Wedding Palace No. 1 of St. Petersburg on the English Embankment

Alexander Rudakov

Nikolaev Kirill

The main staircase of the palace is the main backdrop for a photo shoot

A good wedding photographer will find an interesting angle even in such a “hackneyed” place

On the ground floor there is a wardrobe, restrooms, waiting rooms for guests and a buffet hall.

Buffet hall of the Wedding Palace number 1

Hall capacity - up to 40 guests
Phones or +7-921-580-83-19
Administrator's reception hours: Mon-Tue: from 10.00 to 14.00 Wed-Fri: from 15.00 to 19.00

On the second floor there are 2 halls - Large and Small, a waiting room for the bride and groom

The newlyweds enter the large hall from a separate room, where, if time permits, a small photo session can be held

The young people put up the murals while sitting at the table next to the receptionist.

The exchange of rings takes place at a high stand with flowers

After the ceremony, according to tradition, the newlyweds are the first to leave the hall

Wedding Palace 1 small hall

The small hall is the former room of the bride and groom; the newlyweds enter after the guests

Signatures are placed on a high counter next to the fireplace

Exchange of rings - on the flower stand by the window

Dear loss

The building of the Wedding Palace 1 is included in the register of cultural heritage monuments at the federal level. And this is no coincidence.

It looked like a fairytale palace. And its interior decoration corresponds to the description made in one of Martha Vilmont’s letters, where she mentions a suite of spacious and bright rooms for those times with high ceilings and large windows with a beautiful view of the Neva and the most exquisite and very expensive furniture.

The rooms were very comfortable, and each guest was allocated not just one room, but entire apartments. The interiors were decorated with a huge amount of expensive mirrors, porcelain, decorative outlandish vases, statues and the most perfect watches. There were a lot of lackeys and servants in the mansion. So many that they came across literally every step, and some even sat near the doors so that the owners and guests would not bother opening them. This is how the mansion looked when Vsevolozhsky sold it for debts. And for not too much money - only 47 thousand, although the mansion was valued much more expensive.

Wedding Palace number 1. General points

It is advisable to arrive at the palace 30 minutes before the official registration time. This half hour is necessary for paperwork and photo sessions. Don't worry if you are late, you will definitely be scheduled on the appointed day. Guests await the ceremony separately from you; they will be invited into the hall by the registry office staff. Remove the covers from your passports (witnesses do not need passports), the rings will be taken from you before registration. At the moment of exchanging rings, we hold the bride’s bouquet low and pass it to the groom (when the bride puts the ring on the groom), so as not to obscure the photographer’s angle. At the moment of congratulations, give flowers to witnesses. After the ceremony, the photographer organizes group photos and a meeting of the newlyweds. Remember - according to the rules of Palaces and registry offices, scattering petals, exploding firecrackers, etc. is prohibited. This is usually resolved by paying a small amount to the employee.

History of the site before...

The building housing Wedding Palace 1, erected on this section of the Bolshaya Neva embankment for Vera Nikolaevna von Derviz, has a long history.

In the first quarter of the 18th century, on a site along the present-day English Embankment, which first belonged to Major Ivan Polyansky and then to his son Alexander, Jr., a two-story stone house was built according to one of the standard designs developed by decree of Peter I by the first architect of St. Petersburg, Domenico Trezzini . For the construction of the family nest, a project “for eminent people” was chosen - not the most expensive, but not the cheapest possible either.

This house became a place where celebrities of the St. Petersburg elite of the 18th century visited. In the second half of the century, Alexander Polyansky happily married a relative of the empress’s close friend, Elizaveta Romanovna Vorontsova. And the Vilmont sisters, Martha and Katerina, often came to stay with them. Polyansky had a son, Alexander, who had a no less successful marriage than his father - he married Countess Elizabeth de Ribopierre.

These Polyanskys had no children in their marriage. And after their death, the house went to relatives: the official of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs, N.V. Vsevolozhsky, became its owner. The heir to a large fortune led a very wasteful lifestyle and eventually went broke. And the house was put up for sale at auction and sold for pennies.

However, there is information that already in 1837 this mansion became the location of the British Embassy.

