The Royal Hotel Queanbeyan Wedding Photos
A 1926 Monaro Street pub with an upstairs atrium of Japanese maples, fifteen minutes from Canberra
The Royal Hotel QBN is the pub on Monaro Street, Queanbeyan, about 15 kilometres south-east of Canberra across the New South Wales border. It opened in 1926, when Canberra itself was dry and Queanbeyan’s hotels did the capital’s drinking; today it is a bistro and live-music pub downstairs with a function floor above called The Upperhouse. Up there are the Manhattan Room, the largest, with its own bar, the Menzies Room opening onto a courtyard, the small Beadman Room, and an atrium of Japanese maples.
Veri photographed Trish and Chris’s reception here after their ceremony at St Mark Coptic Orthodox Church in Kaleen and portraits at the National Museum of Australia. That is a typical Canberra wedding: church in the northern suburbs, the couple’s photographs by Lake Burley Griffin, then the short drive out to Queanbeyan for the evening.
Photographing a wedding at The Royal Hotel Queanbeyan
The atrium is the frame to plan for: maples overhead, an outdoor bar and daylight from above, which suits pre-dinner drinks and the couple’s entrance. Inside the Manhattan Room the lighting is set for live music, so meter for the stage and the dance floor separately. Monaro Street outside is plain and wide for the car arrival. A rainy day changes nothing, since the whole reception is under cover, with the courtyard as a dry-weather bonus. The gallery above is Trish and Chris’s wedding, with the reception at The Royal.