Belfast City Hall Wedding | Karen + Barry

Karen and Barry got married at Belfast City Hall on the 8th of January, due to restrictions put in place by the N.I Executive due to Covid they were unfortunately unable to have a wedding reception on the day.

So how does a guy from Belfast meet a lady all the way from Columbia? Well, Barry met Karen while he was studying Spanish. After spending some time only being able to see other for short periods of time while Karen was living in France, Barry eventually persuaded her to join him in Northern Ireland.

Like all of the couples who have got married during the various Coronavirus lockdowns the guys had to make a lot of sacrifices to make sure they were still able to say their “I do’s”. For Karen and Barry that meant being restricted to having a maximum of 25 people there on the day including us. It also meant not being able to celebrate afterwards with family and friends and most difficult of all it meant that due to travel issues because of the pandemic Karen was unable to have any of her family and friends there at all. Because of this, the photographs from the day were of course very important to Karen and Barry and we were really pleased that they decided to trust us to photograph their wedding. On the lead up to the wedding with so many new restrictions being announced at the time this caused the guys a lot of concern as there was always the worry that their wedding ceremony may not be able to take place at all. Thankfully just a couple of days beforehand they were able to confirm that they could.

Belfast City Hall Wedding Photos

Very few weddings go exactly according to plan and there was a couple of small things that didn’t at this one. The staff at Belfast City Hall didn’t grab Barry the way they normally do with the groom so that he wouldn’t see Karen before she came down the aisle, so there was an awkward couple of minutes while Barry tried to hide around the corner. Most couples who get married at Belfast City Hall after the ceremony want a couple of quick photographs taken on the red carpeted staircase, but we were told that because of Covid rules this wasn’t possible only to be told shortly after by a different member of staff that we could. We also asked about being able to use the front of Belfast City Hall for a few photographs and were told that we could, but that we would have to exit via the rear of the building and walk around to the front, only to get there to find that everything was locked up and there was no access allowed. These were small issues in the grand scheme of things and didn’t upset Karen and Barry at all. To be fair to the staff at Belfast City Hall being able to facilitate a wedding during a pandemic is no easy task.

Belfast City Hall Wedding Photography

As the guys ceremony was quite late in the day for this time of year, they decided that rather than heading of anywhere too far away for their bride and groom portraits that we would just go for a short walk around the city centre and shoot some stuff there. Surprisingly even with most of the shops being closed there was still a quite a few people around and plenty of them stopped to give Karen and Barry their best wishes. It was a bitterly cold day and poor Karen was absolutely freezing, so Barry did the gentlemanly thing and found a shop that was open and bought Karen a cute little cardigan to help keep her warm. If you are planning a wedding in the city and looking for a wedding photographer in Belfast, we would love to hear from you.

If you are reading this because you are trying to find wedding photographers for your own micro wedding or for a wedding at Belfast City Hall at , you might also like to have a look at this other amazing wedding we photographed there as well. Belfast City Hall Wedding Photographer