planned because they’re enjoying themselves too much to move.
A Christmas tree stood proudly in the main Depot space, with the guests wedding favours underneath. Not assigned or packaged, but books you could simply help yourself to should you fancy. It was quite the conversation starter (and I even selected one for myself on the way out!)
Nothing felt staged. Nothing felt overly curated.
Yet it all felt intentional.
This was a wedding designed for guests to relax into, not just observe the formalities!
When Friends Are Part of Your Wedding, Not Just Guests
One of the most memorable things about Dan and Tom’s wedding day was how many of their friends were involved.
Friends helped create and run the photo booth.
Friends made the cake and prepared the cheeses.
A couple of their extra talented friends even sang!
My Daughter nearly died when I told her who one of their friends were, the singer from her FAVOURITE band (who we’d just been to see live in Manchester). They asked him to see one of their favourite Bastille songs from the latest album ‘&’ and I’ve never felt so honoured to be filming them enjoying that together!
Despite this sneaking in after a second cocktail hour and some couple shots outside in Camden but before the speeches, this beautiful moment felt completely natural in the flow of the day and a wedding highlight I’m sure I’ll remember forever!
These weren’t interruptions or stop/start moments. They were extensions of the couple and their community, which is exactly why the day felt so personal and full of love.
Keeping with the friends theme, they even put their trust in good friend of mine Phil Salisbury for their wedding photography! They had us both travel down from Lancashire to capture their London celebrations, always more fun when you can enjoy it with friends!
Why Non-Traditional Weddings Like This Film So Beautifully
Non-traditional weddings like this don’t pause neatly for photos or stage video scenarios.
They overlap. They move. They embrace the relaxed nature of it all.
There are conversations happening in every corners, laughter spilling over the beautiful soundtracks of the day, music drifting through moments that weren’t planned but when you see them back you know they’ll matter deeply.
This is where documentary wedding videos quietly become invaluable.
So much of what made this day special wasn’t how it looked but it was how it felt to be there. The sound, the energy, the way moments unfolded naturally rather than on cue.
Those are things you can’t fully describe afterwards (although I SO wish I could!). But you can relive them. And reliving them through documentary wedding videography is the best way!
You Don’t Need to Be “Alternative” to Have a Wedding Like This
Dan and Tom’s wedding wasn’t about being different for the sake of it. It wasn’t about rejecting tradition entirely either.
It was simply about choosing what mattered to them and letting go of what didn’t.
You don’t need to be planning a “wildly alternative” wedding to do this. You don’t need a city venue, or a famous musician friend, or three cocktail hours either (but that most certainly went down well with their guests!)
You just need to give yourself permission to build a day around your people, your pace, your personalities and your priorities.
A Wedding Video That Feels Like the Day Did
This is exactly why I approach wedding filming in this relaxed documentary way.
When days are unstructured, personality-led and people-focused, the most meaningful moments are the ones you could never plan and never recreate.
My role isn’t to direct or interrupt those moments either! I’ve been filming weddings since 2010 and have perfected the craft of observation! I watching and listening to your day unfold. To anticipate and notice those moments, preserve them, and turn them into something you can come back to years down the line and say:
Yes. That’s exactly how it felt!
Planning a Wedding That Feels Like You?
If you’re planning a wedding that’s more about the vibes and the atmosphere than tradition (one that prioritises connection, personality and real moments like Dan and Tom) then I’d love to hear about it! Please get in touch and let’s chat!
Whether you’re getting married in a city venue, a pub, a warehouse or somewhere completely unique and different, these are the kinds of days I care most about capturing.
Dan and Tom didn’t think they wanted a videographer but I bet they’re glad they booked me now… 😉