Chinatown Wedding Photographer London
Wedding photojournalists in London are drawn to Chinatown and it is superbly located for a city wedding as Chinatown is within walking distance of major London sites, including Trafalgar and Leicester Squares, Theatreland, Soho and Picadilly Circus. It is a slice of the orient in the centre of London and attracts tourists to view the interesting shop windows and savour the Asian cuisine from one of the many restaurants. It is extremely safe to wander in the area and very welcoming and, although quite busy, it is a very rewarding backdrop for wedding photographers and wedding photojournalists working in London.
Originally in the eighteenth century Chinatown was based in Limehouse and Pennyfields docks in the East End as sailors who worked for the East India Company settled there. In the 1950s, due to returning British soldiers' appetite for Chinese cuisine they gradually became resauraters and moved to Chinatown's present locations.
Documentary wedding photography and photojournalism in London's Chinatown is always incredibly interesting to make. A very fun time to have your wedding in Chinatown would be during the Chinese New Year celebrations as the area is decorated with red lanterns and dancing lions and dragons, street performers and musicians, not forgetting the fireworks and firecrackers. The Chinese New Year (or Spring Festival as it was once known) starts the first day of New Year and ends on the fifteenth and their New Year's Eve meal is as important as the British Christmas dinner. The story goes that Nian, who has the head of a lion and the body of a bull, would descend into the village from the mountains in the winter because he was hungry but he was afraid of loud noises, flame and the colour red. So the villagers would paint their doors red (hence the red decorations), light a fire for the night and burn bamboo which popped (the bamboo was subsequently filled with gunpowder; the precursor of today's firecrackers).
A second main festival, which would also be an interesting time for your London wedding and wedding photography in Chinatown, is called the Moon Lantern Festival and is held in the autumn. Moon cakes are an important part of that and are shared among family and friends. One of the constituents of the Moon cake is lotus seed paste which is used widely in baking but also added to soups and sauces - it is often added to Chinese wedding cakes to symbolise fertility; the lotus plant is incredibly versatile, all parts being edible.
In the late 1980s some streets in London's Chinatown were pedestrianised. Three Chinese gates were installed in Gerrard and Macclesfield Streets and, together with the Chinese Pagoda in Newport Place, these denote Chinatown's border. Stone lions in Gerrard Street, pagoda style telephone boxes and bi lingual street names all add to the oriental ambiance. Aided by the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment, the authenticity of the area will be improved by encouraging the use of traditional Chinese craftsmanship to what is essentially a Georgian streetscape.
Commissioned as a wedding photojournalist in London on a regular basis, Chinatown is one of Allister's favourite city locations for a fantastic wedding.
View Allister's wedding photography in Chinatown.