Sri Durga Devi Temple Wedding Photos
A Dravidian gopuram over Rose Crescent and an 800-seat wedding hall beneath the shrine
Sri Durga Devi Temple, run by the Sri Durgadevi Devasthanam, is a Hindu temple on Rose Crescent in Regents Park, in Sydney’s west. The society formed in 2002, bought the land in 2005 and held the foundation ceremony in August 2006; the completed complex opened with its Maha Kumbabhishekam on 7 May 2017. It is built in the South Indian Dravidian style with a rajagopuram over the entrance, and it is the only temple outside India to house Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati together.
The building is on three levels, with the wedding hall and an educational hall below and the main shrine above, so a Hindu wedding can run from ceremony to reception without leaving the complex. Veri photographed Yarlini and Simon’s wedding here, the ceremony in the temple and the reception in the hall, across 181 frames.
Photographing a wedding at Sri Durga Devi Temple
Temple ceremonies are long, ritual-driven and lit from above, so the work is in anticipating the moments at the mandap: the thali, the saptapadi, the exchange of garlands, the blessing with rice. I shoot without flash inside the shrine and keep to the edges. The gopuram and the forecourt give the strongest exterior frame, best in the hour after sunrise before cars fill Rose Crescent. The hall below is broad and even for the reception. The gallery above is Yarlini and Simon’s Hindu wedding at the temple.