Places for a wedding photo shoot near the Palace

Stone embankment and pier opposite the palace itself

Rumyantsev Mansion

Address - English Embankment, 44
Telephone
Opening hours: daily, except Wednesday, from 11:00 to 18:00
Ticket price - 300 rubles per person, no additional payment for photo and video shooting

Alexander Garden and Bronze Horseman

House of the Architect (Polovtsev's Mansion)

Address - Bolshaya Morskaya, 52
Phone - 571 27 29 or 8-921 337 14 51.
The cost of a photo shoot is 6,000 rubles per hour

Peter-Pavel's Fortress

About other places for a photo shoot

Palaces and museums
Parks
In case of bad weather
Suburbs of St. Petersburg

general information

The palace is, without any doubt, the best place for a ceremonial registration. The building captivates with its beauty at first sight. There are also many stunning places for photo shoots and walks nearby.

And such nuances as a small wardrobe and minor difficulties with parking do not spoil the overall impression. But I advise you to take care of reserving your registration date in advance, because there are a lot of people who want to hold a wedding ceremony there.

History of the Palace on the Promenade des Anglais

The wedding palace is located in a delightful mansion, the view from the window of which overlooks the Neva and the Lieutenant Schmidt Bridge. The history of the place where the wedding palace is now located began back in 1712. Even Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin visited this building.
In 1898, as a result of perestroika, a building appeared that exists to this day; the architect of the building was Alexander Fedorovich Krasovsky. This mansion was created for P. von Derviz, who was the son of the famous railway worker Pavel Grigorievich von Derviz, who became famous for his activities in the world of art. This place is also famous for hosting the first Faberge exhibition, which was attended by Nicholas II himself.
From 1903 to 1917, the mansion belonged to Prince Andrei Vladimirovich, who bought it.
In 1918, the building was nationalized and subsequently various government agencies were located there.
But on November 1, 1959, the country’s first Wedding Palace was opened in the mansion, which marked the beginning of a new tradition - to solemnly celebrate the registration of marriage.

Location of Wedding Palace No. 1

Wedding Palace 1 is located near the Admiralteyskaya station at Angliyskaya Embankment, 28.

If you don’t have a car, then the best option to get to this place is to walk: through the Alexander Garden, Senate Square and further along the embankment.

But you can also get there by public transport: from Nevsky Prospect towards the Palace there are buses No. 22, 27, and from Vasilievsky Island - minibus No. K62.

However, you can get to the exact building you need only by personal transport.

Parking conditions are no different from other places in the city.

Palace services

Directly, accepting applications for marriage registration;
Providing a child’s birth certificate;
Organization of a buffet reception and ceremonial registration of marriage;
Re-issuance of documents (working with the archive).

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the Palace does not provide the services of a photographer, so you need to take care of resolving this issue in advance and find a suitable person who will photograph your celebration.

It is better to clarify the information of interest specifically on the official website https://e-gu.spb.ru/wps/portal/home/electro/priem/electro_uslugi/zags/FreeTimeZAGSNew.

Bellini Restaurant

View the report from this wedding

Address — Universitetskaya embankment, 13
Phone - 331-10-01
Capacity: one room for 50 guests
Menu cost - from 3500 rubles
Site for on-site registration - yes
Parking - yes

Dervizovsky mansion

It was under Pavel von Derviz that the mansion began to look the way it does now. Its facades are made in the Florentine style and resemble a Renaissance palazzo. The exterior walls are decorated with rusticated rectangular stone blocks, and the ground floor is tiled. The facades are not plastered or painted, but retain the color of natural stone, as was fashionable in Northern Art Nouveau architecture. In the gaps between the rustications, the walls are decorated with reliefs in the form of plant garlands. The facade is also decorated with windows, which are not rectangular, but in the form of semicircular arches framed by rustication. They are organically woven into the “natural” image of the building of Wedding Palace 1. This is clearly visible in the photo. They are reminiscent of the entrances to a mysterious cave in the rock.

The facade has a three-part division along the vertical axis, with the middle part protruding slightly forward from the general line. A laconic stone balustrade runs along the edge of the roof. The façade is also divided horizontally by cornices into three main tiers, and is crowned with an entablature with a relief frieze.

