Wills Domain Wedding Venue in Margaret River

Wills Domain is a wedding venue with spectacular views over the Margaret River wine region.

Overlooking sixty hectares of beautiful landscape scenery in the Gunyulgup Valley, Yallingup, this venue has to be seen when choosing your wedding venue in the South West of Western Australia.

Fifteen minute drive to accomodation in Dunsborough.

Wills Domain is just a short fifteen minute drive to Dunsborough offering a range of accomodation options available to you and your wedding guests. You can charter a bus to drop off and collect your guests so they can get to and from your wedding safely.

Unforgettable wedding experience.

Wills Domain have designed their restaurant and cellar door, offering flexibility and variety to make your own. Catering for large or small weddings, each function space enjoys beautiful views overlooking the estate.

You have a range of award winning wines to select from and a highly acclaimed culinary experience for you and your wedding guests to enjoy.

Choose from two wedding ceremony locations.

There are two wedding ceremony sites at Wills Domain. One is at the front of the main cellar door which boast spectacular views of Gunyulgup Valley. I have photographed wedding ceremonies mainly at this location. It’s super easy to access from the car park and through the cellar door to your awaiting guests.

There is plenty of space to accomodate larger numbers and you have the flexibility to style your ceremony with easy access for suppliers to deliver chairs, arbors and flowers.

The other location is slightly to the west and in a nice protected garden area. I have photographed a couple of weddings here and it’s a more protected area for a cooler winter wedding. You still have those amazing views to enjoy and any photographer will love working with the scenery available.

Best wedding photography locations at Wills Domain.

To be fair Wills Domain is incredibly pretty, on a cloudy day just about anyone can take a beautiful photo there. If the sun is out however, it can be a more challenging for your photographer to direct you to the flattering natural light which makes people look amazing.

To explain further, if someone is positioned in half sun and half shade it leaves extreme contrasts of light and dark patches on your face and clothing. There is a wide range of quality in wedding photographers at the moment. Some see and understand light to make their subjects look their very best and some have no idea.

While maintaining a natural wedding photography experience, I can lightly direct you to the best locations at Wills Domain for photography. Giving you amazing skin tones, maintaining intricate details in your dress and showing off the beautiful colours at your wedding.

I predominantly shoot in a natural style, capturing moments as they happen is my passion but I also direct people to maintain a high quality in my work.

My favourite location for Family Group Photos.

Incredible views overlooking Gunyulgup Valley are an amazing backdrop for wedding photos. Situated next to the cellar door and restaurant the lawned area is a convenient site to photograph family groups.

There is plenty of space for people who are not involved in photos to carry on the flow of your wedding day without interruption.

This is also a fantastic area to photograph your bridal party and bride and groom.

Will Domain Wedding Photos in vineyards.

The vineyards at Wills Domain run down northern slopes towards the Indian Ocean. The perspective and vanishing points of the rows is really pretty for a wider landscape shot of the bride groom walking together.

Between the rows is a nice setting to get photos of the girls together and the boys in their group. The grapevines are a beautiful natural green border, framing you beautifully.

As mentioned earlier, this is where you want your photographer to quickly determine which section of vineyard has the most flattering light. I like my bridal shoots to be fun, relaxed and naturally flowing. It’s like we hang out and have a walk but as well as that I am choosing the next best spot for photos, this keeps it fun and gets you back to your guests sooner rather than later.

Other awesome wedding photo locations at Wills Domain.

There is a cute workers cottage down the hill next to a lake. It has a wooden shack style house with a jetty out onto the dam. I can take the bride and groom there in my car to get a couple of cute shots of you hanging out together. This adds variety to your wedding photos.

To the west of the restaurant there are some large trees that offer some more creative options for wedding photos. Using the light direction and exposing to create a different look, I can again add some variation.

There are forrest scenes at the front of the property too if you love that South West forest look.

Enjoying your bridal party photos.

The locations I have mentioned are all on the Wills Domain property and they are all super close to one another. Even if you walked to the workers cottage, it would take only five minutes tops. If you plan to do so, you could have some flat shoes to change into for walking and change back for photos. Or simply jump in my car and I’ll drive you down.

Experience is so important, it’s got to be fun and enjoyable and my clients tend to want some lovely bridal party photos but they also love my style of capturing their day naturally for them. So, my clients tend to want to get back to their wedding and their guests as soon as we have “enough” photos. I know what is "enough” because I always have a conversation with my clients about their expectations, this way nothing is ever missed and we don’t overshoot.

How long bridal photos will take at Wills Domain.

Wills Domain provides you with a variety of scenes all close to one another on the property. On average I photograph the bridal party and then the bride and groom together for forty five minutes to sixty minutes at Wills Domain.

This amount of time will provide you with a mixture of directed photographs, natural in the moment photographs and some natural sequences. Photos of the bridal party, the girls together, the boys together, the bride & groom, bride individually and groom individually. Each of those variations are photographed naturally and directed to maximise your variety to choose from.

I love photography, so when I have a bride and groom that would love longer than that, I am all ears. But I have learnt from experience that when we go to the ninety minute mark on the same property we start to replicate photos with different backdrops. The exception would be if we planned to travel to a nearby beach for photos, we might be ninety minutes plus but that includes time in the car.

Less time is also an option. I have clients that only want a maximum of thirty minutes for bridal photos and this is also cool because I know I will be photographing the wedding day naturally as it occurs. Again, for a thirty minute session to be successful, I need to have had a chat with the couple and have a clear idea of photos to shoot in that time.

Beach wedding photo locations near Wills Domain.

If you love the ocean and you have always dreamed of amazing wedding photos on the beach there are two fantastic locations close to Wills Domain. Indjidup Beach and Canal Rocks are two awesome spots for wedding photos, that are just ten to fifteen minute drive away.

Directions to Indjidup Beach from Wills Domain.

Indjidup beach is a really pretty spot for photos, it only takes ten minutes by car from Wills Domain, here are directions by car.

As you approach Indjidup beach you can stop at a fantastic secret spot for photos which overlooks the entire bay with spectacular views out to the Indian Ocean.

Further along the road to the left you come across a beautiful section of forest which gives you some awesome variety. The beach itself is stunning with those characteristic rugged rocky sections familiar to the South West. If you don’t want to get sand between your toes there are some great observation decks and steps to the beach.

Directions to Canal Rocks from Wills Domain.

I love photographing weddings at Canal Rocks, a uniquely mountaneous landscape greets you as you approach by car into the car park. Here are driving directions from Wills Domain.

A variety of awesome sites for photos are just five minutes walk from one another. This includes as small sandy beach with a jetty, the decked viewing area with beautiful ocean views and the rocky terrain that meets the ocean.

Sealed walkways make getting about super easy for you and your bridal party. The car park is right next to the location and there are toilet facilities.

Wedding receptions at Wills Domain.

Wills Domain can cater for large or small weddings, offering you flexibility to make your wedding as unique as you wish. Bifold doors open onto a large dance floor area which can host live music or dj to get your wedding party flowing.

The lighting is excellent to photograph in and you do not have to use artificial lighting which preserves the atmospher