Sefton Park Palm House
Joel & sophie
Botanical weddings with a tropical vibe in the heart of the city, captured by Sefton
Park Palm House wedding photographer, Phil Salisbury.
This stunning Victorian glasshouse is right in the heart of Liverpool’s Sefton Park. Home to the Liverpool Botanical Collection, including plants from all over the world, it provides a uniquely beautiful backdrop to your Sefton Park Palm House wedding photography. As a Liverpool Wedding photographer, this is a venue that really offers city couples something different – and gives me a chance to create some award-winning wedding photos for you.
First opened to the public in 1896, the ‘Great Conservatory’ that is Sefton Park Palm House contained exotic plants, that local people at the time had never seen before. It was a popular attraction, until during the blitz bombing of Liverpool an explosion nearby shattered the glass, which wasn’t replaced until the 1950s; from then it sadly fell into disrepair. A huge, £3.5m restoration project between 1990-2001 saw the Palm House dismantled piece by piece and rebuilt. In 2001 it reopened to visitors, as an arts and cultural events centre.
Weddings at Sefton Park Palm House, alongside other private hire events and heritage grants, help to provide funding to keep the venue open for local people to enjoy. Sefton Park Palm House has been a winner of Hitched Best City Wedding Venue, which goes to show what an incredible place it really is. Their catering Partner Dine have also won awards for the exceptional standard of their food, and their talented team can develop a bespoke menu for your wedding at Sefton Palm House.
It’s an impressive structure, an architecturally striking background for me to use as your Sefton Park Palm House wedding photographer, providing plenty of space inside to comfortably seat up to 220 guests. The Palm House is licensed to hold civil wedding ceremonies, civil partnerships and vow renewals, it’s the ideal venue for couples with a passion for the botanical. The colours and structure of the plants and foliage here create a vibe that I’m more used to being immersed in when I’m working as a destination wedding photographer in locations across the world.
I love looking for shapes and colours to include in unposed moments as your guests enjoy the space and celebrate you getting married at Sefton Palm House. We can even see if we can include the popular statue of Peter Pan, which is a replica of one erected in Kensington Gardens in 1912. For an evening drink at your Sefton Park Palm House wedding reception, they even have their own blend of gin, inspired by the plant collection of botanist William Roscoe who founded the Liverpool Botanical Collection.
I joined Joel and Sophie as a Sefton Park Palm House wedding photographer on a beautifully warm and sunny day in September. My day began alongside Joel as he got ready at home, sipping on a quick pre-ceremony drink in his dark green velvet tux. Some of my award-winning wedding photographs are of the smaller details and special moments, so I made sure to capture these throughout Joel and Sophie’s wedding at Sefton Park Palm House.
Sophie arrived in a Rolls Royce for their intimate wedding, with their closest friends and family joining them. Inside, what is essentially a massive, fancy greenhouse (OK, maybe that’s a bit of a simplified description!) I was treated to the most beautiful light throughout the day. Light is so important to great documentary wedding photography, and I was able to use the light to capture natural moments without needing to stage things.
The heartfelt speeches provided some emotional moments, showing just how much love there was in the room for Sophie and Joel. As if the light hadn’t been kind enough to us already, we were treated to an incredible sunset in the evening, which I made the most of for group photos and a portrait session with the new Mr and Mrs. A live band provided some tunes for the evening and everyone partied under the palms, which is a pretty unusual sight for a city wedding! Thanks for having me Joel and Sophie!
If you are looking for a Sefton Park Palm House wedding photographer then I would love to hear from you. You might also like to check out some of my work as a Cheshire wedding photographer, or if you’re after something totally different, but still with some fab florals, then this wedding at The Bentley Hotel in Liverpool is a great contrast!
