Bristol Registry Office, Bristol Ferry & The Grain Barge

Laura & Ed's Bristol wedding

Posted by Gina on 1 July 2024

Laura & Ed’s wedding started at the Bristol Registry Office in The Lantern Room. Located on Corn Street in the centre of Bristol gives you easy access for whatever activities and celebrations you want to have following your ceremony. In this case we walked to Castle Park and took some group photos while we waited for our ferry.

So, more about the Lantern Room, The Lantern Room boasts a beautifully crafted interior, elegant lighting, and Regency decor. It reminded me and Jack a little of Beauty and the Beast, it had that sorta grandiose feel to it.

It is an orangey/yellow room, the huge sky light is beautiful and lets in a decent amount of light. It’s quite a big room, but not the biggest in the building, it’s got enough room to fill with your special loved ones, the Lantern Room fits up to 60 people plus the couple. I think there’s one bigger room in there called the Grand Council Chamber and that can fit up to 150 people, plus the couple.

Interested in having a wedding that includes not one but two boats? Well, our home town of Bristol can deliver, and with a maritime history dating back to 1051 it seems only fitting.

Bristol Ferry run all types of different boat hire, but we hopped on at Castle Park and travelled down past the Thekla, M-Shed and the SS Great Britain before turning around at the Cumberland Basin and heading back to The Grain Barge. The ferry can drop you off right at The Grain Barge, literally stepping off one boat onto the other!

The Grain Barge was built in 1936 (omg it’s well old) as a barge to transport barley and wheat from Bristol to Cardiff, it’s now moored in Hotwells, basically opposite the SS Great Britain. It offers great food (we can vouch for that), drinks (including a lovely pint of cider) and views of the harbour.

Below the main deck in the Hold, is their private event space. We love it here! It has lots of character and is a different vibe to your average event space. With a cosy, wood lined interior, and windows look out into the harbour at water level it is a great quirky space. We would definitely recommend this venue for anyone looking for a reception venue, we even considered It for our own wedding until we decided to elope.

To top off a great day we were treated to a beautiful pink sunset over the harbour. If you like the idea of having different venues throughout your day, Bristol is a great place to do it. With all the options of a big city, but all within close reach of each other. It makes getting you and your guests to the next venue a breeze, and why not take the party onto a boat for an hour!

Laura and Ed had some amazing vendors, that would be rude not to mention. The registra at the Bristol Registry office was lovely, Bristol Ferry and Grain Barge were super accommodating, and just all around lovely to us. Not forgetting to mention the AMAZING cake, and beautiful flowers.

Here’s the vendors socials that we have the details for, that were part of making their day so great.