Wedding Photography Melbourne

The rumour going around is that every op shop in a 25km radius of Melbourne is currently out of vintage plates. I blame Richard and Eleanor.

I try to steer clear of the typical wedding photographer blogging style of explaining the photos and details, etc. It gets pretty boring pretty quickly for you readers out there, but in this case, I simply have to tell you about parts of it, I’m not sure I’ll get to experience it again.

Richard’s parents own a 150 year old Heritage Listed house (on over 100 acres of fertile farming land) in the rural Victorian town of Colbinabbin, a little over 2 hours out of Melbourne. This house was just a ruin in the middle of the bush when they bought it 15 or so years ago. Over time, under the strictest of rules placed upon Heritage Listed properties, the house was returned to its original glory. And by glory, I mean, HOLY CRAP AMAZING GLORY. This house is absolutely mindblowing. High ceilings, beautiful period appropriate furniture and fittings and character in spades. I’ve never seen a house like this before and living in a country that’s a bit over 200 years old, we don’t have a lot like this. It was a complete privilege to be able to have access to it as a photographer.

A similar tale can be told of where Richard and Eleanor chose to have their reception, a small and intimate High Tea. Hennings Vineyard is owned by Richard’s sister and her husband (it’s been in his family for 4 generations). The unassuming “shed” in the middle of the vineyard where the High Tea was held had fallen into complete disrepair and is now classically refitted on the inside after having been painstakingly restored over the last few months. Again, this is all the hard work from the hands of family members. I always love that kind of thing, yet I imagine the ones doing the work don’t find as much pleasure in it as I do!

My entire process of interacting with Eleanor has been at a breakneck speed (and completely awesome!). From the time of her initial enquiry to booking, it was less than 30 minutes. Eleanor and I organised for us (including my wife, business manager and sometimes 2nd shooter Kristen) to catch up for a few beers a couple of weeks ago and Richard and Kristen hijacked our supposed wedding conversation with talk of their shared professional and social interests (Australia’s asylum seeker and refugee policies). In the end, we had about 5 minutes to talk about the wedding, which was more than enough. Getting to know Eleanor and Richard as people (and them getting to know me) was all I needed and I realised that these people I photograph are not just clients, but they’re my friends as well.

So here it is, the beautifully styled vintage wedding of two gentle and kind people, Eleanor and Richard.

There are times in your life that you can scarcely believe your circumstances. Sometimes it’s as a result of hard work, sometimes it comes from natural talent, but for me, it was simply a case of being in the right place at the right time.

The first wedding I ever photographed was a little over 5 years ago. The groom, Callum, was the bassist in a touring band from Melbourne who I just so happened to photograph at a small venue in Sydney. He contacted me asking whether I’d be keen to photograph his wedding to which I nervously agreed. Things went well and 5 years later, the guitarist in Callum’s band is getting married and looking for a photographer. The universe, in its strange ways put us together and I was going to be coming back to Melbourne to photograph Rachel and Karl.

I don’t know where to start with Rachel and Karl. These two people are honestly two of the most amazing people I’ve ever met (and I can see why they are the way they are). Their families are both exceptionally wonderful, they took me in and treated me like I was one of their own. I was instantly welcome and able to be involved in everything. I arrived to Boyd Baker House a day early to the hustle and bustle of the entire family getting together and setting things up which is just the way I think things ought to be. In my mind, the history of weddings are not necessarily about finding a nice venue and serving tasty food, it was about bringing families, and to a larger extent, the community together. People would help each other out with whatever was needed and we’re lucky in the Westen World that we can have a lot of the hard work taken care of, but part of me, perhaps the Sri Lankan bit, wishes things were a little more different at times.

For me, this was the ultimate in personalised weddings; nothing generic, nothing stock, nothing without meaning. Rachel’s mum had grown nearly 120 plants from seedlings which were gifts for the guests. The suits the boys were wearing were custom made with Karl’s own breastplate design. Rachel learned and wrote a speech in Italian to speak to Karl and his very large Italian family. The drinks available included Apple Cider made by Callum using the apples grown on Karl’s uncle’s family orchard. Like I said, this was something that was very special to everyone involved. The connectedness that a wedding like this can bring, in my eyes, is the exact meaning of what a wedding should be about. I was invited to this day as a photographer, but I was part of it, I was involved and it was a wonderful experience.

It was a long day for me, nearly 18 hours from the moment I left my hotel to the moment my head hit the pillow, but this is what I love doing. This, is what feels like home. Rachel and Karl are people who deserved to have their love celebrated, the world needs more like them.