A Bega Shire Wedding Photographer’s Favourite Day – Anneliese & Joey

Their dog walked back down the aisle with them. Not led, not coaxed, just trotting along beside Anneliese and Joey the second they turned around as a married couple, with confetti already going up and about 100 people losing it at once. That’s the image I keep coming back to from this one.

I’ve shot a fair few weddings out this way now, on these big open properties near Wallagoot where the paddock drops straight into coastal bush, and you don’t get that kind of moment land exactly like that very often. As a Bega Shire wedding photographer you get used to good light and good views. You don’t get used to a dog timing its run perfectly.

Anneliese and Joey got married on a private family property out near Wallagoot, on the New South Wales South Coast, with Bournda National Park basically next door. This was a big day. A really big one – 100 plus guests, kids running everywhere, a teepee the size of a small house – and somehow it still felt like one of the most intimate weddings I shot that year.

Anneliese & Joey

Anneliese got ready in a separate annex on the property, surrounded by her mum, her brother, and a tight group of friends, champagne going from pretty early on. She wore a silver, sparkly dress that caught every bit of light in that room, and the whole annex had that loose, celebratory energy you only get when nobody’s stressed and everyone’s just genuinely excited for you. I photographed her with her mum first, then her brother, then the wider group, and none of it felt staged. It felt like a party that happened to also be the morning of a wedding.

You learn a lot about a couple from the parts of the day nobody tells you to photograph. The champagne in the annex. The dog being treated like an actual member of the bridal party. Homemade beer pulled out of the back of a Land Rover Defender halfway through a coastal walk later that day, just because someone thought to bring it. Anneliese and Joey clearly didn’t put their normal life on pause for the wedding – they just built the wedding around it. That’s a genuinely good sign, and it’s why a day with this many people in it never once felt like a performance.

Why This Property Near Wallagoot Works So Well For a Bega Shire Wedding Photographer

The thing about this property is it doesn’t ask you to choose one location and stick with it. You’ve got open paddock for the ceremony, a tree line dense enough to disappear into for portraits, a walking track that drops you onto the coast within twenty minutes, and a private inlet at the end of the land that most guests never even know exists. For a wedding this size, that range matters. You can run a ceremony for 100 people in open ground and still find a completely private, quiet corner forty minutes later for the couple.

The honest trade-off is light. Midday sun on open paddock in summer is unforgiving, flat and harsh straight overhead, which is exactly why we pushed the bulk of the couple’s portraits to late afternoon and sunset rather than fighting it at 1pm. The teepee turned out to be doing double duty nobody quite planned for too – it was built as the ceremony backdrop, but when the weather turned later in the day it became the speech venue, and it held both jobs beautifully. If you’re looking at a property like this for your own day, that’s worth knowing: build in a real wet-weather plan, because on the South Coast you’ll probably need it at some point, and a teepee that can hold 100 seated guests is rarer than you’d think.

Bournda National Park runs right along this stretch of coast between Tathra and Merimbula, and it’s part of why this property works as well as it does. You get genuine bushland and a proper coastal walking track without anyone needing to drive anywhere.

The Ceremony at the Teepee

Joey waited at the end of the aisle, in front of an arbor someone had built out of weathered, bark-covered timber, with sunflowers and little personal touches filling the teepee behind him. There’s a particular kind of stillness that happens right before a bride appears, and Joey had it completely – that thing where someone’s trying to look composed and is failing slightly, in the best way.

Anneliese walked down with her mum on one side and her brother on the other, and the second Joey saw her, the whole front row of guests reacted before she’d even reached him. That carried straight through into the vows. Everyone had pulled in close around them by that point, which on a property this size you don’t always get – usually a big wedding means rows and distance, but here the teepee kept everyone tight and near enough to actually feel it.

Then they turned around as a married couple, dog at their side, confetti in the air, and we got one big group shot of all 100-plus guests together before anyone scattered. Those big group shots are always a logistical pain to pull off cleanly, and they’re also the photo people end up treasuring most twenty years from now, so it’s always worth the few minutes of herding everyone into place.

Adventure to the Coast

After the ceremony we headed down to the Bournda Coastal Walk Track, and this is where the day stopped feeling like a formal wedding at all. Someone had stashed homemade beer in the back of the Land Rover Defender, and it came out properly once we hit the track, passed around the group as we walked. That’s not a detail you can manufacture. That’s just who these two are.

