Ravensthorpe Wedding | Ravensthorpe Albion Park | Anna & Lee
I’m pretty lucky to live near this wonderful venue – one of the best in the Illawarra. And I’m also very happy to share this Ravensthorpe wedding with you. Scroll down to check it out.
Why have a Ravensthorpe wedding
Weddings are important, no doubt. Whether you’re a Christian, Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or whether you’re a staunch atheist, a wedding is a chance for you and your wife/husband to be to yell to the world ‘WE LOVE EACH OTHER!!’ I guess that weddings are very important – and they’re just as important as not having a wedding, but still loving each other in the same way, if that’s how you’d prefer to celebrate your love, as many people do. Because I’d like to think that in the society in which we live, in the 21st century, the choice to get married and symbolise love in this manner doesn’t somehow prove that that a couple’s love is any stronger, better or longer-lasting.
You get married ‘cos you want to YELL to the world about your love 🙂 And to have a big party.
I loved this Ravensthorpe wedding
Ravensthorpe is magical 19th century chateau just south of Wollongong. Is is the kind of place where, as you drive through wide gates and tree-lined avenues, and you could be forgiven for thinking that you’re arriving in Southern France. Here, two families unite; friends from around the globe come to see their best friends married. This Ravensthorpe wedding was pretty damn special.
I love the grounds of Ravensthorpe. Its gardens are expansive, and as such there are so many lovely photo locations. I’m particularly fond of the wall of ivy; it changes depending on the season. Green in summer, bare in winter, red in autumn, and beautiful all year round.
Anna grew up in the UK; lots of her closest family still live there, and many of her closest friends still call it home. Anna only sees some of these people once a year or less. At a certain point of the night she told me this:
‘You know Tom, this might be the last time in my life that I’ll have ALL of my family, and ALL of my best friends, in the one place together at the same time.’
I realised right then how incredibly special this day was to Anna, to Lee, and to all her people from all over the globe who’d come to celebrate. And, how special each wedding truly is to each and every couple I work with.
What weddings are really about
I think that in my job it is too easy to get swept up in cameras, lenses, lighting, timing, exposure, aperture and shutter speed. Batteries. No doubt, I want to do my job properly, and so all of these things are important. Above all, I think that the best tool I can use on any wedding day is to always keep in my mind exactly what I ‘re-learnt’ at Anna and Lee’s wedding: to these two people, and their families and friends, this was the most important wedding in history, and the fact that I was able to be there and document the whole thing… well, that’s quite simply amazing.
I’d love to hear from you if you’re planning a Ravensthorpe wedding – you can contact me here. There are a few other South Coast weddings on my blog; there’s a Jaspers Berry wedding here.
I’ve photographed a bunch of other Wollongong weddings. You can see a Mercure Gerringong wedding here; or a Sandon Point wedding here. I hope you enjoy them!
