Wedding Venues With City Views: 14 Skylines Worth Saying Yes To
A city view gives your photos something a garden cannot: a sense of exactly where you were. The skyline behind you places the day, and it keeps changing. The same terrace looks like three different venues at golden hour, at blue hour, and after the lights come on.
The 14 photographs below came out of our City Views contest. They were taken in Washington DC, London, Dallas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Malmö, and a couple of Colorado mountain towns. We have grouped them by the kind of view rather than ranking them, because the useful question when you are touring venues is not which photo is best. It is what sort of city you want to be standing in front of.
Rooftops that put you above the skyline
A roof deck is the most direct version of a city view, and the one that asks the most of your timeline. The light up there moves quickly, and the difference between arriving at sunset and arriving 30 minutes later is the difference between a warm sky and a lit city.
These two frames were taken on the same Washington DC terrace, a short while apart. In the first, the sun is still doing the work. In the second, the candles along the rail are reading and the city has switched on behind the Washington Monument.
If you are looking at a rooftop, ask what time the venue lets you up there and whether you can step out during dinner. Twenty minutes of blue hour is usually all it takes.
Not every rooftop needs a skyscraper skyline. This ceremony in Malmö looks out over tiled roofs and chimney stacks, with one glass tower in the distance. A rug, a few planters and a low guest count made a working roof deck feel like a room.
Both of these were shot into the sun on San Diego roof decks. The first leans into the haze and lets the background go bright and soft. The second keeps the sky and picks up a starburst off the edge of the neighbouring tower. Same city, opposite decisions.
And a reminder that a city view does not have to mean a big city. This roof patio in Colorado has a main street below it and the Flatirons behind.
Water views with the city on the far side
If a full skyline feels like a lot, water puts distance between you and it. The city becomes a band on the horizon instead of a wall behind your head.
Across the bay from San Francisco, the skyline is barely a stripe. The couple are small in the frame and the sky does most of the talking. This is the version to look for if you want the city present but not loud.
The other way to use water is at night, when the far bank turns into a light show. This was taken in the rain on the Thames at Trinity Buoy Wharf, with Canary Wharf lit across the dock and festoon lights strung overhead. Rain did not hurt it.
Street level, where the architecture does the work
You do not have to be above the city to be in it. Some of the strongest frames in this set were taken standing on the pavement.
Here the venue is a gap between two office towers. Polished granite on both sides, a run of wall lights receding into the distance, and the couple placed right at the far end. Downtown cores are full of these corridors, and they are usually empty on a Saturday.
An empty downtown street, photographed with deliberate camera movement. If your venue is in a city centre, ask your photographer whether there is a street worth walking to between the ceremony and the reception.
Rain on a mountain-town main street, with the peaks closing off the end of the road. Wet asphalt picks up every light and every colour, which is why photographers stop worrying about rain a long time before couples do.
Parks, plazas and the spaces between buildings
The last group is the middle ground: green space and hard landscaping in the centre of a city, with towers visible over the treeline.
A shallow reflecting pool in downtown Dallas, shoes off, with the skyline doubled in the water. Plazas with water features are worth asking about, because they give a photographer two skylines for the price of one.
Downtown Los Angeles seen from higher ground, with the towers stacked behind the treeline and a mirrored foreground.
And one that is not a wedding at all. This proposal was photographed in the gardens at Marie Gabrielle in Dallas, with high-rises rising directly behind the lettering. Plenty of couples come back to the place they got engaged, which is not the worst way to choose a venue.
Choosing a city view venue
A few things worth asking on a tour, based on what made these photographs work:
- What time can we get outside? Blue hour is short. If theroof or terrace is locked during dinner, you lose it.
- Which way does the view face? West-facing gives you sunsetbehind the skyline. East-facing gives you softer light on faces.
- Is there water anywhere? A fountain, a reflecting pool,even a wet plaza after rain will double the view.
- What is the wet-weather plan? Rain does not ruin cityphotographs, but a venue with no covered outdoor space will keep you inside.
Every photographer in this article is listed on Wedding Maps, and you can see where each of them works, along with the venues they have shot. Start with the Wedding Maps photographer directory to find someone who already knows the skyline you are planning around.
