Sails on the Bay Wedding Photos
Glass walls a metre from Elwood Beach, the sun going down over Port Phillip, and the bridge lights after dark
Sails on the Bay was a restaurant and event venue on the Elwood foreshore, two minutes from St Kilda; it traded here until the late 2010s, and the building now operates as Elwood Bathers. It opened in the mid-1990s in a building about a metre from the sand, with glass walls giving a 180-degree view over Port Phillip Bay; the sun sets in front of the windows and the West Gate Bridge lights show across the water at night. Weddings used the Event Room, the restaurant and the terrace, with receptions from 50 to 250 and ceremonies indoors or on the beach.
Veri photographed a wedding here with the ceremony, the portraits and the reception all at Sails on the Bay, and the gallery below follows that day from start to finish. It was the simplest kind of bayside wedding: vows on the sand, a walk along the beach for the couple, and dinner behind glass with the sunset doing the decorating.
Photographing a wedding at Sails on the Bay
The beach faces west, so a late-afternoon ceremony puts the sun behind the couple and the bay glowing; we time the exit for the half hour before it sets. Elwood Beach and the foreshore path run either side of the venue, so portraits stay within a hundred metres. Inside, the room was lit by sky until dusk, then reflections took over and we shot speeches from the land side. Wind off the bay was the only complication. The gallery above is the Sails on the Bay wedding Veri photographed here.