Restaurant "Gymnasium"

Address - Konnogvardeisky Boulevard, 21
Phone - 927-41-21
Capacity: up to 200 guests
Menu cost - from 3000 rubles
Site for on-site registration - yes
No corkage fee
Parking - yes

Restaurant "Academy"

Address — Birzhevoy proezd, building 2
Phone - 327 89 49
Capacity: up to 200 guests
Menu cost - from 2800 rubles
Corkage fee - 250 rubles
Site for on-site registration - yes
Parking - yes

Wedding at the Legran restaurant

Address - Millionnaya street, 4/1
Phone - 931-06-39
Capacity: several rooms, up to 70 guests
Rent is negotiable, depends on the hall and the number of guests
Menu cost - from 3500 rubles
Parking - yes

And about von Derwies...

Pavel Grigorievich von Derviz was a very, very successful and fabulously rich man for his time. He got rich thanks to a new and promising business by the standards of the 19th century - the construction of railways. Initially, his life and work were more connected with Moscow than with St. Petersburg. However, from a certain moment, it was with St. Petersburg that he could connect the future of his entrepreneurial activity and was forced to arrange a haven for himself and his family there. He continued to live permanently in Moscow until the tragic period in his family, which turned out to be a one-way road for him - Pavel Grigorievich was buried not in his homeland, but in France.

What led him to take a step that von Derwis would hardly have taken under other circumstances? One by one, several of his children died from bone tuberculosis. In an attempt to save his ill daughter Varya from the same fate, he decides to leave his homeland and go to Nice.

In memory of the untimely departed children, Pavel Grigorievich von Derviz begins to conduct active charitable activities: he builds the St. Vladimir Children's Hospital in Moscow, named after one of his deceased sons, and at the hospital - a church in the name of the Life-Giving Trinity, in Nice - a school for French children, and after the death of her daughter - a women's gymnasium. His wife Vera Nikolaevna supported her husband in everything and opened an orphanage in Nice, a canteen for poor people and a house in which she rented out cheap apartments for widows.

The mansion, built for a family in St. Petersburg and now belonging to the main Wedding Palace of the Northern capital, is much more impressive than Wedding Palace 1 in Moscow.

Frigate "Grace"

Address - Petrovskaya embankment, opposite no. 2 (near the Trinity Bridge)
Telephone
Capacity - several halls from 20 to 150 guests
Menu cost - from 2500 rubles
Field for on-site registration - yes, deck
Parking - yes, embankment
No corkage fee

Palace interiors

The main enfilade, overlooking the Neva, consisted of three rooms: the Golden Living Room, the White Hall and the Dance Hall. In the photo, the halls of Wedding Palace 1 are impressive, but much less than in reality. The Gothic library is very attractive, preserving the atmosphere of good old England. And the main staircase is decorated with a huge stained glass window in the window above the fireplace.

There is a description by Princess Paley of one of the evenings in the mansion during the ownership of Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich. It is believed that she claimed that it was here that a memorial council of representatives of the Romanov family took place, at which it was decided to appeal to Nicholas II about the possibility of granting the people a Constitution. And the mission was entrusted to Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich.

Restaurant "Metropol"

View the report from this wedding

Address - Sadovaya Street, 22/2
Phone - 571-88-88
Capacity: up to 200 guests
Menu cost - from 2500 rubles
Site for on-site registration - no
Parking - yes

Wedding in the Palace of Princess Dolgoruky

Address - English Embankment, building 46
Telephone
Capacity - several halls - 60, 70 and 100 guests
Rent is not charged
Menu cost - from 2000 rubles
Site for on-site registration - yes in the Atrium
Parking - public
Special offers - discount on newlyweds' room at the History Hotel

Palace von Derwis - Wedding Palace No. 1

The history of the development of the territory where von Derviz's palace was subsequently erected dates back to the early 20s of the 18th century. The English Embankment was then called Nizhnyaya, and Ivan Polyansky owned a large plot of land in this area of St. Petersburg. Then the embankment was called Galernaya, and his son, Admiral Alexander Ivanovich Polyansky, began to own the two-story house “on a basement with a high porch and a sloping roof and thirteen windows along the facade.” He was married to Elizaveta Vorontsova, the former favorite of Emperor Peter III. In 1818, the last of the family, A. A. Polyansky, died. He had no direct heirs, and during the division of property between distant relatives, the house went to the Vsevolozhsky family. In the mid-30s of the 19th century, Nikita Vsevolodovich Vsevolozhsky, an actual privy councilor, friend of Pushkin and one of the founders of the famous literary society “Green Lamp”, became the owner of the site. “Son of feasts” and “admirer of fun and golden laziness,” as Pushkin called him, was declared completely bankrupt in 1854. In the same year, Pavel Grigorievich von Derviz purchased the house and land at auction. Several other buildings were built on the site.

