The day started in a sun-filled house in Bellevue Hill, all palms, pale stone and a terrace looking out over the water. Michele’s strapless satin gown from Dion for Brides had a clean, sculpted drape and a high split, and her lace-edged veil was so long it practically needed its own postcode. White walls and big windows turned the living room into one giant reflector, so we shot the quiet moments in black and white and saved the colour for the terrace, where the veil could catch the breeze and the blue sky.
Then five bridesmaids in sage satin swept in with armfuls of white flowers and the volume went straight up. Our getting-ready tip: pick the room with the most window light, clear the clutter and give us ten unhurried minutes with the veil. Those frames end up on the wall.
Down at South Maroubra Beach, Nico and his groomsmen skipped the aisle altogether and waited on the sand. Michele came down the beach track on her dad’s arm while a violin played, and there was no arbour in the way, just low, loose florals from The Ivy League set straight onto the sand. Floor florals are a gift at a beach ceremony: they frame the couple without hiding the horizon, and every guest can see every expression. The clouds rolled in by four, which meant soft, even light and not a single squint, while the flower girls held their own little party in the sand the whole way through.
With two large, mixed families on the beach, Michele had written her own run sheet for the family photos, and it paid off. We worked through every group in about half an hour, exactly as she wanted, then let everyone loose for drinks on the lawn. That left time for what the two of them really cared about: candid moments with their people. We stole Michele and Nico for a few minutes on the headland lawn beside Horizons, the wind grabbed that veil, somebody handed them two cold beers and they skolled them in perfect sync. We may have cheered.
Inside, pisco sours were waiting at the door. After the speeches and the cake cutting on the balcony, Michele and Nico took the floor to Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together. Halfway through, Nico handed Michele to her dad and danced with his mum, and then the whole room piled in under the fairy-light canopy. On the dance floor we bounce the flash and drag the shutter, so the fairy lights glow and the movement stays alive. Late in the night we pinched them out onto the balcony, drinks in hand, for one last toast above the dark water. What a party.
We filmed the day too, so if these Horizons South Maroubra wedding photos made you smile, watch Michele and Nicolas’s Horizons wedding film.
