Top 5 Southern Highlands Wedding Venues | NSW
My friends! If you’re here reading, you’re either an owner of a venue, or you’re getting freaking married! Congratulations!
So, first off, I want you to know that these sources for the top 5 weddings in the Southern Highlands, NSW are my opinion and purely that. It’s best to grab and air B&B, stay down the Highlands for a few days and check out a ton of these venues yourself. Everyone has different taste, and these are mine!
So, before we dive in, who the hell am I to give wedding photography venue advice? Well, I’ve photographed 100’s of freaking awesome newlyweds all around NSW and these are just my personal favourite wedding venues in the Southern Highlands. I like to think I know what makes a wedding fun and unique. Nobody wants to attend a basic, typical and boring wedding, so here are 5 venues that ARE NOT THAT!
I like to think my favourite wedding venues are unique for a reason… And that reason is, i’m insanely picky, haha! I hate boring locations. I’m not a fan of the typical. I like uniqueness, and with that, Let’s do this, mates!
5. Bendooley Estate, you bloody Southern Highlands legends!
It took me 4 bloody years to book a wedding at Bendooley. Being eager to shoot at the location was an understatement! The old, rustic vibes of the buildings. The unique book shelves inside the super large reception area that could easily squeeze in 150 guests if needed for your wedding reception with enough room for a live band!
What I really personally loved about the venue however was the combination of nature and history. With a 2 minute walk you can be in a large, open paddock with their local resident farm dog and a gang of kangaroos hanging out, and next you can be inside what looks like a scene from The Great Gatsby, and did I mention the Vine Wall surrounding the homestay? It’s AMAZING!
Bendooley’s amazing library reception. Probably my favourite reception venue in NSW!
Southern Highlands in all it’s glory!
4. Jaspers, Berry
Jaspers is like the little sister of Jay Gatsby’s Mansion! Chandelliers, golden tea sets, hell, they even play Frank Sinatra on their website and I love that!
To me, what makes a great wedding venue is a location that has nearby potential to work with as honestly, it’s nice to duck out of venues from time to time for an hour or so and mix up your photography game! Japsers has this too! Why not head to the little local pub for a beer and some shots in the little, chilled out town!
3. The Robertson Hotel
Honestly, I feel bad putting this place 4th as they were AMAZING to me. As a wedding photographer, you sort of get exiled into a corner at wedding venues… Not at The Robertson hotel, Southern Highlands. They treated me like a king!
What I personally love about The Robertson is it’s dark, moody, castle vibe. It’s just this big moody building full of almost eeriness and beauty at the same time. There’s a bunch of amazing spots to shoot around the venue from old train tracks, a ton of overgrown gardens that are perfect if you like that dark and moody photography style and inside the hotel has large fireplaces, huge staircases, beautifiul cielings. This place has it all!
So, I’ve never shot here! Honestly i’ve never even had an inquiry for Willow Farm for some reason, but all I can say it WOW. I’ve been here before and it is AMAZING! 150 Acres of freaking paradise!
The Tree - Willow Farm, berry has this gigantic old, dead tree in the middle of a paddock where, if you’re getting married, you NEED TO USE THIS! So many people get married elsewhere on the property, but don’t! Trust me, everyone has seen couples get married next to a fountain or on some grass near a house. USE THE DAMN DEAD TREE! Haha!
The overgrown vine cottage… This little place is addorable and makes for amazing sunset photos. The Southern Highlands just has that golden glow of greens and reds that no other place in Australia has. Getting married at Willow Farm? Use the cottage!
The Countryside glass house - This is also bloody amazing! With golden floorboards, open skies and the opperunity to deck the place out and turn it into the most amazing reception is the way to do it in my opinion! Careful but, glasshouses get bloody hot in summer!
Geese - There’s Geese… Geese scare me…If you hire me, let’s not shoot the geese… Haha!
Willow Farm, you’re that bloody unique and awesome, a huge thumbs up your ways!
1. Centennial Vineyards - You legends are the winners!
I don’t know what it is about Centennial Vineyards that gets me going, but far out, it’s epic.
Let’s dig deeper as to why i chose it.
First of all, the freaking huge vinyards - These aren’t your typical Southern Highlands Vinyards, oh no, these vinyards roll up a little hill and when you get to the top, it’s just this epic, epic view of greenery and color with the sun backlighting the whole location! This is the light us photographers dream of!
The light - The light here is INSANE, inside and out. With the area where the reception is situation, you get this really beautiful natural light falling through the windows that lights up the countryside/rustic reception venue.
There’s also a little secret that most photographers don’t know about this place. if you jump a fence, you end up in an amazing forest that looks like it’s from lord of the rings or something! I perosnally love little things like this. It just makes the day super fun! You gotta break some rules on your wedding day!
Here’s Centennial Vinyard and it’s regular natural light in all it’s glory!
So yeah! That’s it for my top 5 venues in the Southern Highlands, legends! Jump over to my blog and have a peep at more of my images as there’s plenty of images there from these location to check out!
Cheers for reading!
Joel
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