Warrnambool, Victoria

Warrnambool is where the Great Ocean Road ends and the Shipwreck Coast begins — a city of bluestone and beach, with southern right whales calving off Logans Beach between June and September. Couples marry on the Hopkins River, in restored bluestone halls and at cellar doors across the volcanic plains behind town.

Port Fairy and its Georgian streets are twenty minutes west, Tower Hill’s extinct volcano just beyond, and the Twelve Apostles an hour east. For a bride in south-west Victoria this is the regional centre, and it is three hours from Melbourne.