Pavel Grigorievich died in 1881. Eight years later, his widow Vera Nikolaevna decided to remodel the house for her son Pavel. The reconstruction of the mansion was entrusted to the architect A.F. Krasovsky. This became one of the most successful works of the architect. He preferred the Florentine style, fashionable at that time in St. Petersburg, in which by that time the palace of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich on the Palace Embankment had been created. Krasovsky probably intended to surpass the existing model - and he coped with his task perfectly. A magnificent mansion was erected on a small plot. And, although the building was significantly smaller in size than the palace of the Grand Duke, the same could not be said about the design of the facade. Even on the Promenade des Anglais, where almost every house is a work of art, the mansion stood out from the series of nearby buildings with its splendor.

The preserved and restored interiors were not inferior to the interior decoration of the grand ducal mansions. A luxurious white marble staircase with intricately carved railings leads from the lobby with marble columns to the main second floor. It is illuminated through a large stained glass window with a semi-circular finish and through a small window on the second floor. Below the large window is a marble fireplace with a gilded metal grate. The staircase decor is rich in stucco elements. On the walls opposite each other, in stucco frames in the form of porticoes, there are figures of beautiful girls, personifying the four seasons. Above them, in the lunettes and caissons of the plafond, there are picturesque inserts with images of cupids made by the artist Sadovsky. The skylight of the staircase is framed by pilasters of the Corinthian order; in the pier there are cartouches with complex stucco designs. The entrance to the upper landing of the staircase is decorated with the torsos of Atlases, serving as a kind of border to the staircase interior - then the state chambers began. From the site, through side doors you can enter galleries that go deep into the site. The galleries were closed by a winter garden, which has not survived to this day. The middle door leads to the central living room of the house - the Golden. This elegant room is richly decorated with stucco and gold. Mirrors in the walls create an additional artistic effect. The suite of halls with windows overlooking the Neva also includes the White and Dance halls adjacent to the Golden Living Room.

The White Hall got its name due to the light decor of the walls, a stucco lampshade and a large carved fireplace made of white marble, which was previously decorated with a mirror in a stucco frame. The lower part of the walls is covered with walnut panels. From the White Room the door leads to the Yellow Living Room, the windows of which overlook the courtyard. The room got its name from the color of the walls. They harmonize well with white stucco and an elegant carved fireplace made of white Carrara marble. The largest and most elegant hall of the palace is the Dance Hall. Above the rich stucco cornice in the hall there were choirs for musicians. Tall mirrors in stucco frames alternate with fluted pilasters; in the center of the hall was decorated with a picturesque lampshade painted by K. E. Makovsky (the lampshade is now lost). Next to the hall there was a small room in the Moorish style, the ceiling and walls of which were decorated with oriental ornaments. The owners' living quarters were located on the mezzanine, on both sides of the main staircase. On the left side, with windows overlooking the Neva, the Blue Living Room has been preserved, on the right is the Pompeii Room, next to which there was a dining room and a library, decorated in a pseudo-Gothic style.

Pavel Pavlovich von Derviz never settled in the palace. He left for his estate in the Ryazan province. After his mother's death, he sold the plot. In 1903, Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich became the new owner of the mansion. In 1918, the palace, like many others, was nationalized. In the first years of Soviet power, various institutions were located there. During the Great Patriotic War, part of the premises was given over to a children's reception center; another part housed a hospital for the wounded. After the war, one of the city’s many design organizations was located in the palace. On November 1, 1959, the country's first Wedding Palace opened in the building. It is located here to this day.

English Embankment, building 28

We recommend: wedding photographer in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region.