A Namadgi National Park Elopement – Ellie & Lachlan

Two cats sat on the kitchen bench in matching collars and tiny wedding outfits while Lachlan’s mum fixed his collar in the next room. Nobody had told the cats what was happening. They seemed fine with it anyway.

That’s where this Namadgi National Park elopement actually started, not in the forest, but in a house in South Canberra with both families crowded into one kitchen and a black dress hanging on the back of a door instead of a white one. Ellie and Lachlan had got engaged in Namadgi a year earlier. This time they were going back to make it legal.

Ellie & Lachlan

They went to school together, lost touch the way you do, then got pulled back into each other’s lives through a mutual friend after graduation. Lachlan liked how much fun they had together and how much they wanted the same things out of life. Ellie fell for how gentle he was, the kind of steady that doesn’t need to perform itself.

Weekends for them mean hiking or camping more often than not, which is part of why a forest ceremony made more sense to them than a hall. Ellie’s family flew in from the UK for the day. Lachlan’s family didn’t have to go anywhere. Both groups ended up in the same kitchen that morning, which mattered more to Ellie than she let on until she sat down to write her mum a letter about it.

Why a Namadgi National Park Elopement at Bendora Works

Bendora Arboretum sits deep enough into Namadgi that you stop getting phone signal a while before you arrive, which is roughly the point. It was planted out in 1940 as a forestry experiment, fifty-something species of conifer laid out in blocks, and it’s survived a lot since then including the 2003 fires. None of the couples I bring here care about the forestry history. They care that it’s quiet, it’s free to get into, and there’s a small hut tucked into the trees that nobody else seems to know about.

Drones aren’t allowed in Namadgi and dogs aren’t either, so if either of those was part of the plan, build that into your thinking early. What you do get is genuine forest, not a park with a car park five metres from the ceremony spot, and a short hike further up into the Brindabella Ranges that puts you somewhere properly elevated for sunset. Ellie and Lachlan had their engagement session here a year before this day, so coming back wasn’t really a location choice for them. It was already theirs.

Getting Ready at Home in South Canberra

Lachlan wore a mauve jacket and suit, which is not a colour you see often and suited him completely. Ellie went with a black dress instead of anything traditional, a choice that said more about who she is than any amount of white lace would have. I shot the details first, the rings and the cats in their tiny outfits, then spent time with Lachlan while his mum and dad fussed over his collar, and did the same with Ellie while she got into the dress.

Letters and the First Look on the Driveway

Before they saw each other, Ellie and Lachlan each went to a separate room to read letters they’d written for one another. Ellie also read one she’d written to her mum, with her mum standing right there, which is a different kind of brave to reading a letter to your partner. Then they went out to the driveway, Lachlan facing away looking at nothing in particular, until Ellie walked up and tapped him on the shoulder.

He turned around and they both just cried for a second. Behind them, the whole family threw fake confetti as they got into the car, which is somehow funnier and sweeter than real confetti would have been.

The Ceremony in the Forest at Bendora Arboretum

We spotted black wallabies on the walk in, which Ellie took as a good sign without needing convincing. Sally, the celebrant, met us in a clearing deep enough into the arboretum that the only light came filtered through pine branches, pine cones scattered everywhere underfoot. A friend of Sally’s stood in as the witness.

Ellie and Lachlan had written their own vows and read them there, just the four of us and whatever was watching from the trees, before signing the paperwork that made it official. No procession, no audience to perform for, just the two of them finishing a sentence they’d started a year earlier on their engagement day in this same park.

Portraits in the Hut and Among the Trees

There’s a small hut at the edge of the arboretum, built back in the forestry days and still standing, and the light inside it does something moody and specific that you can’t fake anywhere else. We moved through the trees for couples and solo portraits before ending up in there for a set that came out looking like it belonged in a different decade entirely.

The Hike to the Sunset Lookout

What started as a walk turned into a proper twenty minute hike up to a secluded lookout, timed deliberately so we’d hit it as the light started turning. At the top, Ellie and Lachlan had a small picnic and read letters written to them by family who couldn’t be there. It’s something I build into a lot of elopement days now, because the people who matter to a couple don’t stop mattering just because they’re not standing in the forest with you.

As the sun dropped over the Brindabella Ranges the sky went properly fiery, and the silhouettes we got off the back of that light are some of the strongest of the whole day. They walked back down the mountain together as it went properly dark, suit and dress still on, nowhere else to be.

My Favourite Moments from This Namadgi National Park Elopement

• Two cats in matching collars and tiny wedding outfits, completely unbothered by any of it
• Ellie reading a letter to her own mum with her mum standing right there
• The tap on the shoulder on the driveway and the few seconds of crying before either of them said anything
• Fake confetti thrown as the car pulled away
• Black wallabies on the walk into the ceremony clearing
• Vows read among pine cones and filtered light with a witness who was a friend of the celebrant’s
• Letters from family read out loud at the top of the lookout
• The sky going fiery over the Brindabella Ranges right on cue

Vendor Credits

Celebrant: Marry Us Sally

Planning a Namadgi National Park Elopement of Your Own

Getting in and what to expect

Namadgi is free to enter and Bendora Arboretum is roughly an hour’s drive out of central Canberra along Mount Franklin Road, with free parking at the trailhead. Drones aren’t permitted anywhere in the park and dogs aren’t allowed either, so plan around both if either was part of your vision. Phone signal drops out well before you reach the arboretum, which is worth telling family in advance if you’re sending anyone updates on the day.

Building in the hike

If a sunset lookout is part of your plan, the short walk up is about twenty minutes and it’s genuinely worth timing your ceremony earlier in the afternoon so you’re not rushing the light at the end. A small picnic at the top gives you a natural pause before the portraits start, and if anyone in your life can’t make the day in person, having their letters read out up there is a real way to include them without changing the size of the day itself.

Ellie and Lachlan had their original engagement session in this same park a year before they came back to get married here, which is its own kind of nice if a location already means something to you before your wedding day even starts.