Love Is In The Where, For Sydney's Happy Snappy Couples
Sydney Morning Herald
Sunday September 18, 1994
The pilot and his wife of less than an hour wanted somewhere memorable for the wedding photos, so they adjourned to the runway at Sydney Airport. Highly illegal, but what a memory |
It isn't enough these days to have the wedding photos on the steps of the church or among the freesias in mum and dad's backyard. As often as not, the background will be a Sydney landmark and the arrangements will be as complex as those for the wedding itself.
The thinking is, if you are going to spend thousands of dollars on the right dress, the right reception and the right honeymoon, why not get the right backdrop, even if it means driving halfway across Sydney for it?
Hence the popularity of spots such as Mrs Macquaries Chair, the Botanic Gardens and the foreshores of Sydney Harbour, areas seemingly built for the wedding industry.
Mrs Macquaries Chair at midnight is where photographer Vatche Evanian of John Hearder Photography found himself on Saturday, the backdrop a cityscape worthy of a Frank Sinatra tune, the bride and groom alone in their early connubial bliss. Well, almost alone.
There were three other couples waiting their turn at "the chair" while Mr Evanian snapped away, the goosebumps rising on the women's bare arms in the slight chill from the harbour breeze.
Still, compared with Saturday afternoons, when dozens of wedding cars jostle with tourist buses, it was near deserted.
Waiting in line for a postcard-Sydney backdrop may be less than ideal but Mr Evanian said it was still sought after.
"With ethnic community weddings where they're going to send the videos and the photos overseas, they want that Sydney landmark behind them," he said.
"But even with more traditional Australian weddings they still want something special for the photo."
Like the mania for bizarre wedding locations in the 1970s - which had couples tieing the knot underwater, while parachuting to earth and on top of snow-capped mountains - wedding photos have their moments of madness.
Apart from the runway, there have been couples who were pictured in front of Kings Cross cafes, those who wanted the sun rising over Palm Beach and a couple who insisted on midnight in a theatre foyer in western Sydney.
Mr Evanian calls these trendsetters with the money to indulge themselves"fanatics". But he said he and other photographers would go wherever the couples wanted.
"Everything is available," he said.
GROOMS WITH A VIEW: SYDNEY'S TOP WEDDING PHOTOGRAPH LOCATIONS
Royal Botanic Gardens
Mrs Macquarie's Chair
Opera House steps
Parramatta Lakes
Blues Point
Banjo Patterson Park, Gladesville
Balmoral Beach
Shelley Beach
Palm Beach at sunrise
Chinese Gardens at Darling Harbour
© 1994 Sydney Morning Herald
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