The Petersham Hotel

Two things carry a day at the Petersham, and one of them is indoors. The stone staircase runs the full height of the building with nothing holding it up, so we shoot down it, up it, or into the mirror on the landing, and it’s the answer whenever London weather rules your terrace out. The other is the view. Richmond Hill drops away to the Thames curving through the meadows, and the terrace and the garden steps put you straight into it, which is why your couple portraits here look like nowhere else in the city. Mist helps rather than hurts; we shot this one damp and the river went soft and grey behind them. You marry in a bay-windowed room with its own terrace, bright enough that we light nothing at all. It’s an intimate venue and it suits a smaller day, dinner down one long candlelit table rather than rounds. Just below there are brick walls, lavender and an ivy-clad iron gate for something closer in, five minutes on foot.