The iconic Tower Bridge is now opening up to be hired for daytime weddings as well as its usual job opening up for ships to pass through.
London’s defining landmark, which has also just opened up for tourists after the six-month lockdown, is offering couples the chance to get spliced inside the famous walkways during daylight hours for the first time in its 125-year history.
Couples get spectacular panoramic views 130ft above the river with the glass floor of the walkways looking down on tiny people, mini traffic and little boats and ships passing through.
The wedding venue is a perfect getaway high above London’s problems in the current crisis.
“My heart goes out to couples who’ve had their wedding plans scuppered by uncertainty during this time,” bridge master Chris Earlie said.
“We are able to offer a unique wedding for those still longing for that magical experience when love will literally be in the air!”
Couples can now exchange their vows on Tower Bridge itself throughout September to December with its bird’s-eye view walkways that link the two world heritage neo-Gothic bascule towers dominating the Thames.
Tower Bridge bosses are monitoring government guidelines on holding wedding receptions to toast the happy couple and their guests.
Hundreds of couples have had their weddings at this icon of London, but usually in the North Tower lounge by St Katharine Docks.
The north lounge, however, doesn’t have the all-round panoramic view the parallel walkways offer, from Canary Wharf and east London in one direction, to The City westward in the other, where the Tower of London, The Monument, St Paul’s and even the Houses of Parliament look almost touching distance away.
Tower Bridge was a master of Victorian innovation with its giant bascule lifting arms letting ships into the Pool of London, completed in 1894 and opened by the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII.
A massive makeover was carried out in 2010 after decades when the bridge began showing signs of age.
It turned it into London’s most sort-after romantic venue which has been hired regularly in the past 10 years since, for lovers getting engaged as well as having the wedding itself.
The first daytime wedding is a Saturday affair tomorrow, September 12.
The £3,000 hiring fee includes three hours exclusive private use for up to 24 guests, with sound system thrown in to help make the ambience special.
But then, Tower Bridge always was something special to Londoners.
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