Dandenong Ranges, Victoria

The Dandenongs rise an hour east of Melbourne into mountain ash forest, tree-fern gullies and villages strung along the ridge — Olinda, Sassafras, Kalorama, Mount Dandenong. Couples come for ceremonies under the canopy, rainforest light that stays soft all day, and the mist that rolls through the ferns on a winter morning.

The wedding scene is garden estates and forest chapels rather than ballrooms: lawns cut into the hillside, glasshouses, timber halls and lookouts with the whole of Melbourne laid out below. Rhododendron gardens carry spring, autumn turns the imported oaks and maples gold, and Puffing Billy still runs through the trees below the ridge.