Royal Terrace Hotel - the wedding of Amanda and Graham

I kind of figured something may be amiss when the groom came hurtling through the lobby of the Royal Terrace Hotel with the bestman hot on his heels and then dived into a waiting taxi that promptly whisked them both off at high speed!

The Royal Terrace Hotel sits on Edinburgh’s Calton Hill close to the city center but set far enough back to avoid the busy hustle and bustle of capital city life. I’m always amazed at how much peace and quietness it enjoys whilst occupying such a strategic location! I’m not the only one either. Sir Sean Connery attempted to buy a house on this street but no one wanted to vacate, not even when he offered to pay way above the valuation price! Amanda and Graham’s wedding was scheduled for 3pm in the private gardens of the Royal Terrace Hotel. I arrived at 2pm and did my usual pre-wedding look around. know it very well and I was particularly looking forward to my first outdoor wedding of the season.

After I’d checked all the locations I planned to use for The Royal Terrace Hotel is another venue where I’m a recommended photographer so I photographs I went down to Amanda’s room to say Hello and check on her preparations. I then went back up to the lobby where I’d arranged to meet Graham and his bestman at 2.30pm. However, Graham and Richard had left the rings at home which was the reason for their swift taxi departure! There was no way they’d be able to make it across town and back before 3pm so the wedding was rescheduled for 3.30pm. Amanda took this in good spirits seeing the funny side of it and we took the opportunity to do a portrait session while we awaited the guys return. I’m happy to say they made it back safely, albeit a little disheveled, and there were no further hiccups for the remainder of the day.

It was a civil ceremony that lasted around 10-15 minutes followed by a champagne reception under a glorious canopy of blue skies and warm sunshine. When everyone was ready I took the bridal party into a quiet corner of the gardens for their group shots. Amanda’s Uncle Hugh, who was standing in for Amanda’s father, was grateful that I got through them all in about 15 minutes as he had to return home for his speech which he’d left behind. I was going to do around a 15-20 minute session with Amanda and Graham which would give him sufficient time to get back before the wedding breakfast.

There are four separate enclosed gardens at the rear of the Royal Terrace Hotel so while the guests remained enjoying their drinks I took Amanda and Graham to the end two, one of which has a classical stone gazebo. We did a good mixture of relaxed, contemporary images along with some traditional, classic photographs.

The wedding breakfast seemed to go over quickly, probably because the food was so good, lol, and then I was photographing the speeches followed by table shots to ensure we had a record of all the guests. We went back out into the gardens for a few requested group shots and then I quickly took Amanda and Graham out onto Royal Terrace itself as I had suggested a shot of themselves standing on the famous street with the hotel spreading out behind them, which is the opening shot of this post. We then finished up with the cake cutting ceremony which was performed back out in the gardens as it was still such a lovely warm evening.

I only live 5 minutes away from the Royal Terrace Hotel so I was back home for 9pm giving me plenty of time to download the images which would be edited the following morning and then uploaded to Amanda and Graham’s online gallery. They included in their package a top of the range Coffee Table Book so right now I’m busy working on their design and page layouts and I’ll have an initial draft ready for their return from honeymoon.

The Royal Terrace website is: www.primahotels.co.uk/royal

Click the 'Philip Hawkins Photography website' link top right for more wedding pics.