Meadowbank Estate Wedding, Broadmeadows

Meadowbank Estate is a reception venue on Eldon Street in Campbellfield, in Melbourne’s north, built around a manor house that a Scottish carpenter, Alexander Gibb, put up in about 1850. The house is on the Victorian Heritage Register: coursed basalt walls, a slate roof and hipped dormer windows in a Scottish lowland style rarely seen in Victoria. Around it sit three acres of formal gardens with heritage-listed trees, a tiled pool and three ballrooms, the newest looking straight over the water.

We have photographed and filmed weddings at Meadowbank Estate over several years. A day here tends to stay in one place: ceremony on the lawns or in a ballroom, portraits through the gardens while guests have drinks, then the reception inside. The old stone of the manor and the clipped hedges give two very different looks within a few steps of each other, which is handy when the timeline is tight.