We found a quiet inlet right at the end of the property, away from the main party entirely, with a set of old wooden stairs leading down to the South Coast rocks. The bridal party photos down there had this genuinely easy energy to them – people laughing at each other, not performing for the camera – and I managed to pull a few moodier, more intimate portraits of Anneliese and Joey on the rocks while everyone else wandered further along. Two completely different feels from the same fifteen minutes, which is the kind of thing that happens when people actually forget you’re there.

The Party

Back at the property the reception was already in full swing – an ice cream truck, fresh homemade pizza, oysters, a live band, and a fire going as the afternoon turned to evening. It had the feel of a genuinely good backyard party that just happened to have 100 people at it, which is a hard thing to pull off at scale and they nailed it.

Then the weather turned, and everyone piled into the teepee for speeches. Honestly, that shift ended up producing some of the most emotional moments of the entire day. There’s something about a crowd packed in tight under canvas, rain somewhere outside, that strips away any of the polish a big reception can sometimes have. People cried harder in there than they had all day.

Sunset With the Animals

As the light started to go gold I took Anneliese and Joey back out around the property for more portraits, and their pet chickens turned up uninvited, wandering through frame the entire time. The dog was right there again too. There’s a particular kind of photo you only get when animals are involved and nobody’s trying to direct them – genuinely light-hearted, a bit chaotic, completely real.

We finished that stretch with a walk past a huge, striking tree near the edge of the property, the kind of tree that’s clearly been there longer than anyone currently living on the land, and it gave us a proper sunset silhouette to close the light out on.

First Dance and the Night

The first dance happened back inside the teepee, which by this point had hosted a ceremony, a wet-weather speech session, and now a dance floor – genuinely good value out of one structure. More pizza and gelato came out as the lights dimmed, and groups of friends and family settled into cosy little clusters outside around the fire before the dancing properly kicked into gear for the rest of the night.

It was a relaxed, deeply intimate day with a real sense of community running right through it, and the strange part is that none of that intimacy came from keeping the guest list small. It came from a couple who clearly know how to host, on a property big enough to hold everyone without anyone feeling like a spectator.

My Favourite Moments from This Bega Shire Wedding

• The dog timing its exit run perfectly, right as the confetti went up
• Homemade beer coming out of the Defender halfway down the coastal track
• The whole front row reacting to Anneliese before Joey even fully turned around
• Pet chickens wandering through golden hour portraits like they owned the place
• The weather forcing everyone into the teepee for speeches, and that being the best part of the night
• Bridesmaids laughing at each other on the rocks instead of looking at me
• That tree near the edge of the property at sunset

Vendor Credits

Celebrant: Jordan Thurling Hair: Kalisha j Hair Bermagui Florist: Wyndham Flower Farm, Buckshot Flower Farm, Bournda Grow Makeup: Georgia Alexander Artistry Dress (resale): Still White Veil / Styling: Design by B Suit: P Johnson, Peggy and Finn Bridesmaids’ Dresses: Billy J, Shona Joy, Bec and Bridge Shoes: Bared Footwear, RM Williams Accessories: Alana Maria Jewellery Rings: Teeps the Jeweller Adelaide Decoration Hire: Coast Hire, South Coast Tipis Band: Soul Tonic Transport: Sapphire Coast Buslines Videography: Bonnie Lass Films

Planning a Summer Wedding in Bega Shire

If you’re looking at a private property wedding on the South Coast, the biggest thing to plan around is the weather flip. Summer on this stretch can go from clear blue sky to genuine rain inside an hour, and the days that handle it best are the ones with a real indoor option big enough for the whole guest list, not just a marquee over the dance floor. A teepee or tipi hire that can comfortably seat 100-plus is worth the spend if your numbers are anywhere close to that.

Getting the Most Out of the Land

Properties out near Wallagoot and Bournda National Park tend to have more usable ground than couples expect – paddock, bush, and coastline often sitting on the one block. Walk the whole property with your photographer before the day if you can, not just the ceremony spot, because the best photos from a day like this one came from the parts of the land nobody had specifically planned for. If you’ve got pets that are part of your life together, bring them into the day properly rather than treating them as a five-minute photo op – it tends to produce the most genuine images of the lot.

If a big wedding like this one isn’t quite what you’re picturing and something smaller and quieter is more your speed, [our guide to South Coast NSW elopements] covers what that looks like instead. (Internal link to-do: I haven’t linked a specific South Coast elopement directory page here, since the keyword brief flags “nsw south coast elopement photographer” as a term to protect on its own page rather than this one. Point this anchor at whichever page currently owns that term once it’s live – linking it to the wrong page risks cannibalising it.)

If you’re planning a wedding anywhere on the Far South Coast and want a Bega Shire wedding photographer who’s comfortable running a day with this many people in it, get in touch and let’s talk through your timeline.