Imperial Hotel Blackpool Wedding Photographer

Why we love photographing at Imperial Hotel Blackpool

We are Lee and Dom, two Blackpool wedding photographers, and the Imperial is the hotel we would send our own family to. If you are looking for an Imperial Hotel Blackpool wedding photographer, here is how we would work it. The hotel has stood on North Promenade since 1867, it is Grade II listed, and it has 180 bedrooms, which means your guests can stay in the building where the wedding is. It is a ten-minute walk north of the Tower and the Winter Gardens, with a tram stop outside the front door and the sea across the road.

There are two wedding rooms that matter. The Louis Room is on the seafront side, with tall windows onto the Promenade, chandeliers, ornate mouldings and gold and ivory décor. The hotel’s Louis package is 50 guests in the day and 80 in the evening, and the ceremony, breakfast and reception all happen in that one room, with the events team turning it round between each part. The Washington Suite is the big one. It was added in 1901 as a ballroom with a glass ceiling, so people could dance under the stars, and it has an arched ceiling with detailed plasterwork. The hotel asks for a minimum of 75 day guests and 120 evening guests for it, and the capacity chart gives 400 for a banquet. Two smaller suites take weddings from 12 people. The ceremony is with Blackpool Council’s registrars, who you book separately.

What makes the Imperial a photographer’s hotel is the building between the rooms. The reception hall, the staircase, the long corridors with their carpets and the Number 10 bar with its prime ministers on the wall all give you backgrounds that look like the hotel and not like a function suite. Charles Dickens stayed here in 1869, and the party conferences filled it for years, which is why the bar has that name.

Across the road is North Promenade. The sea wall, the railings and the wide pavement face west, so the sun sets straight in front of the hotel, and in winter that happens before the breakfast. North Pier is a short walk south. The hotel also offers a drinks reception on board a heritage tram along the Promenade as an add-on, and if you book that, we come with you.

Light and timing

The Louis Room has daylight from the seafront windows, and the light changes through the day because it faces west: soft in the morning, flat at midday, warm and low from mid-afternoon. We place the ceremony and the signing so the windows light your faces, and for the breakfast we expose for people and let the view go bright. The Washington Suite is lit by its chandeliers and ceiling, with little daylight, so we use fast lenses and off-camera flash for the groups, the speeches and the dancing. The corridors and the hall are dim and warm, which we shoot as they are. Outside, North Promenade faces west onto open sea, so the sunset is in front of the hotel and the wind comes straight off the water. Rain plan: the hall, the staircase and the bar give us three indoor backgrounds without leaving the building.

Drone

The Imperial is about 2 km north of the Blackpool Airport flight restriction zone, a 2.5 nautical mile circle from the airport at Squires Gate plus runway strips, up to 2,000 ft. No airport permission is needed to fly at the hotel. The aerial is the hotel’s frontage, the Promenade and the sea, best with low sun from the west. We still check Drone Assist on the morning, because the Illuminations and the Air Show have brought temporary restrictions along the front before, and we keep 50 m from people not part of the wedding, so we fly early or late when the prom is quiet. With photography it is £149. More on our drone page.