Sandringham Beach Wedding Photos
Open sand, a foreshore path, yacht masts behind a breakwater, and the bay going gold before it goes blue.
Sandringham Beach is the bay beach of Sandringham, a Bayside suburb 16 km south of the Melbourne CBD between Hampton and Black Rock. The foreshore carries a coastal walking track and bike path and draws walkers and photographers as much as swimmers. Sandringham Yacht Club sits on the beach, and its marina holds the wreck of the submarine J7, sunk as a breakwater in 1927. Clarice Beckett painted this sand in the early twentieth century; the painting hangs in the National Gallery of Australia.
Arielle and Darran had wedding portraits at both Sandringham Beach and Half Moon Bay, with their ceremony and reception at Beaumaris Motor Yacht Squadron, and that gallery is below. Sandringham is the plainer of the two beaches, more open sand and sky than cliff, which suits a wide, quiet frame of the couple with the bay behind them.
Photographing a wedding at Sandringham Beach
The beach runs long and open, so I look for the yacht club masts and the breakwater to give the frame something firm, and I use the foreshore path for a walking shot with the bay to one side. Sunset comes over the water on this side of Port Phillip and the sand goes gold for about twenty minutes, then blue. The car is the wet-weather fallback here. The gallery above is Arielle and Darran’s wedding portraits here and at Half Moon Bay.