March 29, 2012

Eleanor and Richard’s DIY and Vintage wedding in Colbinnabbin, Country Victoria

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.

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